Game 1 of the NLCS was supposed to be an epic pitchers duel between two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum and no-hit wonder Roy Halladay.
Instead, both pitchers did not have their best stuff, though Halladay continued where he left off with retiring the first seven Giants he faced.
Then, No. 8 hitter Cody Ross stepped into the batter’s box.
Ross has an unimposing figure, being 5’10” and 195 pounds, and had a career batting mark of 3-for-16 against Halladay before the game.
However, that changed in a hurry.
Ross turned on two inside fastballs for home runs to help the San Francisco Giants win 4-3 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series over the Philadelphia Phillies.
The 30-year-old journeyman provided the necessary spark for the Giants to overcome Halladay. The first homer was in the third for a 1-0 edge.
After Carlos Ruiz tied it with his own blast, Ross put his team ahead 2-1 in the fifth.
In the sixth, Buster Posey singled and then Pat Burrell doubled him home. Juan Uribe finished the scoring with an RBI single for the 4-1 lead.
Jayson Werth had a two-run homer to cut the deficit 4-3, but Giants’ relievers Javier Lopez and Brian Wilson shut the Phillies down.
Ross, a right fielder claimed on waivers from Florida on Aug. 21, also had key hits against the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the NLDS.
He homered and had the go-ahead RBI to win the series for San Francisco.
Not bad for Ross’ first postseason.
And Halladay is now a peg lower after his legendary no-hitter, giving up eight hits and four runs in seven innings.
Having Ross and his teammates beat the Phillies’ ace could give them confidence when facing Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.
By the time the San Francisco Giants take the field in Colorado Friday night, there will be nine regular season games left.
I’m not sure there is anything regular about them. In these remaining games, the Giants will face the Colorado Rockies who are very much in the hunt AND the division leading San Diego Padres.
Through today (9/23), the Rockies are 3.0 games out of first place, and dropping three in a row to Los Angeles and Arizona.
The Giants and Rockies clash for three games over the weekend. If you are starting to see a trend here, you nailed it.
When you consider the importance of the final three games against the Padres next weekend, do not under appreciate what is about to happen in Colorado.
A sweep by the Rockies this weekend will leave the Giants all but out of the playoffs for certain.
San Francisco must win this series if they want to keep San Diego in their cross-hairs for next weekend.
In order for that to happen, there are five things the Giants must do….
Oh, right, nothing about yesterday’s game matters once today’s game starts.
The Giants belted the Padres 7-3 to win the opener of the important four-game NL West series Thursday in San Diego. Giants fans were roaring that everything had fallen into place.
Then on Friday night, the Giants squeaked out a gut-wrenching and fascinating 1-0 win over the Padres to move into a tie for the NL West lead.
San Francisco SP Jonathan Sanchez pieced together the five most maddening shutout innings that one could imagine. Five scoreless innings despite seven walks prove that even big league hitters aren’t crazy comfortable hitting against a guy with nasty stuff but no idea where the ball’s going.
San Diego’s Clayton Richard, an All-American sort who looks like he fell off the front of a Wheaties box, was breezing through the same Giants who crushed four home runs Thursday night. If he did not make quick work of the Giants, Sanchez and his search for the strike zone might have resulted in the top of the utterly intriguing seventh inning starting somewhere around midnight.
Truly, the top of the seventh might have been the most intriguing half inning a Giants fan has witnessed all year.
Richard hit Huff with a pitch to start the sixth. The lefty was cruising, but his first pitch was a ball to right-hand hitting Pat Burrell. It was Richard’s 85th pitch of the game. It was also his last. Manager Bud Black replaced Richard with righty Luke Gregerson. Richard was wavering and Black, understandably, didn’t want the next misplaced pitch to float out over the middle of the plate to Burrell.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy, in contrast, let Sanchez work through his walk on the wild side, figuring the lefty had pitched two wonderful games and that the Padres hadn’t solved him through five.
Still, once Sanchez escaped a jam in the fifth with a double play ground ball, Bochy pulled Sanchez with his shutout still in tact. There have been times in his tenure with the Giants where Bochy might have stuck with Sanchez as long as the game was scoreless. Credit him for calling the pitcher down from the tight rope and giving the game to the bullpen in an important game on Friday. (Also, remember the move when the pitcher bats for himself to start the sixth inning of a scoreless tie in April. All games are not created equal.)
Bochy deserves credit for sending Huff as Burrell struck out. The knock on the manager has been that he’s unwilling to put baserunners in motion or try to create runs. When he put Huff in motion, the first baseman stole his sixth base of the season.
Jose Guillen hit the ball hard into the hole at shortstop. Baseball rules dictate that a ball hit in front of a runner, like Huff, at second base requires the runner to stay put. Huff, however, broke at the crack of the bat because he thought the ball was going to scoot past Miguel Tejada into left field. (Don’t believe the talk of aggressive baserunning. Huff’s a veteran and breaking for third there means he misread the ball off the bat.)
Two things happened that didn’t have to happen and both benefited the Giants.
Tejada could’ve thrown out Guillen easily at first base, leaving Gregersen to deal with slumping Juan Uribe with Huff at third and two out. Instead, Tejada threw to third base where Huff should’ve been out.
However, third baseman Chase Headley was oddly positioned on the outfield side of the bag and had to take the throw with only Huff’s bent right trail leg to tag. Huff’s left foot reached the bag first. Headley was guilty of anticipating, rather than simply covering third base, straddling it so that a simple tag would’ve nailed Huff.
Now, Nate Schierholtz won’t go down as one of the Giants’ all-time playoff stretch heroes, but his takeout slide that kept Padres second baseman David Eckstein from doubling up Uribe on a bouncer to third allowed Huff to score.
Inside baseball note: Eckstein didn’t position himself with his left foot on the outside of the base to protect himself from Schierholtz, who has shown a few times his best position might be fullback. If Eckstein had been more on the left field side of the bag, Schierholtz would’ve needed to slide after he reached the base, but Eckstein would have still been able to get Uribe. Instead, Schierholtz had time to reach and take Eckstein’s legs out from under him.
Fans will long remember the home run barrage on Thursday night, but that seventh inning sequence that plated the lone run will go down as a wonderful example of why true baseball fans simply love the game. Headley was just slightly out of position. Huff read base hit to left. Tejada made the right play, but it turned out to be the wrong play.
Then, the Giants bullpen kept the door closed for four innings on what has been a resourceful San Diego offense.
Simply magnificent.
Bochy, again, showed that fans who groan that he isn’t suited to manage this Giants team are wrong. His willingness to let Sanchez work in and out of jams proved that sometimes the best thing a manager can do is be patient and do nothing. Then, when he does something, do it quickly and don’t look back.
Everything starts new with the first pitch on Saturday.
Ted Sillanpaa is a Northern California sports writer and columnist. Reach Ted at tsillanpaa1956@gmail.com.
The Giants‘ offensive outburst in the first game of the four-game series in San Diego gives them momentum in the NL West showdown.
San Francisco will assuredly keep the momentum gained in a 7-3 win over the Padres if starting pitchers Matt Cain and John Garland can miraculously return to the mound tonight with exactly the same stuff they possessed on Thursday.
Since Cain can’t duplicate his masterful performance for San Francisco, and Garland won’t be out there to help the Giants make Petco Park play like a band box, all momentum gained on Thursday ends when the first pitch is thrown on Friday.
Different starting pitchers. Different lineups. If Jonathan Sanchez can pitch as well as Cain did, the Giants could keep the momentum, especially if Padres starter Clayton Richard struggles like Garland did in helping San Francisco’s batting order look like the 1927 New York Yankees in the series-opener.
Giants fans will choose to believe that the club’s superior heart, desire and focus resulted in the boys’ bats heating up at the start of a four-game offensive explosion. The Padres’ faithful will rest assured that Richard will pitch well and that San Diego hitters will solve Sanchez a little more easily than they did Cain.
So, let’s consider what we do know from the Giants opening-night win:
** Fans who griped all season long about the Giants’ decision to extend second baseman Freddy Sanchez’s contract must feel silly. Or, perhaps, they don’t understand the value of brilliant defense in the middle infield and a big league hitter who finds ways to get things going.
** The value of Andres Torres to the Giants’ batting order can’t be disputed. That lead-off knock to start the game made a big difference.
** The Giants wouldn’t be one game out of the NL West (and NL wild-card) race without Pat Burrell. That home run that he sent into orbit, crashing off the brick wall of the building that occupies space inside Petco Park, brought back memories of the old Giants teams that specialized in the home run.
** Cody Ross is pressing to perform in a playoff race and make the Marlins seem even more foolish in giving him away on waivers. He might want to stop choking the ash out of the handle of the bat and just let the game come to him.
** There are some who see young outfielder Darren Ford’s mind-bending speed on the bases and quietly think, “I wonder if he might not merit a start or an at-bat as a late-inning defensive replacement … just to see if he can show an ability to work his way on base from time to time, down the stretch.
** Folks who cringed when the Giants passed on trying to obtain Miguel Tejada should be acknowledging that the organization’s decision was money well saved. There’s not a lick of defense, at the plate or in the field, between Tejada and Juan Uribe.
** While the well known Giants “insiders” ponder rhetorical questions regarding which starting pitcher they’d pick to start a one-game playoff, they might slow down before insisting that Tim Lincecum is the only logical choice. Cain has made the case that he has become the club’s most reliable, and effective, starting pitcher. Things could change if Lincecum turns in a third straight gem on Sunday.
** The Giants should sign Aubrey Huff to a longer-term deal in the off-season. He came up big on Thursday, as he has all season. The club has no young first baseman or middle-of-the-order bat ready to jump to the big leagues any time soon. The metrics and comparative salaries that dominate off-season chatter won’t reflect Huff’s true value to the Giants.
** Burrell’s reputation, his personality, means nothing to Giants fans as long as he’s swinging the bat well. A reader complained that Burrell reported arrogance is “rubbing off” on Buster Posey. Hey, the guy’s not dating a family member so…let’s agree to appreciate what Burrell does with a bat in his hands. Period.
** Posey’s going to be the Giants leader for years to come so, really, a little bit of swagger and some red-ass rubbing off on him would actually be a good thing.
** They’ve pitched well for the most part, but there’s no reason to rush the Giants middle-inning relievers into action. Thus, Sanchez is in a spot where working into the seventh inning would save San Francisco fans some trouble.
** Pablo Sandoval has reached the point where having a healthy Edgar Renteria to play shortstop merits moving Uribe to third base against some pitchers. It would help Sandoval to know he doesn’t have to feel any need to do more than what he’s done all season — heat up, cool off, heat up, cool off. The Giants don’t want him playing the final 21 games pressing to recreate his 2009 performance.
** Bud Black, like every other big league manager, is only as smart as his players make him look. He opted not to walk Posey intentionally in that pivotal point in the fifth inning and Garland served up a home run.
** No, the Giants shouldn’t be thinking about the sizzling Rockies who trail them by a couple of games in the NL West. All the Giants have to do is focus on their game until the clubs open their three-game series in Colorado Sept. 24.
** “Desire,” “heart,” or “wanting it more” will have nothing to do with a single win or loss through the remainder of the season. Every team and every player really wants to help his team get into the playoffs. Great pitching, timely hitting … those things matter.
Ted Sillanpaa is a Northern California sports writer and columnist. Reach Ted at tsillanpaa1956@gmail.com
Down 4-0 by the fifth inning, the Giants did not throw in the towels. Not one bit.
Matt Cain settled down and threw shutout innings in the fifth, sixth, and seventh for a final line of 7 IP, 4 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 6 K.
The Giants offense put together a noble (and successful) comeback effort. In the seventh inning, Posey cut the deficit to three with a solo home run. In the eighth, Renteria and Burrell cut the lead to one with back-to-back solo home runs. Finally, in the ninth, after a Cody Ross single (which he just barely beat out), Juan Uribe crushed a two-run homer to left-center field off of Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton.
Brian Wilson came in, and after Dodgers had runners on the corners and just one out, he was able to settle down and shut the Dodgers down, securing the Giants win.
The Giants, now that the Padres have lost a staggering nine games in a row, are now just two games back in the NL West.
Now, here are some notes:
Each day brings more evidence that Jose Guillen should not be a starting outfielder. Pat Burrell hit a home run, Andres Torres is, well, Andres Torres, and Cody Ross scored the game-tying run. Oh, yeah and Jose Guillen had a golden sombrero (four strikeouts in a game, for those of you that aren’t well-versed in baseball terminology).
Although not completely relevant to the Giants, it’s quite interesting to note that the Dodgers have not caught a runner stealing since July 23. Darren Ford stole second in the eighth inning with two outs and the Giants down 4-3.
The Giants have now executed three comebacks of four runs or more: June 4 against the Pirates; July 20 against the Dodgers (you might remember that as the game in which Bruce Bochy got Broxton taken out of the game because Mattingly stepped on the mound twice); and of course, Saturday, September 4 against the Dodgers.
Props to Pat Burrell: he was able to come off the bench and battle for an eight-pitch at-bat, culminating in his solo home run off of Octavio Dotel.
The Giants had four home runs. Quite satisfying.
Saturday’s game was symbolically a juxtaposition of the Dodgers’ and Giants’ relative seasons. At home, the Dodgers blew a game they should have won thanks to yet another poor performance by Broxton, who has brought the Dodgers down with him during his second-half downfall.
The Giants, in contrast, executed a beautiful comeback, and Brian Wilson was able to settle down and shut down the Dodgers to win the game, as he has done for most of 2010.
Uribe had a WPA of .622 on Saturday: he raised the Giants’ chances of winning the game by 62.2 percent with his offensive performance.
Tomorrow: Hiroki Kuroda will face Jonathan Sanchez. They are both coming off of dazzling performances, in which they went seven-plus innings and gave up one earned run or fewer. The Giants bat a collective .153 against Kuroda in 72 career at bats, which is just…miserable.
Watch out for Matt Kemp—9 for 20 in his career against Sanchez. If the Giants can secure the series win on Sunday night, it will go a long way toward building momentum as they get ready to face a hot Diamondbacks team and then the division-leading Padres.
Fireworks were bursting in the air as we celebrated Independence Day, but they weren’t coming from these players. Here’s a list of those who slumped the most last week:
1) Kevin Kouzmanoff, Oak. 3B
The “Crushin’ Russian” hasn’t been doing much crushin’ lately as the Oakland third baseman had no hits in 21 at-bats last week.
His fantasy stock has dropped over ten percent in most leagues. He is hitting .266 with eight home runs with 40 RBI, and 34 runs this season. 2) Justin Smoak, Tex. 1B Unlike his teammates, Smoak has not been productive, going hitless in 20 at-bats last week. His fantasy hype has gone from fire to smoke. Smoak’s fantasy ownership dropped around five percent in most leagues. 3) Juan Uribe, SF. IF California was hot, but Uribe and his teammate Renteria were locked in the freezer. Uribe managed only one hit in 22 at bats. 4) Adrian Gonzalez, SD 1B
San Diego’s powerhouse went 1-for-19 last week.
There isn’t anything to get worried about, though, as he is hitting .293 with 16 home runs, 52 RBI, and 44 runs this season. 5) Edgar Renteria, SF SS
Renteria had only one hit in 18 at-bats last week. Renteria started the season hot, but since recently returning from the disabled list he is still trying to find his swing. He has lost some fantasy ownership since the slump. On the bright side, he didn’t have much fantasy presence since he only has around ten percent ownership in most leagues. 6)Ty Wigginton, Bal. IF Wiggington went 1-for-24 last week. About two months ago Wigginton was a hot pick up, but has since seen his fantasy ownership decline.
7)Troy Glaus, Atl. 1B Glaus was scorching hot for weeks, but it took fantasy owners some time to warm up to the injury prone slugger. He didn’t make many fantasy owners happy last week, going 1-15, and saw his ownership drop about five percent in most leagues. 8)Rajai Davis, Oak. OF The speedster from Oakland had one hit in 13 at-bats last week. Further, his stolen base numbers weren’t enough for fantasy owners to keep him around as his fantasy ownership took a 15 percent plunge in most leagues. 9) Justin Upton, Ari. OF Upton went 2-for-20 last week, hitting more like his weak-hitting brother B.J. His fantasy ownership was not affected, however.
10)Vernon Wells, Tor. OF
Wells, much like Renteria, started the year grabbing headlines, but had only three hits in 23 at bats last week. His fantasy ownership was not affected by his latest slump. Un-honorable Mention Robinson Cano, NYY OF 3/23 .130 AVG.
Even after absorbing Tuesday’s loss to the visiting Baltimore Orioles, the San Francisco Giants are humming along now that May is but a memory.
Since the calendar flipped to June, the Gents (quick note—I don’t care that the New York nickname was Gints and neither does anyone else in the Bay Area) are 9-5. If you include the last five games of a mediocre preceding month, San Francisco is 13-6.
So things are good for the baseball-conscious in the City.
Nevertheless, there are three glaring and potentially enduring problems with the club.
Forget about the recent rockiness from the bullpen and the struggles out of the No. 5 slot in the rotation. Neither is serious.
The ‘pen has too many talented arms for this stretch to be anything more than the periodic lull that even the best units suffer. Dirt merchants like Sergio Romo, lefty Dan Runzler, lefty Jeremy Affeldt and newcomer Santiago Casilla all have top-shelf arsenals plus each fireman has shown signs of snapping back to form in their latest outings.
More importantly, closer Brian Wilson hasn’t been perfect, but he’s been consistently dandy. There’s little sense in hitting the panic button when the most critical arm isn’t inducing ulcers.
As for the final spot in the rotation, it admittedly hasn’t been pretty.
But that can be said of virtually every team in Major League Baseball and Todd Wellemeyer has actually been splendid at home—2.97 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, .209 BAA, .606 OPSA and 1.71 K:BB in 36 1/3 IP.
Granted, Wellemeyer’s been the batting practice pitcher every group wants to face on the road, but he’s currently hurt i.e. he’s moot for a while.
Joe Martinez is now manning the position and, though the results weren’t what fans wanted to see in his first start on Tuesday, there is ample reason to be optimistic.
Martinez was erratic as a starter in 2009 but remember he was coming back from that fractured skull courtesy of a Mike Cameron line drive. Those episodes tend to rattle a hurler so it’s not unreasonable to overlook the initial returns.
In 2010, the 27-year-old was tossing it nicely at Triple-A in the Pacific Coast League. His line of a 3.06 ERA, 1.26 WHIP and 2.36 K:BB in 67 1/3 IP in 11 GS is quite fine considering the PCL is apparently like playing in an entire league full of pre-humidor Coors Fields.
Furthermore, Martinez twirled it better than his final line (6 1/3 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K and 1 HR) looked. His sinker was working; the grounders just found too many holes. That could be attributed to a range-challenged defense, but it seemed more like bad luck.
Regardless, the Orange and Black pitching is rarely cause for concern.
Nah, the three biggest bugaboos facing the squad now and potentially for the foreseeable future are catcher Bengie Molina, shortstop Edgar Renteria and center fielder Aaron Rowand.
Let’s work from the easiest solved up.
Molina is simple—the pitching staff loves him enough to justify his presence even when not hitting and his lumber is showing signs of life after an atrocious May. Giant fans also need to remember that backstops are rarely a source of offensive production and that’s OK because they contribute in so many other ways.
Bengie doesn’t do everything well in the Tools of Ignorance, but he does enough to win the praise of some very good pitchers. If Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain are happy, so am I.
And he’s only on a one-year contract so if Big Money goes Big Arctic again, Buster Posey’s here to stay.
Renteria’s imminent return isn’t too tough a situation to deal with, either. It actually could prove to be a positive moving forward if handled correctly by all involved.
Once the veteran finishes his rehab assignment (from a hamstring strain), he’ll expect and receive playing time. Fine, except it can’t come at the expense of arguably the Giants’ best hitter to date and the man who’s been patrolling the hole in Edgar’s absence.
Juan Uribe leads the team with 41 runs batted in and is tied with Aubrey Huff for the lead in home runs with 10.
His 41 ribbies are also a high for all MLB shortstops. His tater total is good for second in that regard, his .843 OPS ranks third and his .289 average is tied for fourth. If you’re hip to those sexy sabermetrics, his wins above replacement (WAR) is 1.8, which trails only Troy Tulowitzki’s 2.1, Derek Jeter’s 2.0 and Hanley Ramirez’s 1.9.
In other words, Uribe must play as much as possible.
The keys, however, are health and versatility.
Los Gigantes have two crucial bats that demand playing time, but would benefit from rest due to injury issues.
Uribe, who is dealing with a balky hammy of his own, is one and the other is Freddy Sanchez, who has been raking since finally recovering from off-season surgeries to knee and shoulder. Both have been invaluable so they haven’t seen much down time, but a blow here and there would probably be beneficial come August and September.
So Renteria, whose bat was blazing prior to the hamstring snag, shouldn’t disrupt the mix too much or dilute the suddenly respectable offense.
He can be used at short to directly spell Uribe. Additionally, he can be used to rest Sanchez, third baseman Pablo Sandoval, or first baseman Posey thanks to jack-of-all-infield-trades Uribe (and a touch of the Kung Fu Panda).
As San Francisco fans have seen, Uribe can play second base or the hot corner with excellent ease. Since Pablo can also play a quality first sack, manager Bruce Bochy essentially has a game of musical chairs on his hands.
If you want to get really creative, the 34-year-old Renteria could even be used to give fellow sore spot Molina a break. Uribe would move to third, Sandoval to first, and Posey behind the dish.
Finally, Renteria’s contract is also up at the end of ’10.
If he hits, SF gets the best of both worlds—it eases off some valuable assets without losing production. If he doesn’t hit, there’s less artificial incentive to play him.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Rowand. The center fielder is a large and sincerely troublesome thorn in the franchise’s side.
A-Row’s been swinging a flaccid noodle since mid-May (sub-.200 BA, sub-.300 OBP). It’s gotten so bad that he’s begun to lose reps because (A) he’s shown no hints of pulling out of the massive slump; and (B) the Giants have Andres Torres, Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell smoking the ball while flashing adequate-to-insane leather.
Further complicating matters are the atrophying five tools of Nate Schierholtz on the bench.
Usually, the answer is easy—bench Rowand until someone cools off or he gets hot. The rub is that the Giants must deal with an unusual kick to the groin—Aaron’s bloated contract for five years and $60 million, running through 2012.
That money is a sunk cost , but try convincing baseball executives and managers. The average member of that group will tell you it’s not sunk because Rowand could still be productive again and they’ll waste at-bats or innings in tribute to the idea.
To a degree, the logic is sound.
Aaron Rowand is notoriously streaky and that means a hot one might be just a matter of time—the gamble could pay out. But the San Fran lineup isn’t all that prolific even when cruising along; it can’t afford 0-fers when there’s a more attractive option available.
Right now, the fellas have four such players.
Uh oh.
Aaron Rowand doesn’t seem the type to become a distraction nor does he seem like the sort who would be thrilled about cooling his cleats. Yet it’s almost impossible to justify his presence on the field as anything but a defensive replacement at the moment.
Something’s gotta/will give.
Which means the San Francisco Giants could find themselves in a particularly awkward spot. For two more years.
The offense is currently riding an 11 game streak of scoring three runs or more.
Before we dive in, let us remind you since the departure of Barry Bonds, we have become accustomed to sluggish inconsistent limp offenses.
Like a farm dog with ticks dug into our behind, we came to accept our cursed fate and that the world was generally a cruel place.
What do you expect, we have paws! How were we gonna reach back and pull the ticks out? You think biting helps, it only makes it worse.
At this point, our ticks are actually a source of comfort.
Now you’re back there digging around at the ticks and we have to tell you, don’t tease us. Don’t act like you’re finally going to screw them out, relieve our pain, and actually become a good offense.
Because the only thing worse than getting used to the pain and cruelty, would be thinking it’s finally going away and finding out it’s not.
Think of us as the sensitive girl who has always been a bridesmaid and never a bride. Men have been disappointing us our whole lives and now here you are acting like Mr. Wonderful.
If you let us down: look out! J-Wow’s right hook on The Situation will look like a tender kiss compared to the hell-fire scorn we will unleash on you.
Looking at your lineups recently and your numbers, we’ve been thinking, “What team is this?” And excuse us, but where are the gaping holes we have become accustomed to?
You know, we had gotten really used to cuddling up next to our teddy bear, then we slip into bed one night and find Bradley Cooper. Are we dreaming, are these hard, lean, rippling Runs, RBIs, and HRs really ours?
We call up some 15 year old looking kid from the minors (Posey), then we find some bruised and beaten up old mutt abandoned in an alley (Burrell), and presto, voila – we’re great!
And where do these slum dog cast-offs get off acting princely? Huff, Torres, Uribe…All Star caliber play? And we didn’t even know Sanchez was still alive – we thought compound injuries had killed him!
But come on, this is like a Cinderella story. And Giants fans do not believe in fairy tales.
Please go back to your old ways, so we can all just relax and accept the cruelty of the world.
Ever since the Giants parted ways with Barry Bonds in 2008, wait check that, ever since the last couple seasons of Bonds’s career, the San Francisco Giants simply couldn’t score runs.
From 2006-2009, the Giants lived and died with their pitching staff. And prior to 2009, they did nothing but die with their pitching staff because in each of the previous four seasons, San Francisco finished under .500.
But then came 2009, and the Giants pitching staff put together one of the best seasons a staff has ever had.
Tim Lincecum won a second straight Cy Young Award, Matt Cain was an All-Star, Jonathan Sanchez threw a no-hitter, Randy Johnson provided quality starts and won his 300th game, and set-up man Jeremy Affeldt was the reliever of the year for the MLB.
The rest of the staff filled their roles and drove the team to an impressive 88-74 record despite scoring an abysmal 657 runs on offense.
Now with the same staff (more or less) back for a second straight year, the question was if the Giants could put together a lineup that would catapult them to the playoffs.
Well, that lineup has arrived.
Finally, the Giants have a lineup of multiple threats instead of automatic outs like Randy Winn, Dave Roberts, Edgar Renteria, Aaron Rowand, and Travis Ishikawa.
Now could the Giants still use that prototypical 40 homer bat in the middle of the lineup? Sure, and they will probably need said hitter if they want to consistently make the postseason year-in and year-out.
But for 2010? The lineup is finally shaping up into a formidable attack. From No. 1-7, the Giants have consistently productive hitters.
Never mind the struggles of Bengie Molina, Aaron Rowand, and Nate Schierholtz, only one of those three seems to be in the lineup on any given game.
And the rest of the seven starters are producing big time.
Andres Torres, Freddy Sanchez, Pablo Sandoval, Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Pat Burrell, and Buster Posey make up the top seven hitters in the Giants lineup in recent weeks.
San Francisco may be lucky to have a single one of them hit over 30 homers, but both Huff and Uribe are on pace for 25, Sandoval hit 25 last season, Burrell hit 33 two years ago with Philadelphia, and the trio of Torres, Sanchez, and Posey are elite gap-to-gap hitters who can all work counts.
It didn’t matter for the Giants that the recently on fire Buster Posey went 0-8 these past two games against Oakland, because when any of these hitters has an off day, somebody else goes off for a gigantic day.
San Francisco completed the sweep of the A’s this afternoon behind a pair of two-run homers by Aubrey Huff.
That’s right, their 33-year-old cleanup hitter who posted an atrocious OPS mark of .694 last season between Baltimore and Detroit is having a renaissance by the bay.
Coming into the series finale with Oakland, Huff was hitting right at .300 and with his big day at the plate today he now has an OPS over .900.
Combine his year thus far with his partner in crime Juan Uribe, and the Giants have a dangerous middle of the order.
Uribe, whose career averages are as follows: .258/.301/.433/.744 and whose career marks in home runs and RBI are 23 and 74, was hitting .291/.358/.478/.836 with nine homers and 40 RBI coming into Sunday’s game.
He now has 10 homers and 41 RBI on the season, on pace for 28 homers and 119 RBI.
Talk about having a year to remember, and one that actually isn’t surprising to the Giants brass.
Earlier this year, a bunch of Giants management and coaches stated that they feel Uribe is clearly a better player now than he was when he won the World Series with the White Sox back in 2005.
And with Uribe’s numbers in two years as a Giant, clearly San Francisco has scored with the veteran shortstop.
He’s on pace to shatter his career averages as well as blow by his career mark in RBI and he is only making $3.5 million this season!
Add that to the fact Huff is only making three million this year, and the Giants have a two-headed monster in the heart of their order that is only making a combined 6.5 million.
So while Giants fans can complain about the undeserved fat contracts to Rowand, Renteria, and Zito, at least GM Brian Sabean has found a couple of gems for cheap.
Furthermore, the newest Giant Pat Burrell is another offensive force that the Giants are paying very little for what so far has been tons of production.
Now fans shouldn’t get too excited, as the Giants don’t yet have an offense that can consistently win them the division year after year.
And plenty of other teams have a scarier “two-headed monster” than the Giants but when it comes to right here and now, Giant fans should be riding high with the utmost confidence.
The way their team has played the last few weeks should continue over the course of the season. And if it does, the Giants will be in the playoffs for the first time since 2003.
Game 1 of the NLCS was supposed to be an epic pitchers duel between two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum and no-hit wonder Roy Halladay.