Sweep, Sweep, Sweep D-Rox!

It was too much to hope for a sweep, as nice as it would have been, before the series, but with two games in hand, we have to go for the jugular, they have to step it up and finish the job. That would be a huge statement to the D-Rox and the league that the Giants are a team to be wary about when playing them.

And with Cain on the mound, that increases the odds for us, with a low 2 ERA for Cain, Hammel has a mid-4 ERA, but Hammel has actually been very good on the road, high 2 ERA, and he had a shutout the only time he pitched in AT&T. It will be a good test of the mettle of both Cain and Hammel, whether they can summon up enough to do well for their respective teams.

But with Kung Fu Panda healthy enough to slug two homers in the last two games - that was what was the big factor in our 17-10 month of June, him hitting homers - that has to give our team some confidence that we can pull out a victory tomorrow. His stature as THE man in our lineup has risen in this series, and if he can do it again tomorrow, I wish Bochy would just start batting him 4th, he would have proven his mettle to me, that the pressure of that lineup position wouldn't affect him.

Go Giants! Go for the Sweep!

Your 2009 Giants are 66-55: Rocking D-Rox

When you take a road trip to Cincinati, it is what it is: you never really know what is going to happen, even when the Reds are scuffling, like they are this season. Oddly enough, in a park known for being a hitter's park, we got to see two great pitching duels after a blow-out type of game in the first game of the series. We were lucky to get out with a series win, and yet we were not that far away - one key hit - from sweeping the series. In this wondrous season that we have had, we have not had a lot of those.

Again people complain about the offense. And I understand it, sort of, because it IS not very good. But first, you have to give Arroyo and Harang credit: both are good pitchers capable of shutting down the opposing team, whether a 90 pound weakling like the Giants or teams with a good offense, like the Mets earlier in the season or the Phillies. Second, it's a rebuilding year, there is always something wrong with a rebuilding team, even if they happen to be good enough to be competing for a playoff spot. It's like Doogie Howser: he was advanced for his years in his brains but still developing regarding his social skills and such. The Giants are advanced in pitching but still developing regarding their offense. Rushing either is futile and counter-productive.

Lastly, people get too hung up and defensive about the offense, like it being bad reflects badly on them, seemingly, or others have a "size" problem with regards to offense, where if it is not good at any position, the offense is hopelessly flawed. I think part of that comes from people used to the great offenses of the 1960's and others newbies who only knew the great offenses with Barry Bonds in the middle. If there is one hitter who is not pulling his weight, then we must go out and trade for some mega-superstar hitter from Team X.

The point is not about having an offense that can pummel the other side into submission, the point is situating the offense and defense such that we can win more games than we lose. Surprisingly to me, this point is missed by so many people, they run around like chickens with their heads chopped off or the sky is falling, but the fact is the Giants are 66-55, only 2 games out of the wild card, 5.5 games off the division lead. Chill, act like you've been in a pennant race before.

Da Rockies


These upcoming games are the most important 10 game stretch for the Giants in years. With the Giants close to the Wild Card leader, D-Rox, they play 4 against them in Colorado, then play another 3 against D-Rox the following week at home. These games could put the Giants in control or too far back in the wild card race. Winning the series in Colorado would bring us back to even with them in the Wild Card race. This is the time for the players to show what they are made out of.


In the first series, the Giants will throw at them these starters: Sanchez, Martinez, Lincecum, and Zito. They will face Cook, De La Rosa, Jimenez, and Marquis. They are D-Rox's best starters, with us missing Hammel. That seems to be too much of a coincidence to not think that they planned this ahead of time. At least we got our best against their best, Lincecum vs. Jimenez. And, in fact, they all seem to be evenly matched, based on overall stats, Sanchez vs. Cook, Martinez vs. De La Rosa, Zito vs. Marquis.

And we have pitchers who can or have done well in Colorado. Martinez has allowed 53% ground balls, which is what you want in Colorado. Sanchez also gets a fair amount of ground balls too, about 40%, which gives him a career GB/FB ratio of about 1.0, which is not too bad for a power strikeout pitcher who relies less on secondary pitches that often fail to do their magic in the thin air of Colorado. Of course, Lincecum gets a lot of groundballs, about 45% for his career, which is good and about 10% more than flyballs, along with all his strikeouts.

Zito is a contradiction. Unfortunately, Zito is a flyball pitcher, with a GB/FB ratio safely under 1.0, meaning he gives up a lot more flyballs than groundballs, and that's bad news. The good news there is that a good number of them are usually infield flyballs, but the bad news then is that this was when he was an A's pitcher, this year is his first with the Giants where his infield flyballs is near the percentage when he was with the A's (12.2% this year; 13.6% for his career, lowest as A's was 13.3%, avearge almost 16%). However, he has pitched well in Colorado: 4 starts, 27.0 IP, 21 hits, 12 BB, 14 SO, 3.00 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, so who knows?

In the second series, the Giants will throw these starters: Lincecum, Zito, Cain. It should be the same matchups unless D-Rox skip Hammel so that Cook faces Cain: Lincecum vs. Jimenez, Zito vs. Marquis, Cain vs. Hammel. Cain vs. Hammel should give us an advantage in this series, so that is not too bad. And the Giants have rocked at home this season, for the most part.

If we can get series wins from each, 3-1 and 2-1, we would be one game ahead of them in the wild card race (though with Florida big streak until the two most recent games lost, they could be passing both of us up soon, plus Atlanta is making a move too). Even if we split the first series and win the one at home, that still leaves us only one game behind D-Rox, which is still pretty good.

Of course, I would prefer the Giants go on a 10 game winning streak and just put them all behind us in the rearview mirror. We haven't had one good winning streak this season, and yes, that is because the offense has been so inconsistent this season. Still, as I noted in one of my comments somewhere, the offense with Franchez batting 2nd is an improvement so far, even though his OBP, SLG, and OPS are nothing to smile about (but .304 BA is), with the team averaging 4.77 runs when he starts.

And, aye, that is the rub, he hasn't started every game the Giants have had since obtaining him, only 13 out of the 20 games. He won't get his option vested if he keeps on missing so many games. And we won't get into the playoffs. Hopefully the training staff can keep him going, at least for the games against Colorado and LA.

What's That in the Road, A Head?

Looking ahead, after this 10 game stretch, there is a 9 game stretch starting on September 11 where we play the D-gers 3 games at home, then 3 games at home against D-Rox (last games), then 3 games on the road against the D-gers. Depending on how the Giants do in this 10 game stretch, that stretch could be even more important to our pennant hopes as we are playing both of our main competitors for the division title and the wild card race.


The good news is that interspersed with all these important games, we play a good number of games against losing teams. In-between the two series with D-Rox, we get to start our homestand next week against the D-Backs. We then get a tough road trip against the Phillies and Brewers, though the Brewers have experienced a second half slide, but then we start a home stand against the 'Dres, before that possibly important 9 game stretch against LA, CO, LA. Then we end the season with 4 against the struggling Cubs, 3 against Arizona in the last series at home, then travel down to San Diego for 3 against the 'Dres.

We potentially have 19 games against teams who are either down or sliding down in the second half mixed in with all the games against LA and CO (out of 41 games remaining). And even if we should not be up to the task and fall further behind after all these important games, with 10 games that should be easier to win at the end of the season, the Giants might still be able to make a late charge (with Bowker, Guzman, Rohlinger, Matos, Pucetas, Espinelli, and others on the bench) and threaten the leaders. And, of course, if we should be in the lead, put some more distance between us and them.

Go Giants!

Conspiracy Theory: Rockies Playing Ball Game

The legend of the Rockies humidor for baseballs is known by most: able to leap outfield fences in a single bound, the previously "super" baseball in Colorado's thin air is rendered mortal by the kryptonite that is the humidor. Once the team started using the humidor, scoring was not as rampant in the Rockies homepark. However, this was not an absolute, scoring is still on the high side there, just not as bad.

Because of this seemingly random nature, rumors have run through the grapevine since this humidor was put into play that the Rockies would selectively use (or not use) the humidor balls depending on the situation, in order to better their chances of winning, but nothing concrete had ever been exposed that I know of, nor did I seriously think that they would do something like that. Then again, no one ever though a football team would secretly videotape their opponents like the New England Patriots did, which is why I've discounted their Super Bowls wins.

But after this recent trip through the thin air, I have to wonder. Following, for your conspiratorial pleasure, is what I saw:

Game 1

Misch vs. Cook. Misch relies on his breaking pitches extensively to be effective, and he's been very erratic even when on. The thin air and pre-humidor balls essentially makes it near impossible to throw breaking pitches. Cook is known of his sinker and as one of the few (only) pitcher who is not reliant on the fastball to actually pitch well in Colorado.

If I were to fix the game in the Rockies favor, I would use non-humidor balls and try to win in an offensive blowout because the Rockies have more offensive weapons than the Giants and Cook is a better pitcher than Misch is.

Actual result: 10-5 win for the Rockies, their offensive wins the day.

Game 2

Lincecum vs. Jimenez. Lincecum has been dialed in all season and Jimenez has been totally undialed all season. Lincecum isn't helped or hindered much by thin air, but Jimenez would be helped greatly by using humidor balls.

If I were to fix the game in the Rockies favor, I would use humidor balls and try to luck into a win in a pitcher's duel, because either way, Lincecum is probably shutting them down, hopefully the Giants weak offense would be shut down by Jimenez with the help of humidor balls.

Actual result: 1-0 win for the Rockies, in a pitcher's duel, they win in the bottom of the ninth on a blown play at home where they should have been out had the ball been on the screws to Molina, but he was forced to reach for the throw and then try for the tag, bang-bang play, we lose.

FIRST GAME EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE PARK WHERE BOTH TEAMS WERE SHUT OUT INTO THE 9TH INNING. FIRST! In 15 seasons and 65 games, and I believe the farthest any other game had gotten was into the 7th. And the way hitters weren't hitting, who knows how long the game would have continued if the runner was out. It could have been legendary, mark my words.

Game 3

Sanchez vs. Reynolds. Sanchez has been aces for most of the season and Reynolds has not, much like the game 2 matchup of this series. However, unlike Lincecum, Sanchez would be totally hindered by a pre-humidor ball because he relies on his breaking pitches, while Reynolds was bad either way.

If I were to fix the game, I would use pre-humidor balls in hopes of outslugging the Giants, like in game 1, though this time Sanchez is better than Reynolds, so you would need some luck too, to win.

Actual Result: Giants win in a slugfest, 10-7. The work their way back to 8-7, back one run, but their bullpen blows it and give up 2 more runs, making it 10-7. Giants bullpen has been superb for the most part in the series and helped win this game by shutting D'Rocks down when they needed to.

If you just look at the overall numbers, the Giants don't look like much of an offensive team, but they have had a number of games where they scored runs in bunches. That is what happens when you rely on young players, some games they don't get it and the offense suffers, but on the days they are locked in, your offense does great. We saw that last year, we have seen it this year, we will see it next year.

Sanchez on Pitching in Colorado

Here are some key quotes from Sanchez (underlining what I've said before about getting different looks from each reporter):

• Mercury's Baggarly usual superlative reporting: "Nothing was working for me. I was wild all day. My ball wasn't moving at all. My slider was spinning, my sinker didn't work and my fastball was up" Holm told Sanchez to throw it over the plate and say a little prayer. However, Bochy thought "he had pretty good stuff," so there was that.
• Chronicle's Schulman very fine reporting: He got [the win] even though "nothing worked for me. I'd go 2-2, 3-1, 3-0. That's how it was all day. The ball wasn't moving. The slider was spinning. The sinker didn't work. I got the win because the team did what it had to do.
• sfgiants.com's Haft: "I didn't have my stuff today. Nothing was working for me. I had no movement at all."
• AP's Pat Graham (I wonder where Janie McCauley is, she usually handles Giants games): "I didn't have my stuff today. My ball wasn't moving."

That's funny, I thought using humidor balls was suppose to alleviate this type of situation. Did someone accidently turn off the humidor? Did someone accidentally pull out the plug, like Marc Anthony did when he thought that Pussyfoot was in the mixing bowl (classic Looney Tunes cartoon)? Grab the balls from the wrong bag? ("Oh, those are from the new ball bag when I grabbed some balls up? Sorry!"

And I can understand if one or two balls, or even a small percentage, for whatever reason, just didn't take to the humidor - for whatever reason - and played like a regular ball would, but this was all game long for Sanchez. He threw over 100 pitches over 5 IP, just enough to get the win. Luckily the Giants bullpen is built more on fastballs this season - which is not affected by the thin dry air - and they shut down the D-Rocks the rest of the game, plus the offense picked up 2 key insurance runs. It would have been much different if D-Rocks were only 1 run back when the Giants bullpen got in trouble.