DENVER — When Andrew Suarez starts Wednesday for the San Francisco Giants
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Colorado left-hander Tyler Anderson (5-3, 4.23 ERA) will oppose Suarez (3-4, 4.18).
Before his team lost 8-1 on Tuesday to the Rockies, Giants manager Bruce Bochy announced that Johnny Cueto will be reinstated from the 60-day disabled list to start Thursday against St. Louis and Jeff Samardzija will come off the 10-day disabled list and start Saturday against the Cardinals.
Cueto (elbow strain) went 3-0 with an 0.84 ERA in five starts for the Giants this season. His last start for the Giants came April 28, and he pitched 7 2/3 scoreless innings in two rehab starts for Triple-A Sacramento.
“Johnny’s set to go,” Bochy said. “He passed all the tests, checked every box off. Been throwing the ball well. Hasn’t given up a run there. Bullpen (session Monday) went fine. Been hitting, bunting. I talked to Johnny. He said, ‘I’m ready to go. I feel better now than before (the injury).’ When you get one of your big guys ready to go, you pitch him.”
Bochy said Cueto would be limited to 85 pitches Thursday, and Derek Holland, if he doesn’t come out of the bullpen in the Rockies series, would back up Cueto.
Samardzija will pitch for the Giants for the first time since May 29. Bochy said that Dereck Rodriguez, who was scheduled to pitch Thursday, will instead start Friday. Madison Bumgarner
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Suarez might have the advantage because he has pitched well lately. He went 2-0 in six June starts, and in his last outing Friday at Arizona, he allowed one run in six innings. Suarez made his Coors Field debut and first start against the Rockies on May 28 and allowed four runs (three earned) in five innings in a no-decision after heeding advice from catcher Buster Posey.
Suarez said, “I remember the last time we were, before my bullpen, Buster came up to me and he was like ‘As long as you keep throwing it right, it’ll be fine. But if you try too much, that’s the problem you’ll have. Your stuff isn’t as good.’ I just made sure to just throw it normal.”
Meanwhile, Stratton gave up a career-high 11 hits and a career-high eight runs in 5 2/3 innings Tuesday. In his past six starts, Stratton is 1-3 with a 5.79 ERA.
Anderson threw a career-high eight scoreless innings with one walk and eight strikeouts Wednesday at Los Angeles in a 3-1 win over the Dodgers. Anderson is 2-2 with a 2.70 ERA in his past five starts with six walks and 32 strikeouts in 33 1/3 innings. He’s 0-2 with a 5.56 ERA in four career starts against the Giants, including a no-decision May 20 at AT&T Park where he gave up five runs in 5 1/3 innings as the Rockies lost 9-5.
The Rockies have won 14 of their past 16 games from the Giants (45-42) at Coors Field. The Rockies (43-43) have climbed back to .500 by winning five of their past six games. They have been getting outstanding starting pitching, the latest effort being seven scoreless innings Tuesday from Antonio Senzatela in his first start this season for the Rockies.
The Colorado starters have pitched well in six of the past eight games, going 4-0 with a 2.15 ERA in that stretch and allowing 12 earned runs and 31 hits in 50 1/3 innings with 11 walks and 41 strikeouts.
“We’re only going to go as far as they do,” Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado said. “They’re pitching great. They’re giving the offense a chance. Quick innings
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NEW YORK (AP) — Improvements that an NFL and NFLPA study found in helmets didn’t help Tom Brady.The six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback will have to discard his longtime brand as one of 11 helmets banned by the league and players’ union for 2019.Brady was one of 32 players wearing helmets last season under a grace period that is now eliminated.“If they were, at the end of the 2017 season, using prohibited helmeted, they could be grandfathered for 2018,” said Dr. Kristy Arbogast, the union’s appointed consultant to the testing.“At end of 2018, we had those relatively few players, 32, who were wearing a red category model. It is now prohibited. Conversations are being held with those players. We tried to identify for every helmet in the red category a similar helmet, often from the same manufacturer, that had similar look and feel and is not prohibited.”In its annual study, designed by NFL- and NFLPA-appointed biomechanical engineers, a subset of concussion-causing impacts sustained by NFL players during games is simulated to determine which helmets best reduced head impact severity. The study measures rotational velocity and acceleration to evaluate helmets.A poster both sides released Friday will be displayed at every team facility. It shows six of 11 helmets tested this year moved into the top-10 rated models.VICIS Zero1 graded best for the third straight year. Of the 34 overall helmets on the poster, it was followed by the Schutt F7 LTD and the Riddell SpeedFlex Precision Diamond.Also in the “green area” of strongly approved helmets was the brand new Xenith Shadow. In all, those four manufacturers had all 27 models at the top of the poster.The yellow section
Devin White Jersey , in which helmets perform worse than the green group, had seven models.“The thing that’s really notable,” Arbogast said, “is how receptive the players were to that info; 50% moved up the poster. They are eager to have the information that helps them make informed decisions about their equipment choice.”Arbogast commended manufacturers for “innovating and introducing new helmets; the fact all new ones performed well is very encouraging.”The poster includes gray areas within the green and yellow sectors. That indicates that less than 1% of NFL players are wearing that model, providing players with additional information. But Arbogast stresses that “doesn’t mean they aren’t safe or viable options.”The 11 models in the red area, including Brady’s, are banned.VICIS doubled the number of NFL players using Zero1 from 2017 to ’18, with 135 players wearing it last season. Among them are league MVP Patrick Mahomes, Super Bowl MVP Julian Edelman, Russell Wilson, Doug Baldwin, Dee Ford and Golden Tate.“My experience wearing the Zero1 has been exceptional,” Wilson said. “The custom fit and wide field of vision have allowed me to perform at my best.”VICIS has tweaked the helmet, reducing weight and cost while keeping the fundamental design.“The helmet’s deformable shell and unique … layer have been shown to reduce impact forces more effectively than other helmets,” said Dave Marver
L.J. Collier Jersey , the company’s CEO.“The NFL/NFLPA test ranks helmets using a sophisticated formula that considers several different impact velocities and locations, and the measurement of both linear and rotational forces. The Zero1 is top-ranked when taking all of those measurements into account, meaning it provides the best protection across the full range of impacts and situations players encounter in NFL play.”It has since the 2017 survey.One potential concern in the study is that manufacturers could design helmets to rate highly, but they might not necessarily be the best performers on the field.Dr. Grant Goulet, vice president of product innovation at Xenith — which had five models in the green category — noted that “these independent tests, whether by the NFL and NFLPAor by Virginia Tech … are incredibly important and providing value in this space.”“We are very supportive and encouraged by the work the NFL and NFLPA are putting into this test, it’s scientifically rigorous,” Goulet added. “However, it could also be something of a cautionary tale that more helmets moved into that green group. I think there could be a propensity to be engineering helmets for these tests and metrics and that’s what is bumping them up into this green group.“What is important to emphasize is more of a holistic approach to designing the best gear for the athlete on the field.”That, naturally, is what the entire process is about.“The importance is this is a statistical analysis of on-field performances,” said Dr. Jeffrey Crandall, the league’s consultant to the independent testing. “What we see is statistically is double-digit concussion risk deduction as we go from yellow to green and from red to yellow. That has a significant impact on the risk of concussion.”