You Gotta Like These Kids!

Yeah, let's resurrect that old Giants marketing slogan, from when Will the Thrill and Robbie came up and energized the club. The youngsters certainly energized the team yesterday, as the Giants won 15-2 behind Matt Cain, another youngster.

Fred Lewis Cycles!

In particular, Fred Lewis hit for the cycle, going 5 for 6 (he also had another single) from the leadoff spot, scoring 3 runs and driving in 4 - he also struck out once. He was the 24th rookie in MLB history to hit for the cycle and first Giants rookie since Dave Kingman to do that (I remember him doing that, showing my age...). He is the 9th San Francisco Giants player to do this, Winn being the last one, and 22nd in Giants franchise history. He is also only the 4th in MLB history to hit his first career homer as part of the cycle (not only that, it was his first hit too). I got all this info from my daily Merc (gotta have my newspaper fix).

In addition, Kevin Frandsen had his first 4 hit game in the majors, going 4 for 5, with 2 runs scored and 3 RBIs and a walk. Normally a big talking point but overshadowed by Lewis's feat. Kevin probably doesn't mind because he got to start a game, which he hasn't done much of this season. Bochy has said that he should see much more regular play after his latest call up. Probably didn't see the need to rest the regulars early on, but then neither Vizquel or Durham has been burning up the league (neither has Feliz), so Frandsen will probably start seeing a lot of spot start duty at each of their positions, once every week or two, depending on circumstances.

Matt Cain, the baby of the group, went 6 IP, 5 hits, 1 R/ER, 0 HR, 3 BB, 6 SO, 89 pitches, PQS of 5 for the game. He got his second win of the season, though he probably would have liked to have spread 12 of those runs in previous games, which would probably change his record from 2-3 to more like 5-1. He has pitched in a lot of bad luck this season, in terms of offensive support. He even contributed to the offense, getting a single, driving in a run plus scoring a run.

Lastly, Eliezer Alfonzo went 3 for 6 with a run scored (2 K's though) and Dan Ortmeier went 2 for 5 with 2 runs scored and 2 RBIs.

So over half the lineup was young, with the only oldsters playing being Vizquel, Feliz, Klesko, and Sweeney, but still with an average lineup age over 30, though barely at 30.2 years (and including Cain at 22) . They did well offensively today, it was a pretty thorough trashing - as one might expect from a 15-2 final score. Vizquel set an MLB career mark with a double play this game, passing Ozzie Smith for the most by a shortstop ever.

Outfield Until Roberts Return

Bochy noted that the lefty hitting Lewis would start against most RHP while Dave Roberts recovered, which presumably means that Dan Ortmeier would get to hit against most LHP. I assume there will be a few games both will play, much like this one, when Winn or Bonds get a rest. A bit of hyperbole, but Bochy noted, "Fred has so many skills, both at the plate and in the field. This guy has the chance to be a special player. He's got talent written all over him. He'll be an everyday major leaguer at some point, no question."

Most prospect books I've read says that he could be a starting CF, but nothing special, just your average starter. But even that is valuable, even without considering the history of futility of the Giants developing position players. When he was just starting out in his pro career, I saw one prospect analysis say that the Giants envision him as a leadoff hitter but when his body matured, he could be a run driving hitter who bats third. But then he hasn't really hit that well in AA and AAA, particularly for power, just adequately, though he corrected the major problem that was mentioned early on, that he can't take a walk - he does that in spades right now. So he can get on base pretty well and has very good speed, and thus has been pretty good with the stolen base totals (but not success rate), but strikes out way too much to hit better than the .250 to .270 level (which is OK with a lot of walks) and has shown only low double digit power at best.

There hasn't been much speculation what happens when Roberts returns, but assuming he can hit adequately, I assume Lewis will get the uber-4th OF role that Linden was envisioned to get where he gets 300-400 ABs while Ortmeier will get sent back down to AAA. I consider this an audition for next year, in case Bonds doesn't return, or even Klesko, because then he would get the LF starts where Bonds skips to rest. I've seen some talk of trading Randy Winn, but he is a good player, despite what many people write about him, and probably is going nowhere, at least next year. Maybe year after when Schierholtz is ready?.

Speaking of Schierholtz, I've never seen Francoeur's minor league stats so perhaps this comparison is not apt, but they appear to be similar players. Takes almost no walks, strikes out too much for any hitter, but hits for a higher average than one would think, nonetheless, in spite of the strikeouts, plus hits a lot of homers, and both RF with rocket arms. I had thought that he might come up once healthy but if Bochy sees Lewis as lefty CF platoon, then Schierholtz can't come up as he doesn't play CF, unless Bochy switches Winn back and forth between CF and RF, and he was hesitant to do that previously when Linden was around, said he wanted to keep Winn in one place. So it will be interesting whether they keep Schierholtz down or if they bring him up.

About Roberts, it was reported that the surgery was successful and that while the Giants are sticking to the 6 weeks prediction, there was some initial predictions of 4 weeks as the normal recovery time for this (even in one of the latest announcements, it was noted as "4-6 weeks"), so he might be back by then instead, the Giants are probably being conservative, particularly since this is the trainer's first year as the top guy and he wants to beat expectations. In any case, Roberts says that he is going to work hard to get back as early as he can.