That game sucked the energy right out of me, this is going to be short maybe I will write more latter but probably not I don't care to remember or rehash this one too much.

The Good:

: He pitched well can't say anything bad about the start, pulling him in the 9th is a justifable move.

: 5 hits and a walk, clutch guy. Making me forget that Bowker is in the Bochy's Doghouse and burried under .

The Bad:

: I am putting this loss on you, I don't like you much and you made some bad plays in the field and couldn't get the damn ball in the air to the outfield in the bottom of the 11th.

: I still stand by you as the top choice in the pen but man up and pitch to Howard. You have got to believe in your stuff more than that to be able to get him out. That was the key turning point in the game. The double was a fluke and could have been a foul ball if there was no wind.

I am done and I am moving on from this game. Let's hope the Giants do to, there is no rest with the Rockies coming to town.

It may not have been popular at all but pulling after 8 and a third was the right call. Yes Timmy had been dominate through 8 with 11 strike outs and no walks, but at the end of the game and a 4 pitch walk where every fastball was up you could see that he was fatigued. The heart of the lineup was coming up this was the correct call.

I find no fault what so ever in Bochy going to Wilson, it was the call that I would have made. I think that if that ball is another couple inches to the right and Wilson gets the last out this isn’t an issue. It is only with hindsight that this looks like a bad decision. It is not like he went with the third or fourth best arm in the bullpen.

It was the right call, Lincecum is still great even if he was only at 65-70% however this really increases the chances of a hanger or another mistake pitch and I really like and trust Wilson in tight high leverage situations.

It is hard to believe how quick the fans (who we just talked up too) seemed to turn on Wilson (or maybe Bochy), but I guess that is the life of a closer. I felt like it was a kick in the nuts but it was the right call. I have had my problems with Bochy but this time I feel that he did the right thing.

The one decision that I will not defend is playing left field in critical situations. Any time the ball is hit out to him I have to concentrate on not having a bowel movement from nervousness. Today is not an exception, the first play ok it was tough and maybe a 50-50 play for even a good fielder. The second botched fielding job however is inexcusable; an average high schooler should make that play. The second run was a back breaker and it is all on Velez. That second run was the margin of victory and cost the Giants a sweep of a really good ball club.

The Giants showed some pop last night hitting 2 home runs one from and one from . The offense is firing on all cylinders scoring 6 runs as stayed his execution for a few more days.

Nate with his cannon arm and double in the game momentarily made me forget my man crush on . I wish I could post the video but MLB is not very fan friendly with there video sharring rules. So if you have't seen it head over to sfgiants.com and look at the highlights for this one.

Also a tip of the hat for the sweet double play turned in the bottom of the 3rd by the Phillies last night, that was a highlight reel play and well done by everyone all around on that one.

Tim on the mound going for the sweep and pitcher of the month honors. So Rain, Rain, stay away.

Go Giants!

In other news... was DFA'ed by the Red Sox, thats a tough blow for the kid. I hope he finds a new home. I wouldn't mind him coming back as F. Sanchez insurance but I don't think that is likely as it looks like Downs is next on the depth chart. Also I just saw a press release the AT&T just got LEED silver certification making it the Greenest and most transit friendly park in all of the major leagues. Not bad for a 10 year old ball park.

This one is just for you guys, the fans. We here in the Bay Area always support our teams, but especially Giants fans. The Giants have the second best national league average attendance west of the Rocky mountains at just over 36,000 a night, the only national league team above the G-men? Those bums of L.A. No disrespect to the Dodgers but AT&T Park is much nicer than Dodger Stadium (Or for that matte better than just about every park in baseball). At least here in the Bay Area we do not arrive in the 3rd and leave in the 7th like some people(Bums).

Although AT&T has lacked something that it deserves, a tradition that is done during each game. For example: Roll Call in Yankee stadium, Giants fans we need to prove to the east coast that we can compete with their traditions.

A few ideas, lets create the rally Panda so if we ever meet those nowhere close to L.A. but close to Disneyland Angles in the World series again we can defeat the Rally Monkey!


So Giants Fans keep up the good work and together we can make AT&T Park the best place to watch baseball in the MLB, like they say; there's magic inside!

Is Posey Ready for the Big Time? The Giants brass seems to think so and we may be seeing him sooner rather than later.

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that may be getting a call and a plane ticket pretty soon to join the big club:

Team officials have discussed bringing him up sooner, The Chronicle has learned.

One team official said fans likely will not see Posey in San Francisco this weekend or even in Florida next week. However, the brass is keeping close tabs on Posey as the Giants' offense regresses.

The 2008 first-round draft pick is catching and playing first base at Triple-A Fresno at a time when Giants catcher and first baseman are not producing. One does not need binoculars to see the potential benefit of Posey as a backup at each position.

I think that saying that and are not producing is a bit much they are not lighting the world on fire but they are not in the worst slumps ever either. Huff is hitting .239/ .333/ .358 and looks to be having a good approach at the plate and hopefully some more hits will come his way soon, this is not the time to get too hasty. Molina is hitting as good as expected and has even taken some walks this year, he is sporting a .308/ .362/ .404 line and these are what you would expect based on his career numbers.

So the question does bringing up Posey make sense? You may look at his numbers in AAA and say that he should have been here yesterday but I think waiting is probably the better option at this point.

The guys he would be backing up/replacing are not horrible at the moment and have been giving the team value and we must figure out what kind of numbers to expect from Buster. His MLE thus far is not quite as good as you would expect from a guy hitting .353 in Fresno. You also need to consider what kind of playing time he would get with the veteran obsessed Bochey at the helm. I wouldn’t put it past him to burry him third on the depth chart at both catcher (Whitesides doesn’t look to be going anywhere now that he is ’s lucky backstop) and first base.

His triple slash breaks down like this: .299/ .377/ .376 so he might be a little better then Huff at the moment but he isn’t really an upgrade over Bengie at the current time. If he starts to hit for power along with the walks on average that really forces the Giants hand but right now I think that the best option is wait.

There is no need at this point to start the arbitration clock, it may make some prospect starved fans happy but this isn’t the time yet. I will be excited when he comes up but it is not quite that time, you don’t need to rush the kid if it isn’t an emergency.

Patience is a virtue, let's practice it.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the Giants this season but the Giants have four really good starting pitchers (and one that will cost you 50 bucks at the bar to forget).

has been dominate again. has continued his resurgence that he showed in the second half of last season. hasn’t been as sharp as last season but has still been an above average pitcher who has been well Cained (Cained: a term named after Giants’ pitcher who often pitched beautifully but is stuck with a loss or no decision after a lack of run support) this season. Lastly who goes tonight has also been Cained this season (see one hitter and a loss) but has thrown two of the best games of the season for the Giants and deserves a whole lot better.

The Phillies are coming to town and I feel like it could very well be trouble for the offensively challenged Giants. The Giants won the series against the Cardinals while scoring only 6 runs. The teams run per game has crashed back down to earth after the fast start and unless some guys start to get hot it is not likely to return to that level.

Another big change from early in the season is that the offense has struggled to put together strings of hits. This team isn’t going to win a lot games with the long ball and will rely on stringing together 3-4 hits to score some runs. As we saw in the Cardinals game on Sunday the team had 9 hits and 3 extra base hits but failed to put them together to score any runs.

They did not follow through on their winning formula (good pitching and timely hitting) at all and it showed with them getting blanked. This will not cut it as the Phillies lineup will be a hard one to keep from scoring runs even with the Giants pitching staff and if they want to have a chance we will need to get those hits together and not spread out.

It has to be the socks that have changed the way has pitched this season. He is off the best start to his career ever even better than his Cy Young season. He is 3-0 with a 1.32 ERA and a 2.52 FIP. I don't expect this to last all season but if he can give us 30+ starts of solid pitching with 3.5-4.0 ERA I would call this a good season. Keep the sock magic going.

Zito over his career has tended to be a slow starter and has been better in the second half. I couldn't imagine him being much better than the current stretch that he is on.

Between Zito and Lincecum at the top of the rotation have accounted for 7 the Giants 10 wins. That is good and it is not like the next two pitchers in the rotation can't deal either.

I am still feeling good after last nights game. The formula was perfect great pitching and timely hitting. I feel a little bad for who pitched pretty well too but the Giants karma on these games was bound to turn. Maybe there is magic inside, if the Giants can stay at .500 on the road things will look good for this season.

Let's go Cain, another win would be icing but it would be a big confidence boost before another tough series against the Phillies.

He came in dressed in orange and he saved the Giants season. If they had lost a fifth in a row I know that it would have lead to a unrecoverable tailspin and before long we would occupy the cellar.

Our hero came through for us on this one. He didn't have the best stuff but you would never know it looking at his line. 7 innings 6 hits 1 earned run 3 walks and 8 strikeouts. For 120 pitches he battled his command more than he battled the Cardinals, a lesser human couldn't do what he does.

The Giants offense scored 4 quite runs, they weren't particularly sharp and had only one extra base hit and that was double to lead off the game. I would normally write something about how this reminds me too much of the last few seasons where the offense was unspeakable but I am in too good a mood and I will take 4 runs just about any day of the week as long as it is not fifth stater day.

I loved the Orange Friday, I have to admit that I was nervous about the jerseys but they looked nice and were a nice change of pace. At least they aren't all black, they are truly unique in the mostly bland baseball world and are a nice nod the Giants of old. I give this my blessing as well as the orange billed caps, I like playing up the orange.

Let's go Zito keep the mojo working.

In other news the Dodgers lost to the lowly Nationals which makes them my second favorite team at the moment.

Okay, so with that awful Padres series over there is not much to look forward to but at least the G-Men are coming home to the friendly confines of AT&T Park on Friday night to open up a big weekend series with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cards are coming in with a record of (10-5) having won six of there last 10 games. They sport a potent lineup with the demi-god Albert Pujols and a good supporting cast of Colby Rasmus, Ryan Ludwick and Matt Holliday. All of which would arguably be the best or second best bat in the Giant's lineup.

The Giants on the other hand are floating just above the .500 mark at (8-7) having lost some tough games on there So-Cal road trip which couldn't end fast enough. Hopefully being back at home and having an off day will do the trick, other wise Bochey needs to consult with someone to fix the mojo of this team.

In this series there are three very good pitching matchups and the wild card will be if the Giants can get back to their timely hitting ways that they had earlier in the season.

Game 1: (0-1) 0.69 ERA vs (3-0) 0.90 ERA

Anytime Timmy is on the mound the Giants have a chance to win, so it is my opinion that the Giants take game one. Tim has been as good as the last two season if not better. I don't think that there is anyone who would want a different guy on the mound to try to stop this 4 game skid, it will even be nice to have his bat in the lineup. To top it off it is snuggie night, hopefully the baseball god smile upon this.

I am still bullish on even after his slow start up in the big leagues. Last season he worked hard on his plate discipline and it showed with Bowker posing a strong line in AAA Fresno. He hit .342/ .451/ .596 with 21 HRs the Major League Equivalent for him last year was .286/.380/.476 and 16 HRs and would have made him among the best hitters in our very weak lineup.

I wouldn’t put it past the Giant’s braintrust if they are searching on Kayek.com for some cheap tickets to Fresno for the guy. This is the Giants modus operandi, if young guys don’t light the world on fire in their first 100 at bats they never will but if a veteran has had at least one good season in their career they know what they are doing and it is proven. Its science to them, young guys are risky and should be given few opportunities and if they can’t perform well they never will old guys are proven and must be given as many at bats as necessary to get things back on track because they could always turn the corner at any time even if they are pushing 40.

The last thing that the Giants need to do is over react to this small sample size which they have done oh so many times, this is the reason the is up in the majors. It looks like he has been incredibly unlucky thus far this season; he has a BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) of .222 while for his career he is around .300 so expect that number along with his average to go up. He is also hit a lot more groundballs than normal so I would expect him to trend back toward his career averages with more line drives and less groundballs.
Bowker is a valuable member of this team and shouldn’t be sent to the dog house after only 39 plate appearances. Let’s give the guy some more time and if he is still struggling in June send him back to Fresno. We already gave away one solid major leaguer for some cash we don’t need to give up on another one before he even has 50 at bats this year.

Update: Grant at McCovey Chronicles has a nice post on "Winning and developing at the same time..." He brings up a nice comparision among many great points.

Player X was a September call-up from the minor leagues, where he hit very well. He hit .191/.258/.303 in 89 at-bats in the majors, though. He won a starting role the next year, but only hit .186/.308/.236 over 55 April at-bats the following season. If Player X were on the Giants, Player X would have been sent back to the minors until September, or maybe until an injury forced their hand. It’s tough to grade a team based on hypothetical situations like that, but does anyone believe that the Giants would have said, no, let’s stick this one out because we’re certain this young player is ready to contribute right now? No way. Luckily for , he wasn’t on the Giants. The Red Sox stuck with him and were rewarded.

Now I don't know if is going to be as good as but I do believe that he can be a valuable part of the Giants line up hit 15-20 home runs with and not be an out machine. All important things to have in a lineup that is starving for baserunners and anything close to power.

Todd Wellemeyer continues to struggle this time lasting only 4 innings and getting his third loss of the year. He had control problems walking 4 and constantly falling behind in the count and having to throw challenge fastballs.

Here is what Bruce Bochey said, “Todd, you know, he's been around. He'll regroup here. He's had a hiccup here these two starts. We need him to get back where he was.” I have to say that I disagree. The way that he is pitching is not that much of a deviation from what his career numbers say he should be doing.

He is giving more walks than normal but he is not known as a control kind of guy with a career walk rate of 4.4 per 9 and not a lot of strike outs to make up for it. The one year that he looked like a serviceable and valuable starting pitcher looks like the hiccup in his career not what is happening now.

Now the real question is who could be used to replace him? Let’s take a look.

 

So this is probably the worst three loss stretch I have ever really been through. Sunday we are beat by Manny and his steroid boobs as Zito throws a gem. On Monday they are beat on a walk off homerun by David freaken Eckstein after a gritty start by Matt Cain who pitched well even without the beat stuff and now the lose after giving up only 1 hit. What can you say about this?

Really there is nothing? This has to be the rock bottom for heart renching losses, the only way to make this worse is that stupid rally monkey to come back and haunt my dreams again. Actually it could get worse we still have on more game in this house of horrors.  

Now we have to rely on Todd Wellemeyer to stop the sweep.

I don't even want to write anything about this game but I guess we should think about this sonemore and drive ourselves into depression. 

The Giants blew chances, Sanchez can't get a sacrifice bunt down and a lead off double is nuteralized. 

Edgar Renteria kills 2 rallies with double play grounders. 

Pablo hits a double but can't get pushed across the plate. Bowker hits a blooper that David Eckstein makes a run saving catch on. 

On the one hit from San Deigo, they are able to get to third on a great play by Huff and a drive in the run on a sac fly after a battle and some nasty pitches from J Sanchez. 

In the eighth Nate leads off with a tripple but can't score. I don't even want to sat anything about those at bats. 

The Giants blow another chance in the 9th with a runner on third with 1 out and can't drive it in. 

So another day another heart stomping loss. Jonathan Sanchez deserved better, when you go 7 innings with 1 hit you shouldn't get a loss.

The Giants can't get out of town fast enough.

Over at Fangraphs Dave Cameron has written a nice piece on the growth of Tim Lincecum as a pitcher. I have to say that I agree with most of what he has written. When Tim first came up he was a flame thrower with a plus curveball.

He has evolved into a near unhittable force with 4 pitches that he can and will throw in any situation. The first big change was the development of the changeup. This put him into another catagory, this off season he came back with a slider and a began to work back in the curve which was one of his bread and butter pitches early in his career. The guy has become a complete pitcher, he has lowered his walk rate while maintaining a high strike out rate. His velocity has fallen some since he made his first appearence lighting up the radar gun but he has only gotten more effective.

Here is a nice little piece from the fangraphs post:

The first pitch Tim Lincecum ever threw in the major leagues was reported to be 99 MPH on the Giants stadium gun (we don’t have Pitch F/x data for that performance, unfortunately). He then proceeded to hit 100 three times in his first big league inning, showing the velocity that had gotten him drafted in the first round, even as scouts were concerned with his command, delivery, and workload. In that first year, Lincecum’s fastball averaged 94.2 MPH, the seventh hardest fastball in the game, and he threw it 67 percent of the time.

You don’t need a best fit line to see the trend in that image. His velocity has been steadily falling since he arrived in the big leagues, and through his first three starts this year, his fastball is averaging just 91.7 MPH. He has thrown 312 pitches this year, and only three of them have topped 95. He now throws about as hard as Matt Harrison and Clayton Richard. But, this is the crazy thing – it hasn’t mattered at all.

The guy might be a little less freakesh then when he first came up, but he is even more the face of the franchise.

Matt Cain was Matt Cained last night and the Petco Park continued to be a place where the Giants struggle. The Giants had chances and only had one side of the quality pitching and timely hitting winning formula for the game. They were in it for most of the night which makes it all the more painfull.


Cain pitched fairly well going 6 innings while allowing 8 base runners and striking out 4. He gave up 2 runs and really deserved better than a no decision but I have to say that if this was 2 years ago it would have been an loss for him. On a side note is anyone else getting concerned about the falling strike out rate, I guess it isn’t that bad seeing that the walks have come down at the same time and he sports a 4-1 strike out to walk ratio. I think that if the walks start creeping up it will be time to worry.

The offense last night continued to be punchless minus Juan Uribe who had his second homer in as many games. The offense this team showed in the begging of the year is beginning to regress to what I would have more expected it to be.
I am skirting around the issue because I have really tried to forget it but David Eckstein hit a walk off home run. This is the same David Eckstein that has only 35 home runs in 5260 career at bats, not exactly the type of guy you expect the walk off from but I guess that things are evening out for us because how many times are you going to expect Edgar “I am as old as a dinosaur not to mention I look like one” Renteria to hit a 3 run bomb off of Billy Wagner.
So this loss hurts, and the Giants fall to 1-3 in one run games which I imagine there will be a lot of this season.

Looking Ahead:

Tonight’s game matches up two strong arms. Jonathan Sanchez is coming off a strong start where he went 8 dominating innings but consistency has always plagued Sanchez. Hopefully he continues to pitch well and this is the team that he had his near perfect game against last year. The Padres trot out Mat Latos who had a bit of a rough outing against the Braves but is a promising young arm with a lot of talent. This usually doesn’t bode well for the Giants offense but hopefully they can be patient and force Latos to come into the zone and get some good stuff to hit.

Wednesday’s game is a chance at redemption for Todd Wellemeyer who was abused by the Dodgers in his last outing. He faces Jon Garland who has been fairly solid this season. Hopefully the Giants are not depending on this game to escape a sweep because I would not have high hopes.

Bumgarner Watch:

Mad Bum threw 6 innings in Fresno allowing 4 base runners while striking out 3 and walking 1. He gave up only 1 earned run and was around the strike zone all night with 51 of 74 pitches for strikes.

Also encouraging is that it was reported that he was sitting at the low 90’s and topped out around 93 for the game after spending time with Giants pitching guru Dick Tidrow working on mechanics. This is some well needed good news and pushes me away from the panic button. Hopefully this trend continues.

Coming into this season the giants were under a lot of question as to who would be the 5th starter. After failing to resign Brad Penny who did a wonderful job in that role in the second half last season. The giants went with Todd Wellemeyer over the young gun Madison B (who is struggling in AAA Fresno with an 0-1 record and an 8.31 ERA).

In two starts Wellemeyer is 0-2 with an ERA over 9.5. This is not acceptable and the Giants need to make a move here soon or the 5th starter will be a loss every night he goes out there.

Rob Neyer reports that Giants prospect Madison Bumgarner is continuing to struggle in AAA this year. Through two starts this year Bumgarner has been hit hard, he is carrying a 14.14 ERA and .538 opponents' batting average after coming into the season with a 27-5 record and 1.65 ERA in the minors. The velocity has not returned and is beginning to make me a little nervous. We still are in small sample size territory here and it is not something to get overly dramatic about but it does cause concern.

Here is the choice quote from Neyer:

Bumgarner opened last season throwing 90-94 with Class A San Jose, dropped to 87-90 in the summer with Double-A Connecticut, and finished at 85-88 with the Giants in September. In spring training, the Giants let him throw seven innings, in which he recorded seven walks and zero strikeouts. And now he's throwing cookies in the Pacific Coast League.

Good bye Mr. Lewis. Your tunure with the Giants is best described as a decent player who was in a bad situation.

Fred had the job of replacing the one of if not the most feared hitter to ever wear a Giants jersey in left field. That cannot be easy for anyone and I do not envy the task of trying to crawl out the shaddow that was left out there.

Fred has been a polarizing figure during his career by the bay with some thinking that Fred is a decent major leaguer with others falling on the side of thinking he is a bum.

Let's do a quick comparison of some tripple slash lines (AVG/OBP/SLG) to see where he comes down here:

Player A: .281/.339/.449
Player B: .228/.290/.365
Player C: .277/.355/.420
Player D: .265/.306/.401
Player E: .274/.343/.423
Player F: .284/.316/.415
Player G: .245/.292/.403

These are the career numbers of and the other Giants outfielders. Would it surprise you if I told you that Lewis is player C and has arguably the second best tripple slash line for his career.

Here are the identities of each:

Player A:
Player B:
Player C:
Player D:
Player E:
Player F:
Player G:

Fred compares very well with both and better than who Giants signed to a 2 year $12 million deal this winter.

This type of move is pretty typical for the Giants front office. doen't have the track reccord and reputation of a or a but he is a league average player these are not the types of player that good teams just give away especailly when he still only makes the league minimum.

Over at Fangraphs they have a nice write up on Fred. Here are some of the highlights:

His 109 wRC+ suggests an above average player. 2009 was a down year for Lewis, however, as his ISO dropped from .158 to .132. As a result, his wOBA and wRC dropped to .327 and 98 respectively, the first year in which he has been below average in either statistic. The projection systems see him as slightly above average this year, and ZiPS in particular expects a return to 2008 levels.

Defensively, both UZR and +/- are fans of Lewis, despite his poor reputation among Giants fans in Tom Tango’s Fan Scouting Report. Both systems have Lewis between +9 and +11 over his 326 game career, which would still make him a below average position-neutral defender over 150 games.


Overall, not only does that make Lewis an MLBer, but it makes him nearly an average player. There is no way that Lewis is only the 6th best outfielder on the Giants roster. is projected to have a similar or worse year. has similar projections. is 32 and projected to be well below average at the plate by both CHONE and ZiPS... has put up 201 games of replacement level baseball in his career so far, and the projections don’t see improvement in his future – only a data-starved Marcel projects a wRC+ greater than 90.

The Giants gave away a decent major leaguer for cash or a PTBNL. These are not the moves of savy GM with a roster that is not overflowing with talent.

Good bye and good luck in Toronto.

Update: Grant over at McCovey Chronicles has some nice thoughts on the Lewis trade. Check it out. Chris at Bay City Ball weighs in with some similar thoughts.

It is rivalry time again! For the first time of the 2010 season the Giants head down south to play the bums of LA. The Giants are off to a hot start and the Dodgers have sort of stumbled out of the gate. This will be the first big test for the Giants playing a good team away from the friendly confines of AT&T Park. A series win would do a lot to boost the confidence of this team, a loss would definitely throw some cold water on the hot start. All I can say hopefully it is better than the first trip down last year where they got swept.


The 2010 vintage Giants offense has shown signs of being much better than any other post Bonds team sitting 5th with over 5.5 runs per game. This may be unsustainable as most projections show that this offense should be much closer to 4.5 but why not enjoy the timely hitting that this team has shown. The Dodgers have one of the better lineups in the National league and should have little trouble scoring runs this season. The question and formula for winning for this team will always starts with the pitching so let’s check out the match ups.