After a Month: 2009 Giants Looking Good

The Giants have reached .500 after a very poor start, doing it the way they are going to have to do it: with their starting pitching being at their most excellent (and usual) best. And they have had to go 8-3 to do that, after starting out 2-7, and that's after winning the season opener, so they had a bad 1-7 streak before going 8-3. After winning the first series, we then lost 5 straight games, losing those two series, before righting ourselves and winning the last four series.

The difference was that our starting pitching and offense was off (except for Cain) during that losing streak, and suffering some bad luck, early on. Then they kicked in starting with Jonathan Sanchez's marvelous duel with Haren that he won. We have played well enough that we could have had a 11 game win streak, with a break here and there, but we got some breaks along the way as well. All in all, I think it all evened out and we got what we deserved.

During this win streak, the Giants have averaged 4.0 runs per game, while allowing 2.5 runs per game. Obviously, that runs allowed will not continue for the season, but overall for the season the pitching staff is allowing 4.0 runs per game; that's a pace I think we can roughly continue, though it should rise a bit and be in the low 4's.

The offense, meanwhile, is average 3.9 runs scored per game, so .500 is where they should be. I think the offense has underperformed and hopefully will do better, though with young players, you never know. Plus, they were hurt by playing 6 games in two extreme pitchers parks in LA and SD, where they only averged 2.3 runs scored per game; scoring everywhere else, they have averaged 4.5 runs scored per game.

Clearly, when either the offense or pitching performed, we did well. The offense has scored 4 or more runs in 9 games out of 20 so far and the team was 7-2 in those games. The pitching has kept runs allowed 4 or less in 11 games, and the team was 9-2 in those games.

Offense has been adequate, but could be better

While scoring as little as last season, with the better pitching overall, that results in more wins. The big hitters so far have been Molina, Lewis, Rowand, Sandoval, and Renteria, with Schierholtz and Torres being great off the bench and Uribe being Uribe. The hitters who have been scuffling are Winn, Ishikawa, Burriss and Aurilia. Showing how things can change quickly due to small samples and only a month played, Winn and Lewis did well early on, but both have been horrible for around two weeks now, while Sandoval and Renteria have been hot recently after starting off cold and now have good stats while their stats were poor much of the season.

And some of the players look really bad so far. Lewis has a ridiculous 27 strikeouts in only 67 AB, and yet is still hitting .299/.420/.403/.823. The power he said he would be shooting for has not arrived yet, as he has no homers so far. Both Sandoval and Ishikawa have not shown much power either, so far only a homer between the two and Sandoval hit that one this week, when his bat suddenly woke up. That shows how things can change quickly early in the season, only a week ago, he was scuffling at .245/.286/.340/.625 and now he's hitting .307/.350/.440/.790.

Ishikawa and Burriss will have to pick things up, though Ishikawa should get a longer rope since he has no more options and we have no real option waiting at 1B (Guzman is doing well in AAA, but need more time at 1B before he can move up), plus Aurilia has not been hitting either, while Frandsen has been hot and Burriss has not, plus Burriss has two more options to burn. And apparently you only burn one if you are down in the minors for 20 days, so they could send him down briefly then bring him back up if he straightens out fast enough.

Pitching has been good, but could be better overall

While the team's ERA looks great, the team could get even better on an overall basis. While Matt Cain and Jonathan Sanchez probably won't continue as well as they have - both have had a bunch of luck so far - both Zito and Johnson have been unlucky with their results, and both should do much better going forward.

Zito I've discussed plenty, but some have soured on Randy Johnson already. The thing is, there has been some bad situations for him that should not recur often. In his first start, he actually pitched well for the most part, but just happened to give up 2 HR which cost him big time, including the crusher, a 3 run blast to the opposing pitcher, the first he had given up to any pitcher ever in his MLB career. He had another 2 HR game in his second start, plus had a lot of bad luck with hits there. His third start was great.

His fourth start was what pushed some to question him. However, I see his poor performance as understandable, he's a competitive guy, he got pushed out by the team he was most identified with and was facing them for the first time ever. He may be 45 and has nearly 300 wins to his name, but it is the rare person who does not lose control in those situations. And lose control he did, issuing 7 walks only 3.1 IP. Ignoring that game, he has pitched 15.2 innings, gave up 13 hits, 6 walks, and recorded 19 strikeouts. That's pretty good overall, the problems was that 4 of those hits were HR with runners on base, to boot. Both he and Zito should improve their stats from where they are now to much more in line with expectations, roughly low to mid 4 ERA.

The wunderkinds - Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez - have picked up the team and pushed them to .500 with their great pitching. Don't have much to complain about there, other than the walks, which could stand to be improved. While Cain and Sanchez should regress to the mean, they should be offset by Johnson and Zito doing the same by getting better, evening out each other.

The relief corp could use one or two lifting their game, particular Howry. But he's been having a bit of bad luck too, in terms of hits given up. But given how much less relievers throw than starters, that can and do last throughout a season. However, he has pitched well in 8 of his 10 appearances, so it is not like he's been that bad, just that he needs to continue to do well and avoid the big blowups that causes a loss. I also like the addition of Matos, he's got a power arm (one of many in our system) that has some prospect books tout him as a potential closer; you can always use more of those in the bullpen - Wilson obviously is the closer, Howry has pitched as well as a closer during much of career, and Affeldt some thought has closer potential.

Looking Forward: May

With only two days off, they will be playing 29 games in May, which will be a tough stretch. However, they start off with good matchups against Colorado: Johnson vs. Ubaldo Jimenez; Cain vs. Jason Marquis; and Zito vs. Hammel. Jimenez and Hammel have not been good so far. After a great first start, Jimenez has been awful and it does not look like he's getting any better, though it should be noted that he faced the two best offenses of the NL, LA and Chicago, in those three starts; he could get healthy facing the Giants lesser offense. However, Johnson should bounce back with a good game, I think, and that could be a competitive game. And Zito gets a break drawing Hammel, who has not been that good a pitcher in the majors thus far. Cain should beat Marquis in his sleep.

Beyond that, things will get tough as the team will be playing 17 straight days (including the above Colorado series), facing on the road, the Cubs for 2, Colorado for 2, and D-gers for 3, then we come home for 3 against the Nats and 4 against the Mets before the first break. Cubs have been not been tough so far, but they have a potent offense, as do the D-gers, and Mets (though they've been scuffling despite good stats overall, probably mainly because Jose Reyes, their leadoff guy, is scuffling, relatively, as is David Wright too). So only 5 easier games out of those 14 games, during that stretch after this weekend.

Then we end the month tougher. We go on the road and face SD for 3 and Seattle, which has been a surprise at 13-9, for another 3. We then come home for 3 against the Braves, who can be tough, and St. Louis, who is tough, a stout 14-7 so far.

Looking back at last year, they had a similar experience in April: started out poor then roar back to finish close to .500, at 13-16. However, they had a rough May, going 10-17. So May looks to be a key barometer for how the team will look later in the season.

They were 8-12 last year at the 20 game mark, so that's a 2 game swing improvement right there so far. If they can do that in May, then they would end up 13-16 in May and 23-26 overall.

They really weren't that bad most months in 2008. They were at or around .500 in April, June, August, and September. It was May and July that killed them in 2008, going 18-33 in those two months, 54-57 in the other months. Those were months where they faced a lot of teams in the other divisions. But once Sandoval and Ishikawa joined the team in mid-August, the team has been at around .500 since then. If they can just keep their record around .500 all May-long, that would be a huge improvement over last season.

Keys to May

Keys will be continued improvement from Johnson and Zito and continued excellence from Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez. I know: Duh! That's the key to this whole season.

Also, we will need Ishikawa and Burriss to start hitting, though I'm more hopeful for Ishikawa than Burriss, right now, as Burriss is striking out a lot more than usual, whereas this is within Ishikawa's normal batting range (which is not good, but for Burriss, this is new territory for him). And, of course, everyone else hitting pretty much the same, though of course, Molina will be falling back at some point, he's no 900+ OPS hitter. That is where the young players could start to pick up the slack.

I don't mention Winn because he's been such a pro, a steady player throughout much of his career, so I expect him to start hitting like he can at some point. But if he don't pick it up soon, hopefully Bochy would start resting him more often and giving Schierholtz starts in place of him. Even if he starts hitting, I hope Schierholtz starts to get more AB, as he has hit well in limited play so far, it would be great to see how he does with more AB.

Who knows, if Nate hits well enough, we might be able to trade Winn for some prospects during the season, because while I think Winn should warrant draft picks when he goes free agent, I have a feeling teams will pass on him and wait until after the arbitration period to sign him without giving us anything, because the Giants should not be offering him arbitration. It would be nice to be able to get something, anything, for him as we should not be aiming to win the division this season, but rather seeing which prospects are future starters and which ones aren't.
To boot, he's our best bet to trade. Both Rowand and Zito's contracts are too big. Molina don't really have a replacement, though we could throw Sandoval back there and see what happens, but if he fails, then there's no one in our system until Posey is ready. Johnson we might need next season. Howry is another possible trade, but he's here to boost the bullpen. Winn's contract is up at the end of the year, plus we have a replacement already on the roster, Schierholtz.