Catching up on a number of news reports, the most important are injury reports, starting with...
Matt Cain's Arm is Not Broken
That's the most important bit of news, that his arm was not broken when a line drive off of, of all people, the opposing pitcher hit him just below the elbow of his throwing arm. That's the first step towards a good injury report and perhaps we should be thankful that it was a pitcher doing it and not a regular player. Right now Cain is diagnosed with a contussion and listed as doubtful for the All-Star game, though he will attend and participate otherwise. He's still hopeful, but taking it day to day.
That's two Giants pitchers hit by a batted ball in about one half a season when I couldn't remember the last time a Giants pitcher was hit and injured by a pitch. So that should hopefully cover us for a long long time.
Late breaking new from Laurence Miedma: Cain officially off roster, replaced by Pirates Zach Duke. That's good, no use risking the dummy Manuel (really, skipping over Sandoval for the All-Star team; though the bonus is that Sandoval has hit a homer in each game after that snub) possibly tempted to use Cain in the All-Star game. Our star pitcher should be resting his arm and getting the bruise healed. Hopefully, though, he can do that AND get to participate in the All-Star game, hanging with The Kid.
Angel Villalona Out with Quad Strain
As reported first by Chris Haft, Angel Villalona will be out at least four weeks with a strained left quadriceps. This will cost him his spot in this year's Futures Game, which he had also participated in last season. He's only hitting .269/.308/.400/.708, with 9 HR in 290 AB. He had started out the season well in April and May with OPS over 800, but has been totally lost June and July, so perhaps he's been hiding this injury and not treating it. Hopefully he will get it healed up well and start hitting again.
Buster Posey Just Fine
Buster Posey the other week was hit in the head with a pitch - sorry, should have reported that big bit of news - but he was fine, just held out for about a week to make sure his head and brain are fine, and after two games of no-hits, the hitting machine turned on again and started slugging again. He should be in AAA pretty soon, I would think.
Dallas McPherson Just Not Fine
Anticlimactically, the slugging 3B Dallas McPherson, he of 41 HR last season in the minors, whom we signed this year after the Marlins inexplicably gave up on him and never even gave him a chance, has still not taken one AB for us yet. He had just been placed on the 7-day DL (minor leagues) the other week, but as far as I know, he's never put in any time with any of our minor league affiliates, though perhaps he's been participating in instruction league or maybe a rookie league.
Too bad he decided he would rather be with the Marlins last season - I think he grew up in the area - because had he signed with us, he would have been starting at 3B for us much of the year instead of Castillo and perhaps prevented Panda-monium from reaching us last season until September. Now with Sandoval entrenched at 3B, maybe he can grab 1B next season, if he ever gets any ABs.
Sanchez and Righetti
Andy Baggerly kindly provided a great interview with Righetti in his blog, plus a wonderful article on Sanchez and Righetti. I totally recommend reading both, they are excellent, as usual. I always see a lot of fans rag on Rags as our pitching coach, but I think the latter article shows a great example of how Righetti helped out Sanchez, and undoubtedly all our other pitchers too at some point. Hopefully they will remember this article the next time they think they know better than the Giants brass about how good Rags is as a pitching coach.
It also explains why Sanchez was so lousy to start the season. It was the damn WBC, as suspected, but not for what one might think. Apparently Sanchez saw Johan Santana do something and wanted to copy him, which screwed him up because he's tall and Santana is shorter. He resisted changing back until now.
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