Interesting Giants News

Cycle Around A Posey

Baseball America reported that our shiny new catcher of the future, Buster Posey, nearly got a cycle in the best way - only needed a single - for our Arizona Instructional League team. Going 3-for-3, he hit his third double, first triple, and first homerun as a professional. In addition, he walked twice, scored three times and drove in three as well. Through 4 games, he's 7-for-16 (!) with a batting line of .438/.500/.938 (which doesn't make sense: 7-for-16 means his batting average is .438, but with two walks, his OBP should be higher than his BA, however, .938 sums the first two numbers unless it is a coincidence that his SLG is the same as his BA plus OBP, in which case his OPS is a Bondsian 1.438; yep, his SLG is .938).

Bullpen Effective in One Key Way

While the bullpen has been bad at times in terms of giving up a lot of runs, one area they have shined in this season is inherited runners. Sfgiants.com reported that the Giants rank 4th in the NL having stranded 73% (178 of 245) of its inherited baserunners. They probably just hasn't been that good with their own

Pitching Staff Having Nice August

Before yesterday's blowup, the Giants had a 3.99 ERA in August. If they can keep it there or lower, it would be first month this season where they were able to collectively keep it under 4.00. Previously, the prior four monthly ERAs were 4.11 or higher.

Hit Streaks Over

As well as Pablo Sandoval ending a 9 game hitting streak recently (he's only played 11 games!), Emmanuel Burriss also had a career-best 6 game hitting streak end as well in Tuesday's game. Burriss also had hits in 9 of his last 10 games played, a streak where he hit .464/.583/.500/1.083, one of the few times you are ever OK with seeing a player have an OBP higher than his SLG. He had 8 walks versus only 2 strikeouts in 28 AB. That's one good thing about Burriss is he's able to avoid the strikeout, putting more balls into play. And Carney Landsford thinks that he can hit for more power and will be working with him to get that working by next season.

I blame myself for Sandoval's Oh-fer: I added him to my fantasy team that day... In the games he has started for the Giants - obviously skewed since he hit in most of those games - the team has averaged 4.4 runs per game; for the season, the team has averaged 3.8 runs per game where Sandoval didn't start the game. With the August runs allowed of 4.24, that works out to a .519 winning percentage, or roughly a 84 win season. If the pitching can improve - and August was skewed upward by Palmer two poor outings - and get the runs allowed to the 4.0 level, that works out to a 89 win season if they can consistently score 4.4 runs while allowing only 4.0 runs.

Low Runs Allowed in 2009 Possible

Such a low runs allowed is possible in 2009. Lincecum has been, and looks like he's going to be, unstoppable. Cain appears to be consolidating his gains in development and dropping his ERA, most probably, for the second straight season. Any lower, and he's an ace to pair up with Lincecum. Sanchez appears to have had a breakout year and hopefully will consolidate his gains in development in 2009. Correia in his last few starts is starting to show the starter that he was at the end of 2007, and if he can just be consistent, he could get his ERA into the mid 4's or lower.

Lastly, for the rotation, Zito has shown sporadic signs that he might finally be coming out of the abyss that has been his Giants career. We will see. But if he is finally able to "hang loose" and pitch like he used to when he was with the A's - a big "if" - then that would be a huge factor in whether the starting rotation can keep their overall ERA below 4.

For the bullpen, Wilson has been the only consistently solid season-long performer there, though I should give Yabu some props for what he has done. For the rest of the pen, while there are stinkers that boost up the overall poor performance, if Hinshaw and Romo can continue to do well, then the Giants could have their setup men for 2009 set, and the performance should be that much better.

Also, I like Taschner and think he can continue to do well as a LOOGY. He was lights out in May and June, before a mediocre July then a horrible August thus far. His ERA would be under 4 right now if not for the bad August stats. So yes, bullpen has been bad this season, but right now it looks like it will be in much better shape in 2009 with Hinshaw and Romo in there, plus Taschner and Walker being used more strictly as LOOGY and ROOGY.