obsessivegiantscompulsive: Walk Tall: Play Ball! Giants 2008 Season Opener Against D-gers

Monday, March 31, 2008

Walk Tall: Play Ball! Giants 2008 Season Opener Against D-gers

"Walk Tall" That's what Krukow was told by long-time Giants employee Jim Davenport before a home opener. For me, while I would prefer that the Giants be a contender every year, sometimes life don't work out that way. In any case, I will "walk tall" and be a proud Giants fan.

As I sit here with a Barry Zito t-shirt on (Thanks Sis!), I know this won't be the best season ever or even a winning season, but I will enjoy it as there is a lot to enjoy. Cain. Lincecum. Even Zito and Correia.

Bochy made the point today in his pre-game show to point out that Velez and Lewis will see a lot of time in the field (that's not good for Ortmeier, oh well), so that will be interesting as well. And I think Schierholtz will be up, on merit, eventually and that the Giants will clear a spot for him. I think Bowker and Ishikawa will also see time up here at some point as well.

People say that Rowand is more of a complementary piece, but if he can hit for near-mid-800 OPS, that's basically what Carlos Lee, who the Giants were in the running for in the previous off-season, has done in his career, 830, 840 OPS, and he got a lot more money and years but he isn't even close to Rowand in defensive ability. I think he will be more of an offensive contributor than people have been saying.

Together, I think the offense will be just good enough to help our superlative pitching to win some games this year. And we are not that far off. The Tigers were in a similar situation in 2004, adding a good offensive/defensive player in Ivan Rodriguez, then adding Magglio Ordonez the next season plus other free agent signings. They were competitive two seasons later in 2006.

Don't worry about the wins, just enjoy the games, it's baseball! Go Giants!

9 comments:

allfrankMonday, March 31, 2008 5:28:00 PM
Well, I have now seen the oipening day 5 hit stinker, but I still agree with your general assessment and assertion that the team is 2 big hitters away. The difficulty, more so than the Tigers faced, is fewer and fewer 850+ OPS players come on the FA market and, basically we are limited to getting them at 3 positions, 1b, 2b, and 3b, while staying even with our current decent production at C. That makes it considerably more complicated. Doable, just complicated.
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obsessivegiantscompulsiveMonday, March 31, 2008 11:05:00 PM
Yeah, but some hitters still make it to the market, like Rowand, who I think is going to be a real find.

People seem to forget that Brad Penny is a damn good pitcher, sometimes, as the old baseball saying goes, you have to tip your hat to him. Hopefully they will be tipping their hats to Cain and Lincecum over the next two days. One loss does not portend a season of total misery, though it might feel that way to some fans.

And like I said, the team most likely will be a losing team, the disagreement between me and others are how bad they will be, some think they will be epically bad, losing 100 games, which has happened only once in Giants franchise history, I think they will be closer to .500 than that.

Oh, and that's something I want to point out, my error in my writing in my other post, I meant that the Giants will be closer to .500 than they would be to losing 100 games, not the 71 games I put there.
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AnonymousTuesday, April 01, 2008 7:17:00 AM
Superlative pitching.

Hilarious.
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AnonymousTuesday, April 01, 2008 5:32:00 PM
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Pitching & defense!.........except we don;t have any of that ......or hitting either.

It will be a major upset if the Giants win 70 games this year. Vegas has the over/under line at 72 1/2 games. That is just easy money.
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allfrankTuesday, April 01, 2008 6:50:00 PM
Yeah, Boof, bet your house on it. Put your money where your mouth is.
Martin, I lookad at Cinci's roster, both the 25 man and the 40 man and Capellan is on neither, so I assume he went back to the boston organization.
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obsessivegiantscompulsiveWednesday, April 02, 2008 7:20:00 AM
Good catch, allfrank, thanks! Well, he didn't pitch particularly well with us so I don't think he's was going to suddenly figure it out with the Reds.

I'll bet that, just like Felipe Alou was crowing about stealing Capellan away from Boston, Dusty Baker told the GM to take a flier on Capellan so that IF Capellan happen to make it with the Reds, then Dusty would be able to rub it in the Giants nose over it.

I'm not a betting man and I don't think there's easy money, too many things can happen, both good and bad, who can tell which year it is for you? The Reds when they won the World Series in the early 90's, I was so amazed when I looked over their team's stats after the season, a whole bunch of guys had a career year, along with the good players playing well, it was just their year apparently.

Not that I'm saying the Giants can duplicate that, just that it would not take a lot of bust out performances on the part of our young players to seed a better overall record.

But yeah, looks bleak right now, particularly since one reason why it should be bleak - Bocock playing instead of Vizquel - has actually been getting on base pretty well.

But you all know the baseball adage, that's why they play all the games, you just never know what will unfold.

Though I do see the (dark) humor in the situation: we are all arguing how bad the Giants will be, not how good, that we all agree that they are bad, just how bad is the debate. And that's part of the fun of baseball, the debate.
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AnonymousWednesday, April 02, 2008 8:48:00 AM
Yes, bad is certainly the operative word. I don't agree with your premise. I think they are going to be a lot closer to "epically bad" than "close to .500 bad." This is a team that is supposed to be built around pitching & defense and we've seen in the first 2 games and most of Sprig Training that neither of those 2 things are really there.
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allfrankWednesday, April 02, 2008 1:00:00 PM
Well this isn't true. Except for Zito's disastrous 1st inning, the pitching has been very good to OK. Even Hennessey wasn't getting hit very hard, they were mostly balls hit thru the IF.
The defense has been so-so. Durham is clearly an inadequate defensive 2b, and I don't expect him to remain with the team beyond the trading deadline. Aurilia has been a disappointment, as he has, 2 nights in a row, failed to anticipate a play at the plate and therefore been late with his throw. If Richie continues to hit and field this way, he'll hand the job back to Ort, so, I hope Ort is working on his swing. I would certainly prefer to see Ort and Velez, but I think the D will be alright, though not as good as expected.
Last night's game could have gone either way. The Gs clearly had multiple chances to win it. They are just as clearly gong to have to play nearly error free (both physical and mental) baseball to win. Even tho poor play lead to the loss, there is some encouragement to be taken from the game - and they clearly showed they can hold the other team down - and have the pieces, if they play just a little better - to win.
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AnonymousWednesday, April 02, 2008 11:56:00 PM
OK, so let's recap. The Opening Day starter is the biggest waste of $117M that has ever hit the planet. Durham....can't hit, can't field. Aurilia.....can't hit, can't field. 3B is manned by a guy who couldn't make the Marlins roster. Molina......very slow and cement hands.

Your SF Giants....pitching & defense.

Yeah, I guess you're right. It wasn't true.
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Giants 2018 Performance

Giants in 2019:

Offense Win/Loss: 16-20
Pitching Win/Loss: 16-20
Actual Win/Loss: 16-20
Giants W/L when score 4+: 10-6

Giants W/L when allow 3-: 11-5

Giants W/L when score 3: 4-3

Giants W/L when allow 4: 2-4

Giants W/L 1-Run games: 9-2

(+7 under .500, Bochy negative for 4 of last 6 seasons)

Giants Extra Innings: 2-0

Comeback Wins/Blown Leads: 9/4 (+5)

(as of May 6, 2019 games)

Giants in 2018:

Offense Win/Loss: 72-90
Pitching Win/Loss: 75-87
Actual Win/Loss: 73-89
Giants W/L when score 4+: 52-20
Giants W/L when allow 3-: 52-23
Giants W/L when score 3: 9-18
Giants W/L when allow 4: 11-12

Giants W/L 1-Run games: 26-30

(-4 over .500; Bochy has averaged ~ +4 over his career; but -17 last five seasons, 2012 was last positive season, until 2016)

Giants Extra Innings: 11-10

Comeback Wins/Blown Leads: 35/41

NL in 2018:

Record when score 4+ runs: 949-355

Record when allow 3- runs: 868-250
Record when score 3 runs: 142-200
Record when allow 4 runs: 163-154

Comeback Wins/Blown Leads: 516/528

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Monday, March 31, 2008

Walk Tall: Play Ball! Giants 2008 Season Opener Against D-gers

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