Tony Vitello<\/a> said he may be inclined to alter the lineup.<\/p>\n\u201cIt depends on if he\u2019s a flyball guy,\u201d Vitello said.<\/p>\n
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Springs has surrendered seven home runs through nine starts, tied for ninth among American League starters before Friday\u2019s games. His\u00a0flyball rate was the ninth highest in the majors among qualified starters.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service also forecasted gusts of 37 mph at 2 p.m. Saturday. In those conditions, flyballs to left were projected to be pushed toward home plate by as much as 115 feet, Arneson said. That means a would-be home run in calm conditions has a better chance of ending up as a bloop single amid the winds if the outfielder misreads it.\u00a0Flyballs to center could lose more than 50 feet of distance, while wind could add 20-plus feet of distance to balls hit toward the right-field foul pole.<\/p>\n
Right-hander Adrian Houser was scheduled to start for the Giants. Reigning American League Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz anchors the A\u2019s lineup, batting from the left side. That wind figured to give Kurtz and other left-handed hitters on the A\u2019s roster a boost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you made one change because of it, it would be outfield as opposed to lineup,\u201d Vitello said. \u201cI think there\u2019s an argument for both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vitello hinted that outfielder Harrison Bader was left out of the lineup against the Dodgers on Thursday to keep him fresh for a tougher defensive ballpark in Sacramento. Bader continues to work his way back from a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
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The current record flyball deviation in Weather Applied Metrics\u2019 archive came on Opening Day this year, when the Chicago Cubs\u2019 Ian Happ clobbered a would-be home run, except the wind pushed the ball in 113 feet, where it fell harmlessly into the glove of Washington Nationals left fielder James Wood.<\/p>\n
Weather Applied Metrics operates three-dimensional physical models of every MLB ballpark\u2019s typical wind patterns. Models ingest data from weather sensors installed throughout the ballpark the model to generate a real-time calculation of atmospheric effects on the game.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the first MLB season at Sutter Health Park, 56 wind-aided home runs were measured. The evening delta breeze almost always carries balls toward center during evening games.<\/p>\n
But winds this weekend were expected to be blowing in the opposite direction, out of the north, preventing potential home runs. Friday wasn\u2019t predicted to be too windy, but early-inning gusts Saturday were expected to play a factor. The first two games weren\u2019t expected to be anything like Sunday\u2019s stiff north breeze.<\/p>\n
Pitchers could also be affected by the unusual wind direction. Wind blowing out of left field could add a few ticks of velocity to fastballs, but also\u00a0 reduce the break of curveballs, Arneson said. That\u2019s typical at most MLB stadiums, but not at Sutter Health Park.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSacramento is the only park in the majors where the majority of pitches face headwinds,\u201d Arneson said, but Sunday will feature tailwinds with a slight sideways component.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk of hanging a curveball is pretty high,\u201d Arneson said. \u201cBut maybe that doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s darn near impossible to hit a hanging curve out of the park because of the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\u2019s center fielder Zack Gelof catches a flyball at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento in April. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[10897,121,123,122,127,19],"class_list":["post-318380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-giants","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sports","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}