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Posted at 12:15 PM EST.

We always like playing against San Francisco after a weekend series with their biggest rivals and it sure doesn’t hurt that the Giants are cold. San Fran has dropped four straight and has scored just five runs over that span. The Giants will now take their shots at Vance Worley. As for being mediocre, well, Worley actually posted a negative **WAR (see explanation of WAR underneath this write-up) during a disastrous 2013 season for the Twins and he’s seen both his average fastball velocity and swinging strike rate decline year-to-year since he broke into the big leagues four seasons ago. To be fair, Worley blamed some of his struggles last year on elbow surgery during the previous offseason and biceps tendinitis early in the year. The good news is Worley brings with him a reputation for inducing groundballs, has a career 3.0 BB/9 over 333.1 innings and, it must be said, is still just 26 years old. In six starts and one relief appearance covering 40 innings this year, Worley is 3-1 with a 3.10 ERA. He’s walked just seven batters while whiffing 27. He’s not going to dazzle but there are enough good vibes surrounding him right now that he deserves a look at this price in a good spot.

Madison Bumgarner is having a decent year and his overall numbers look very close to what he has produced in previous seasons. However, his performance at home has been the extreme opposite of what he has done on the road. In 10 home starts, he is just 4-5 with a 5.22 ERA and 1.53 WHIP in 59 innings. He has allowed four earned runs or more in seven of his 10 home starts, something he has done only once in 12 road starts. Bumgarner is showing signs of fatigue as well. His swing and miss rate has declined from 11% in April to 10% in May and June to just 8% in July. The incredibly high number of innings he's thrown (close to 900) by age 24 may be taking a toll and we’ll put that to the test here.

 **WAR - Wins Above Replacement. WAR is an attempt by the sabermetric baseball community to summarize a player's total contributions to their team in one statistic. You should always use more than one metric at a time when evaluating players, but WAR is pretty darn all-inclusive and provides a handy reference point.