Your 2014 Giants: Fickle FInger of Fate, Part Deux: Sans-a-Belt

You read the news today, oh boy:  Belt HBP, broken thumb, says he's out six weeks.  He'll be DLed tomorrow.  He's one of our leading hitters with .815 OPS and team lead in homers.



ogc thoughts

Some say that timing is a bitch:  Ishikawa, who we picked up for such a possibility is already on the DL (ironically with a thumb injury, as reported by Schulman), so he's out.  Too bad, that would be perfect right now, strong defensive 1B who hit RHP OK, platooning with Posey at 1B with Sanchez then catching.  He had roughly a .340 OBP and .750 OPS against RHP playing regularly from 2008-2012, which is not that bad if he's batting 7th with great defense, as he saves roughly 1.1 wins per season (more given the Giants strong pitching and defense).

The options that the beats reported that Bochy noted were Posey, Sanchez, Morse, Arias (who took over 1B after the injury), and perhaps Duvall from Fresno, as he's on the 40-man, recently started starting at 1B, and just hit his 11th homer.  Bochy also mentioned about getting Blanco more playing time to get his bat going.  He also said that despite having Cain and Huff about ready to re-join the team, that going with 13 pitchers is not necessarily what they are going to do.  Thus Kontos might go back down for Cain while they bring in a position player for Belt.

This is the exact situation why Morse was signed for.  Look at us right now, we got so many legit middle lineup guys that we can afford to bat Pence 2nd most games.  Now he'll bat more often in the middle while probably Crawford will inherit #2 duties.  Had the Giants started Blanco as many stated was the more logical choice, we would be lacking in the middle, particularly with Sandoval's cold bat.

I think the short-term plan right now is for Morse to play 1B mostly, allowing Blanco to start in LF and get regular AB's and hopefully get his bat going.  Then I think Arias will be coming in to replace Morse at 1B, though frankly he's so bad defensively there too that I don't know if there's any defensive improvement, but it would give him more AB's to hopefully get HIS bat started.  Though with Belt out, maybe Bochy will rather keep him in instead.  We will see.  At minimum, this should be better for his hamstring, which the media has been reporting as the reason he's been getting replaced so much late in games.

Both Blanco and Arias have been good bench players for us in 2012-13, but both sucks so far this season.   Morse is probably not going to get as much rest in terms of games not started, given this injury, unless Blanco starts to get hot, probably.  This should give him more ABs and hopefully get his bat started.  If he can hit like normal, he could bat 2nd behind Pagan and be the prototypical #2 hitter.   But while his bat is cold, probably Crawford will see #2 duties while Blanco bats 7th or 8th (if they move Hicks up instead; I see that as probable, then Blanco could become a secondary leadoff guy plus add speed down in the lineup).
Since Duvall was mentioned, I think he'll be up for Belt, but will sit on the bench, getting occasional starts at 1B and 3B, so that the major league staff can kick his tires and see what he got.  That way, they can give advice on what he needs to work on when he returns back to AAA.   He could be a nice power bat off the bench that we don't really have right now, since Pill was traded to Korea, as well.

It will, as the old Chinese curse notes, interesting times for the Giants here.  I think the above will be an experiment to see if they can get this to work for the team  But if not, then when Ishikawa is ready to play, they will probably bring him up and have him provided stellar defense at 1B (better than Belt) while platooning there with Posey, giving Sanchez extra starts, moving Morse back to LF.

Blanco would probably have to hit pretty well for that not to happen, because the Giants would be better with Blanco coming off the bench as able insurance in case of injury.  Particularly since Ishikawa would probably provide the same offense and defense contributions as Blanco would.  Plus, that would keep Morse in LF, where he's more familiar with this season since he's played there more.  And the Giants under Sabean has liked to have good to great defense at firstbase, and Morse would not provide that.