So with the win lat night we all know what goal was achieved. Pulling a game closer to the Padres and the hated Dodgers falling farther back. Lets go next level with our recap:


So after the Uribe home run it was a big boost to both the fans and the team. Then Furcal hit his and then I think the 40,000 plus were saying oh great one of these games. But the Giants fought back and Aubrey Huff came through with a big double that gave the Giants the lead and then later added a HR that came to be a big insurace run after the bullpen almost blew Tim Lincecums solid start.

Bottom line the Giants showed signs of having a good series and also the streak continues on Orange Fridays. But the best news is that Buster Posey has started a new hitting streak.

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Grab your Orange and Black its time to fill AT&T Park with it and drive the Dodger blue out of our beautiful ballpark. The Giants come into this game with a 7-3 record in their last ten games and the Dodgers come in at 5-5 in their last ten. After the Marlins series the Giants saw an offensive explosion except on get away day where they mustered one hit and saw 's hit streak come to and end at 21.

Game 1: (3-2)(3.30 ERA)vs (10-4)(3.12 ERA)
This game works in the Giants favor, for one its Orange Friday. The G-Men are still undefeated on Orange Fridays. I look for the streak to continue and they seem to come out on all cylinders during the first game of the series. I expect a full house tonight and chants of he's a bum will rain throughout China Basin. Giants take game one behind the Two time Cy Young winner .

Game 2: (9-5)(4.00 ERA)vs (8-6)(3.49 ERA)
If the Giants are going to lose a game in this series it will be this one. Billingsley shut the G-Men down in his last start but he will pitch on short rest (big move by Joe Torre either smart or incredibly stupid) The Crazy Crabbers will be at this game so more details on that later. We will hope to get some BEAT LA chants going.

Game 3: (10-5)(2.96 ERA)vs (8-8)(3.14 ERA)
This game will be the biggest game of the Giants season so far. For one it is a get away day, also we will be on Sunday Night Baseball. Its time to show the East Coast why we have the best fans in baseball, we have Cainer on the mound expect a Playoff Atmosphere at this game. Its about time they gave the Giants a shot on National Television so if you are attending this game get some AT&T Park originals going like HE'S A BUM! Chants. I'm expecting a Giants victory here.

Conclusion: I would be very happy with two of three but I am pulling for a sweep. Expect 40,000 plus for each game and an awesome atmosphere.

Keys to the Series:

1: Fans; get loud and stay loud, make every Dodger player and fan know that this your house.

2: Bullpen, the starting pitching will be there its up to you guys to get to Wilson and finish games.

3: Early Offense: Kurkow always says "The money lies in the RBI's" so lets get some early and make the pitching that much better

Do these three things and the Dodgers will never want to come back to the friendly confines of AT&T Park.

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Forbes has a list up of the Baseball's Biggest Trade Deadline Busts at number 4 is the 2005 Giants trade of and Jesse Fopert for .

Forbes says:

Winn had a couple of decent years in San Francisco but never drove in more than
65 runs in a season, very low for a corner outfielder. The Giants would pay him
$29 million through 2009 while never finishing higher than third place.

Is this enough to qualify as a bust?

I disagree, Winn had more then just decent years but actually some pretty good years with the Giants. He had 3 seasons of 3+ WAR (according to ) a season of 2+ WAR and 1 season at replacement level.

This to me does not even close to a bust, the Giants have made much worse trades and this is not one of them.

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Much has been said about the National League West over the last decade, but most of the talk has been negative with quotes like " The N.L. West is in fact the worst division in the MLB." But if you look at the past decade the N.L. West really hasn't been that bad.

Over the last Decade a National League West team represented the National League in the World Series three times, What makes it so special is that three different teams were in it. The Arizona Diamondbacks in 2000, The San Fransisco Giants in 2002, and the Colorado Rockies in 2007.

In addition the Wild Card winner has been from the N.L. West in 09, 07, 06, and 02. The division has not been dominated by a single team unlike the A.L. East (Yankees) or say the N.L Central (Cardinals). Since 2000 only one team has not won the division (Colorado but they have been to the promised land) and all of the other teams have won it more than once with Arizona and Los Angeles having the most titles with 3, then San Fransisco and San Diego with two.

The current N.L. West features four of the five teams with reccords above .500 and the team with the best record in the Nation League. Try and tell me now that we have the worst division in Baseball now East Coast Bais pushers. The current N.L Wild Card leader comes from our division that team happens to be our San Fransisco Giants.

The division has evolved into the best division in the National League, it is the most complete and balanced top to bottom. The torch Ladies and Gentlemen has been past to the A.L. Central for the worst division in Baseball.

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I am on a bit of shortstop kick here lately. So up today is a discussion of everybodies favorite name to draw out and say outloud, Juan UUUUUUUU-RRRRRIIIIIBBBBEEEE.

When signed with the Giants last season there were very few expectations. He was coming in on a minor league contract and had put up some poor numbers his last 3 years with the White Sox. However he did have the family ties to the club and was a low risk guy to take a chance on as a backup infielder.

All he has done the last two seasons is produce, This is from a nice piece written up on Fangraphs:

Since his arrival in San Francisco, Uribe has been an important part of the lineup, contributing 4.6 WAR in 215 games. Last season, his wOBA was .351 thanks in part to a rejuvinated .325 BABIP. The power also came back, as Uribe slugged .495, the best mark of his career since 2004. His walk rate decreased to 5.8%, but with the extra bases coming, nobody complained.

This season, Uribe’s BABIP has turned Mr. Hyde to 2009′s Dr. Jekyll. Aat .268, one would think a drop that dramatic would cripple Uribe like it did from ’06-’08. However, the infielder currently has a .328 wOBA, solid stuff from a guy playing premium positions. But how has he been able to relatively maintain his offensive value? He’s walking more. A lot more. He’s walking in 8.4% of his plate appearances in 2010, the single highest rate of his career. He does have three intentional walks this season to last year’s two, but that hardly makes up a significant chunk of his newfound patience. ZiPS thinks he’s good for a .330 wOBA for the rest of the year. Simply put, Uribe has adjusted his game this season in light of a depressed BABIP. As has been said before, staying afloat in Major League Baseball requires Darwinian-like adaptation. has learned how to survive

He has slowed done a little bit going though a rough patch in July but it certainly hasn't hurt the team who have been carried by the show. If the Giants except to win the NL west Uribe will be a major reason for that success.

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There are calls for 's head from the peanut gallery. Here is a sampling of comments made over at the Extra Baggs blog when Renteria is in the lineup:

"Why don't we just release Renteria and eat his contract? I would much rather have a downs or Rohlinger up here knowing at least we get some speed and young blood. Renteria is finished."

"I think Bochy has slipped into some fantasy world where he is a coach of a tee-ball team and he makes sure everybody plays. Renteria is the kid who wanders off from his shortstop position, blowing spit bubbles and picking dandelions. "Don't worry little Edgar! You're doing great! Edgar! C'mon back. We'll go for ice cream soon."

"Renteria needs to retire already. I predict at least two double plays from him."

I am not sure exactly what is causing this hatred, maybe it was his poor performance last season because this season he has been better then most shortstops in the National League this season.

To prove it let's play a little game I will call "Where's Edgar?" look at the following list of NL Short Stops with at least 190 PA and try to find Renteria:

has a strong week in Fresno. I am hopefull that Bowker will come up before the rosters expand but if not I really hope that he gets the call to the big club.

the chosen one, the slayer of opposing pitchers, the destroyer of preconceived notions about rookies has had a pretty darn good July.

To sum it up he has been done right Clarkian.

As a child of the 80's Will Clark has always been my favorite Giants hitter. Sure I liked , but he didn't capture your attention the same way. Same with guys like , he was good but he was never our guy, the guy who came up through the system, the guy you pretended to be when you playing with your friends. The guy who came closest for me (I am not sure about other Giants fans) was ; he had the local connection, the family history, the Willie Mays godfather factor but something wasn't quite perfect with the connection with the fans.

The Giants are in the hunt to play October baseball. They have a chance to make the playoffs for the first time since 2003 when they went wire to wire. I give you 5 reasons to be optimistic about their chances.

1) The Pitching


It is well known that the 2010 Giants are a team built around pitching. This is the bread and butter for powering this team. So far the pitching has been good but really not as good as it could be and even with that being said it still ranks as one of the strongest groups of pitchers in the league. They have a starting rotation that most teams would envy that has talent all the way through the fifth starter, they have a bullpen that is stockpiled with power arms that can strike people out in bunches, all very good things to have.

They are 3^rd in ERA, 6^th in FIP (fielding independent pitching), 1^st in K/9, 2^nd in HR/9, and 2^nd in batting average against.

The thing that seems to be holding the pitching staff back has been the walk. They are currently last in the NL in BB/9, if they are able to cut down on the free passes even if just a little bit this pitching staff could become truly dominate and carry the team.

The official first half of the season is over now that the All-Star break is behind us. Many people have looked back and told you how the season has gone thus far, but here at the Crazy Crabbers we are interested in where things are going to go. 

The Giants have 74 games remaining to make a run at the playoffs. They sit four games back of the Padres in the division and two games back in the wild card. The road is going to be rough and it is almost guaranteed to be torture. Here is a breakdown of things to come. 

July: The Giants coming out of the All-Star break have 18 straight games that takes them through the first of August. They play a pair of tough teams and two others that could challenge them but they should be favored to win. The way they get out of the gate should determine how they attack things at the trade deadline, if they come out flying Brian Sabean maybe emboldened to pull the trigger on a big trade if not he will certainly be more hesitant if there are struggles. 

One of the silver linings for the the rest of July is that the team has 10 home games against 7 road games, however 6 of those are against good teams where every advantage will be needed. 

As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance there is the participation in the end of year awards voting. As a practice run I am going to do a vote for who should get the awards based on the first half of the season. (Note: I write for a national league blog so I vote for the national league only).
My choices will be spread through out the All-Star Break as follows:
Monday: Rookie of the Year Award and Manager of the Year Award
Tuesday: Goose Gossage Award (Reliever of the Year) and Pitcher of the Year award
Wednesday: Most Valuable Player Award
Most Valuable Player:

As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance there is the participation in the end of year awards voting. As a practice run I am going to do a vote for who should get the awards based on the first half of the season. (Note: I write for a national league blog so I vote for the national league only).
My choices will be spread through out the All-Star Break as follows:
Monday: Rookie of the Year Award and Manager of the Year Award
Tuesday: Goose Gossage Award (Reliever of the Year) and Pitcher of the Year award
Wednesday: Most Valuable Player Award

As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance there is the participation in the end of year awards voting. As a practice run I am going to do a vote for who should get the awards based on the first half of the season. (Note: I write for a national league blog so I vote for the national league only).
My choices will be spread through out the All-Star Break as follows:
Monday: Rookie of the Year Award and Manager of the Year Award
Tuesday: Goose Gossage Award (Reliever of the Year) and Pitcher of the Year award
Wednesday: Most Valuable Player Award
The Goose Gossage Award (Relievers):

As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance there is the participation in the end of year awards voting. As a practice run I am going to do a vote for who should get the awards based on the first half of the season. (Note: I write for a national league blog so I vote for the national league only)
My choices will be spread through out the All-Star Break as follows:
Monday: Rookie of the Year Award and Manager of the Year Award
Tuesday: Goose Gosagge Award (reliever of the year) and Pitcher of the Year award
Wednesday: Most Valuable Player Award
Manager of the Year:

As a part of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance there is the participation in the end of year awards voting. As a practice run I am going to do a vote for who should get the awards based on the first half of the season. (Note: I write for a national league blog so I vote for the national league only) My choices will be spread through out the All-Star Break as follows:
Monday: Rookie of the Year Award and Manager of the Year Award
Tuesday: Goose Gosagge Award (reliever of the year) and Pitcher of the Year award
Wednesday: Most Valuable Player Award
So on ward to our first choices.
Rookie of the Year:

Player A: 4-1 43.1 innings 14 walks 14 strikeouts 1.04 ERA .187/ .253/ .316 /.569 OPS

Player B: 2-2 36.2 innings 10 walks 53 strikeouts 2.45 ERA .215/ .267/ .281/ .549 OPS

Player C: 4-2 47.0 innings 12 walks 32 strikeouts 0.77 ERA .190/ .253/ .270/ .523 OPS

Player D: 3 1 36.1 innings 14 walks 24 strikeouts 2.97 ERA .213/ .299/ .307/ .606 OPS

One of these pitchers is the others, , and .

It has been trendy to anoint Strasburg as the second coming of Bob Feller and if you have watched him he certainly has some nasty stuff but really it is much to early to make such grand prognostications.

Above are 4 players and their stats over 6 games and all are pretty similar but what can we tell from 6 starts? Honestly nothing but that is why this is Small Sample Size Fun™ what I will tell you is this: Stephan Strasburg is very talented but he is very young and even bad pitchers can go through 6 game stretch's where they look invincible.

Strasburg looks dominate but our guy Cainer can put on a show too, as can just about any major league pitcher on a given night. Looking at his line and expecting the hall of fame is just foolish.

The Players identities:

Player A:

Player B: (I am sure the K's gave it away)

Player C:

Player D: pitching at home this season

Some good reading out there for Giants fans:

All-Stars:

Kevin at Remember '51 breaks it down nicely in his post "Which Snubbed Giants Have An All-Star Case to Make?"

Mid-Season Reports:

Over at Triples Alley they break down "Who has Contributed to the Giants' Offense the Most in 2010?" A very nice detailed and information intensive post, highly recommended.

At Obsessive Giants Compulsive he breaks out the June Pure Quality Starts Update and breaks down how things are going year to date. Good Stuff here.

22Gigantes breaks out the Mid-Season Report Card and it is not pretty by my calculation the GPA was 1.88 and it looks like the team will need some summer school to make up some of their problems.

Down on the Farm:

First up Grant of McCovey Chronicles looks at how the Giants Top 30 Prospects are doing, there is a whole lot more on the disappointing side of the equation which makes one want to cover their eyes and cower in the corner.

Second, we will go back to Obsessive Giants Compulsive where we have an exhaustive second look at Giants first round pick Gary Brown, the outlook not as bad as the first impression.

Bochy Bashing:

First off Brian at Frisco Fastball explains to us all that "Bruce Bochy Will Forever Be Bruce Bochy" and that we are getting exactly what we hired.

Lastly let's stay here and look at Bruce Bochy's "Rookie Cycle of Death"

Enjoy!

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So its time for a little game that I like to play called guess that player, I put the numbers up and then we try to do some analysis and figure out which is better for the Giants.

Career Averages of two players:

Player A: .275/.328/.483 RF UZR/150 -3.4

Player B: .279/.320/.408 RF UZR/150 20.4

These two players are strikingly similar in average and getting on base. One hits for more power but the other is a much better fielder which in a park like AT&T is definitely a plus.

One of these players is currently on the Giants roster and the other would cost quite a bit to acquire most likely and one of the Giants top prospects. That's a tall order for grabbing a player that is very close in career numbers to someone already on the team that is not at the moment an everyday starter.

To bring everyone out of the dark, Player A is and Player B is .

Another knock on Hart is that he has one more year on his contract while Nate has 3 more arbitration eligible season left. To pile on a little bit more his career is awfully Rowandesque, he plays in a hitters park and has 2 years where he tore things up and the rest of his career has look rather pedestrian, so I would like to say no thank you to a second helping of that.

Please put me down squarely on the side of I would like to pass on Mr. Hart unless the Brewers give him away for low grade prospects.

pitched very well last night and recorded his first career victory. In his first few starts he showed the flashes of what he was capable of but always seemed to have a bad inning or two that created too big of a whole.

This time he was able to wiggle out of the early jams that he found himself in and when he finally got into a rhythm he was every bit as good as advertised.

His final line from the game is very good.

8 innings, 0 ER, 0 R, 3H, 3BB, 5K, 115 pitches and a game score of 78.

He primarily used the fastball and mixed it up with the breaking balls. He showed decent velocity starting the game in the low 90's and by the end of the 8^th still sitting around 90 mph.

The other major factor in his success is that he was able to keep his pitch count down in each inning. (Maybe this is something that he can help or other talented lefty out with .)

You can see that after the 3^rd he was a much better pitcher, he seemed to have settled down and established a nice rhythm. After this point the Brewers never really got anything going against him.

Overall this was a great game and I am glad that he is pitching well especially after facing two tough teams and then coming to a hitters ball park, he hasn't gotten the break him in slow kind of treatment. It is encouraging to see him do well and hopefully this is a sign of things to come for a number of years. He really seems to a pretty well polished pitcher already.

A week ago I would have said pretty emphatically that te Giants would and should be buyers. They were only a few games out of first place and the playoffs seemed like a realistic possibility.

Now that the team is in the middle of a horrible 7 game losing streak and dropped from second place just a half out of first things look much less rosey. In fact things look down right depressing.

This change makes me question the assumption that the team is in fact a contendor who could make the playoffs.

The pitching this month has not been good and that is the straw that stirs the Giants drink.

The bulpen hasn't been lights out by any means and has let down the starters when they have actually pitched well.

The offense has not been clicking and has failed to score enough runs to win consitantly. This isn't a surprise but it sure would be nice if it were an option to fall back on when the pitching wasn't top notch.

So as a Giants fan you must ask yourself is it realistic for the Giants to make the playoffs this season. I am thinking that it is looking more and more less likely each day and here is why.

1) The Padres look like they are for real and the wins they have accumulated give them a nice buffer if they go through a rough patch. In addition the Giants for some reason look like a AAA team win they face them and like a AA team if it is in Petco.

2) The Dodgers and the Rockies are both really good teams that give the Giants fits when they play them.

When you take one and two together that is alot of really tough teams that the Giants do not match up well against.

3) With the current losing streak the Giants are now just a game over .500 and are nearly at the half way point o the season. There are 83 games to be played and the NL West Champion will probably be around 90 wins. For the Giants to get there they will need to win at least 50 of their remakng games and play .600 ball.

This is a tough task fo this team. They play in a very close division and have a whole bunch of teams that they really struggle to beat that they will play alot. That is not a good omen.

4) For the Giants to win they need to play near perfect baseball. The pitching must be on. The team must play great defense and the team must have great timely hitting. If they fail in one these areas the chances of winning fall dramaticly, this is a high wire act where every game will be close but on mistep or run of bad luck can mean things go way off course (just look at the current stretch).

Putting all of this together it seems rather unlikely that the team will play baseball in October. There is alot stacked against this team and the flaws are pretty glaring. If I were to put a probability on the playoffs it would be in the 10-15 percent range and falling with every loss.

To make the playoffs the Giants only have about 33 losses they can aford this season. They should be in the race but at this point they are looking like a dark horse.

So to get back to the orgianl question should the Giants be buyers or sellers? I think both is te beat answer. All of the veterens should be available to other teams for reasonable prices and if someone goes into fire sale mode the Giants should not hesitate to make a deal that can make the team better over the long term.

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Some Random Giants Thoughts:

I am in the middle of driving to Sothern California taking in the beautiful sights that I-5 has to offer. There's not much else to do so writing a post seems like as good of a thing to do as there ever could be.

First, this loosing streak sucks. I knew that the team was bound for a correction but I didn't see this collapse coming.

The offense is in a collective funk. The pitching been less than steelar. That is a combination that is very bad for trying to win games. It is also not a good combination for me as with anything Giants related I am generally pessimistic.

The Dodgers series on top of everything just makes things worse. The Dodgers were just too comfortable in AT&T Park and let me tell you that is not a good thing. The Dodgers should loathe traveling north, this should be a house of horrors that haunt there nightmares.

I have to say that I am disappinted with Giants fans. Normally they are among the best fans in baseball but two series in a row visiting team fans have come in taken over the park. This is not acceptable and it should really embarass anyone who considers themselves a Giants fan.

To top it all off there seemed to be a lack of emotion from the team the whole homestand. A little red ass would have been apppreciated.

Next in my random thoughts I think I should comment on the Bengie Molina trade. Much has already been written but I just want to add that Bengie did seem to do everything the Giants asked of him and during the lean years provided some offense to a punchless team. He may not have been an All-Star caliber player but on a team of below average hitters even average seem pretty dang good. So he has that going for him.

The way things ended were less then ideal, it was probably not the best thing to bring him back this season. It would have been a nice clean break to have him go after last season without any hurt feelings but that is not the way things turned out.

The big thing is that it opens up the catcher position for Buster Posey which is an upgrade by itself right there even without the additional player. The two guys the Rangers included are not spectacular but there is a replacement level bullpen guy which could be helpful, and a former 1st round pick who may have some upside.

Moving on, I have a feeling this will be really tough patch going into the All-Star break. There are no more offdays and things are not going very good right now. So I will just keep drinking my pessimistic tea and stew in my depression. That seems to be the best way for the
Giants to snap out of their funk, I lose hope and think the worse will happen and then things get better.

So here is to no hope and lowered expecations.