Your 2010 Giants are 18-15: Licking Our Wounds, Facing the 'Stros

Well, that couldn't have gone any worse.  And we get to face them again in SD at the start of the next road trip, after this series with the Houston Astros.  And this time we were not reeling from the loss of Rowand from the top of the lineup, replaced by an wholly ineffective Eugenio Velez.  Luckily, the Giants have been so damn good against other teams - 18-9 record against everyone else - that we are still 3 games over .500, though now only 1.5 games ahead of the surging D-gers.

But that's the NL West every year in recent years.  One teams charges to the top, other's charge up and down, usually there are changes in the leader.  It is up and down all year, very disorienting sometimes.  But do you want to be the pilot spiraling downward with no sense of the ground or the one who is oriented relative to the ground?

We still have one of the best pitching staffs around.  The offense, while clueless so far against San Diego, particularly Matt Latos, felony vandalist (idiotically flung a ball into a public parking area in SF, where people walk to and from the park, particularly people like the family of ballplayers, and luckily - well, not for the owner of the car - all it did was destroy the sun roof of the new car of one of the Giants announcers, Dave Flemming), has been pretty good otherwise against the rest of the NL, at least the NL we have faced so far.  So now we face the Astros at home.

Game 1:  Felipe Paulino vs. Wellemeyer

My recent discussion with Boof reminded me that I'm no staunch supporter of Bochy - I like most things but am afraid that he won't have what it takes to get us that World Series Championship - and this bothered me.  The talk early this week was the possibility of skipping Wellemeyer in the rotation and starting Lincecum on Friday.  Which is fine, then we have our three best starters going against Houston.  But then I find out that even if they start Lincecum on Friday, they would still start Wellemeyer on Saturday, to keep the other starters on schedule for rest.

Then why even think about doing this?  The whole thing would only give Lincecum one less day of rest and Wellemeyer one more day.  That goes totally against what Bochy said earlier about giving Lincecum and the other young starters plenty of rest to keep them fresh later in the season.  And, frankly, as far as I'm concerned, Wellemeyer is dead man walking, holding the spot warm for Bumgarner later in the season (and which I was hoping for since we signed Wellemeyer).

Plus, which would you rather do, have Lincecum face Paulino and Wellemeyer face Oswalt?  That would assure one win and one loss.  Whereas with this configuration, we have a good chance of winning both.

Paulino is 0-5, 4.67 ERA, walking way too many batters.  Wellemeyer has even worse looking ERA but the key thing is he's pitching at home, where he has a 3.31 ERA so far.  And the one time Paulino pitched here, he was bombed for 9 runs in 2 innings, by our poor offensive team from last season.  Have to lean in the Giants favor here for this game.

Game 2:  Roy Oswalt vs. Lincecum

Oswalt righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 2.63 ERA now, but he's facing Tim Lincecum, with a 1.86 ERA overall, 2.01 ERA at home this season (and wow, he's been basically the same home or road his whole career).  And it is not like Oswalt did that poorly in his game against us, it was not like we owned him, it was just that Lincecum owned Houston.  Plus, Oswalt has not done well in AT&T, 4.39 ERA, good K/BB, but poor K/9 and thus a lot of hits.  He's good, but Lincecum is better, but still, he's good, so I would lean towards the Giants as this is certainly no gimme, even if it is a Lincecum day.

Game 3:  Brett Myers vs. Zito

Myers has also righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 3.52 ERA now.  Zito has been nothing short of amazing this season, but he was back to his old ways in his last start.  Has the wheel gone off that bandwagon?  I don't think so, I think Zito should have a good start.

However, he'll need to because Myers has pitched pretty well against the Giants in SF.  Only two games, but if you look at his K/BB and K/9, he has been dominating.  He pretty much shut them down in his last time here and the one where he was bombed the prior start, it just looks like one of those days where the balls just fell in (or perhaps Pat Burrell was playing LF), as he still struck out 6 in those 4 IP.

I think the rubber game is a toss-up, both pitchers should be going good, plus Myers is a LHP, and the Giants have been scuffling against lefties lately.

Giants Thoughts

After the tough sweep at the hands of the 'Dres, the Giants get another tough series against the Astros.  Still, they have a good enough chance of winning the series, though also a good chance they might lose.  It looks like it could go either way, but I lean towards the Giants because we have a good chance of winning the Paulino start and strong possibilities of winning the Oswalt start.  And we will need a series win because we face the 'Dres for a two game road trip after the Houston series, and Sanchez gets to face Latos again (three's a charm, hopefully, for us).

DeRosa is expected to sit out this series.  He has gotten a cortisone shot to help the nerve problem calm down and the timetable right now is to see where it is at on Sunday.  If it's not getting better, he'll probably go on the DL.  Baggarly reports on it here and Schulman here, and it sounds like the Giants are not even sure if surgery is needed to fix things up, at least not immediately (it does sound like there is a "good chance" that it will happen eventually).  Sounds like the Giants are going to try all options up to re-doing the surgery to get DeRosa contributing this season.

I really like Schulman's take on it, I think he nailed it.  Every signing involves risks and obviously the Giants have lost their bet so far.  But the game isn't over yet, in their view, whereas most people act like the two years are up already and we are ready to judge.

With DeRosa out, Bowker and Torres look to be getting starts based on a platoon basis, though I assume that if Bowker is hitting well, Bochy will keep starting him.  I do like how Bochy handles his hitters in general, unlike fans who bury a player forever or fall in love with another, I have not seen Bochy do this much, though many fans think he does.  He gives his players chances to play, even if he hasn't delivered this season, based on prior good performances.  But if the players cold, he will give others the opportunity to start and see what they can do.  He can't help it sometimes if everyone is slumping, he goes with the vet.  I would too, that is proven prior performance.  For the young guys, you give them rope but at some point you have to look elsewhere if they are not performing, and particularly if suddenly someone else is performing.

If he really had anything against using Bowker, as some have commented at sites I go to, he would not have been getting occasional chances to do something, he would not have gotten the chances to deliver in key pinch-hitting spots, and would not have gotten the start yesterday.   I'm still hopeful for Bowker to deliver, but with Schierholtz hitting, I would give him the job too.  Whoever is delivering, whoever wants it more, whoever, it seems for our young Giants, isn't pressing more.

ogc'ed:  Defending Sabean

As I noted in my comments, can't be more succinct than DrB in his comment on his site here.  Also, I liked what some guy wrote on MLBTR, he said he was "ogc'ed" when I replied to a comment of his:  so I recently ogc'ed someone on Extra Baggs:


Defending Sabean is easy:  Best rotation in the majors once Bumgarner is ready, by far, 1 to 5, possibly one of the best rotations in a generation or two (I can only think of the Orioles rotation in late 60's and early 70's), great bullpen with possible improvements lurking in the minors, we have potentially one of the best hitters of his generation in Sandoval and Posey looks to be just as good and at catcher, they should make our middle of lineup look great from 2011-2015 at least, and there are a lot of good prospects in the minors who could become solid cogs on the team of the '10s, Belt, Noonan, Kieschnick, Crawford, Neal, Sosa, Gillaspie, Joseph, Adrianza, Peguero, RafRod, Stoffel, Dominguez, Perez, Pill, Tanner, Bond.

You don't throw out the baby just because the diaper is dirty.  And if your GM isn't making mistakes, he's not trying hard enough to win, there are going to be mistakes made because the process is imperfect, humans are imperfect.  You have to look at the big picture and know which mistakes are forgivable and which are not.

The rotation could be the equal to the Giants lineup of the 60's and the Bonds prime lineups, and studies by Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times show that it is pitching and fielding that gives a team a competitive advantage in the playoffs, that offensive might provides no advantage in the playoffs.

Offense is not a core competency, for those of you into business strategy, it is just hygiene, for those of you into Geoffrey Moore, of Crossing the Chasm fame:  something your business needs to function but not critical to the long term success of your company.  And for that Moore recommends that you outsource that function, which, in baseball, means you go to hire free agents.

But unfortunately, this is not like a grocery store, when you need a great hitting OF, all there is is a great hitting 1B and maybe he doesn't want to play in SF.  So rebuilding an offense is never a quickie, it takes time to do that so that the offense is good enough to win with the great pitching you have put together.   Fans need to be patient with the process.


I can only imagine that Bobby Cox probably got all these comments while he was rebuilding the Braves.  6 years of wretched losing, the Giants only had about two years plus two more years of bad enough losing.  But it takes time to rebuild correctly.

And look at how he rebuilt them.  The hitters come and go for the most part but was anchored by Chipper Jones all those years.  Sandoval is hopefully that hitter for us, but it could be Posey too.

But it was their pitching that carried those teams, that was their identity.   And what a rotation that was, especially once they signed Maddux:  Maddux, the premier pitcher of his time, Glavine, and Smoltz.

We have our Maddux in Lincecum, then have Cain, Sanchez, and Zito as well, if he can continue pitching like this, well, that is a huge bonus.  Plus we have Bumgarner who should be joining soon enough.  And Wheeler looks to be good as well.

The Giants are set to be one of the dominant teams of the 2010's and all you Sabean Naysayers can do is sturm und drang about past mistakes.  They happened:  get over it.  Open up your eyes and see the team as if you were looking for a team to follow for the first time and you didn't know what a GM is.  Then maybe you will focus on the most important point:  the Giants have a great team and a great future.