Cueto Goes for Series Win and Notes

Following another disappointing offensive in back-to-back Madison Bumgarner starts resulting in a loss to the lowly Philadelphia Phillies, the San Francisco Giants will look to wake up the bats under the warm California sun for the possible All-Star Johnny Cueto.

In Cueto's last start, the Giants scored enough runs to support Cueto for a handful of starts, dropping a season-high 15 runs on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

With the way the Dominican-native has been pitching all season long, if the Giants score a fraction of those runs from the Pittsburgh start, it will be more than enough to put the orange and black in a position to both win the game and the series.

The starter's outing against the Phillies won't be a cakewalk, as in nine career starts against the Fightin' Phils, the right-hander is 1-4 with a 5.05 ERA, but the pitcher-friendly confines of AT&T Park will help his cause.

From a broad perspective, Cueto has been nothing short of excellent, especially in the month of June, where in four starts, the starter has a 1.30 ERA with 24 strikeouts in 27.2 innings. He will be going for his 10th consecutive quality start as well.

Madison Bumgarner and Cueto have lost back-to-back starts only once, losing consecutive games to the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 20th and 21st.

Cueto's opposition, Aaron Nola, will be making his first career start against the Giants, and will be looking to right the ship in the process.

In Nola's past three starts, the sophomore has a 15.83 ERA and has not pitched farther than the fourth inning in any of the outings.

The 23-year-old's ERA on the season stands at 4.11, but that has been due in large part to a rough start to the season, as well as the past three starts.

Nola's month and a half stretch from April 22nd to June 5th is an accurate representation of his talent on the mound, as, during this stretch, he had an ERA of 1.67 while striking out 9.76 per nine innings.

Regardless, Nola is coming into this game cold, and the Giants should look to exploit his rough stretch.

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Here's today's lineup for the Giants in the series finale. Joe Panik and Gregor Blanco will sit out for Ramiro Peña and Jarrett Parker, who have both been swinging a hot bat in June.

Denard Span - Center Field Angel Pagan - Left Field Brandon Belt - First Base Buster Posey - Catcher Brandon Crawford - Shortstop Jarrett Parker - Right Field Ramiro Peña - Second Base Conor Gillaspie - Third Base Johnny Cueto - Pitcher

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