Musing on Sergio Romo’s Slider and Platooning: In his last BtB post, Lucas Apostoleris breaks down Romo’s slurve (and why it might be best to use it strictly against RHBs).

2011 MLB: San Francisco Giants’ Title Defense Complicated by Offensive Woes: The WSJ’s Carl Bialik has more on San Francisco’s poor run production in 2011.

2011 Giants = Lowest-Scoring Contender Ever?: By the standards of a playoff contender, Fangraphs’ Eric Seidman writes, the Giants’ offense has been historically bad.

Two Canadians Argue About Barry Zito (and Art vs. Science): At Grantland, baseball’s culture wars are played out in a debate between the romantic story of Zito’s decline in San Francisco (Chris Jones is convinced Scott Boras’ binder destroyed Zito spiritually) and the scientific facts of the case (as Jonah Keri points out, Zito’s peripherals made a decline utterly predictable).

Bochy Wins the Close Ones: At BP, Geoff Young puts the close-game performance of the 2011 Giants — and other Bruce Bochy-led teams — in historical context.

Breaking Down Two Fastballs at FanGraphs: From Fangraphs, analyses of Felipe Paulino’s 4-seamer and Brian Wilson’s 2-seamer

Vogelsong Poetry: BP’s Mike Fast breaks down the PITCHf/x details on Ryan Vogelsong.

Fun With Numbers: How Good (or Bad) Would Aubrey Huff be at Third?: A hypothetical from McCovey Chronicles’ JT Jordan, using Tangotiger’s fan scouting reports and zone ratings.

Jose Bautista’s 2011 and Barry Bonds’ 2001: A Comparison: Even more Bautista! This time, a Roto Hardball post comparing his 2011 to Barry Bonds’ 2001, through 32 games. Get this — Bautista comes out on top. Easily.

More Change Ups for Matt Cain: At Baseball Analytics, David Pinto uses heat maps to show how different Matt Cain’s pitch selection has been so far this season.

Flip Flop Fly Ball tracks the popularity of baseball’s Brian Wilson vs. that of the Beach Boy. Link

THT’s Rory Paap breaks down Tim Lincecum’s improved slider. Link