Giants v. Padres, Giants v. Marlins

Greetings to all of our friends who love the two-time World Champion SF Giants! The G-Men are now 35 and 31, 1.5 games back in 2^nd place

It’s a time of year during which we are still trying to figure out this team.  Yes the Giants are playing .530 ball (below the .570 they need to assure taking the division) but the entire NL West is struggling. Being a game and half back at this time of year is not a cause for serious concern or panic.  We won’t have a good handle on this division until the All-Star break at the earliest, and maybe not even then. One day it’s a struggle and the Giants are being shut out and the next day they are blowing out the best team in baseball.  All we can do is watch and hope that there are no more injuries.

The Pirates series was a microcosm of the season.  Two bad losses (one with 20 runs scored in the game by both teams) and then a 10-0 blow out before heading out to Atlanta.  If the Giants win today they will finish this particular road trip at .500 or above; that’s pretty sweet against the teams they have played (2 out of 3 from the Snakes, 1 of 3 from the Pirates and so far 1 and 0 from the Braves).

The Positives

The offense is the best that we’ve seen from the Giants since the early 2001 and 2002 teams of Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds.  They are toggling between the best and second best batting average and the most runs scored in the NL.  That hasn’t even been affected by the rash of injuries (see below), which is awesome.  The defense is tightening up (we may have the 4 best defensive fielders in baseball, between Torres, Blanco, Pence and now Perez – they cover a lot of ground) and Brandon Crawford is beginning to look like a lock as an All-Star shortstop (besides hitting at a current .294 clip with power). Buster Posey is once again looking like the league MVP, batting .313 with 8 dingers (and yesterday’s three doubles) and looking like Carleton Fisk behind the plate. Hunter Pence has played in every game, is batting .299 and has 11 home runs. These guys are for real.

On the pitching side Cain and Bumgarner have righted the ship and have had back to back shut out games (against the Pirates and the Braves) and we haven’t seen much of Romo because the G-Men have either been so far ahead, or so far behind, that he hasn’t been needed. Gaudin is pitching today against the Braves, and so far he is solid as he has been in his first two starts since taking over for Vogelsong after he went on the DL with a broken hand. There has been a lot of movement up and down from Fresno and it’s been effective; Perez for Pagan, Abreu for Scutaro and a succession of catchers. On the good news side Casilla is looking he might be back next week. He’s needed with Kontos being ineffective and being sent down to Fresno. On top of that when Kontos does come up he has to serve a 3 game suspension for plunking Andrew McCutcheon in the Pirates series.

Can something be both a positive and a negative?  Case in point is Barry Zito, with a 1.78 ERA at home and a 10.94 ERA on the road.  It’s too bad that it can’t be arranged so that Zito only pitches at AT&T.

The Negatives

The injuries that are piling up. Scutaro and Vogelsong out with hand injuries, Pagan with a hamstring that won’t heal and the Panda (overweight by 70 pounds) with a bad foot. Pablo is due back for the Padres series and Scutaro might also be back. Pagan remains a question mark.

We are all wondering if Scutaro will pull a Ronnie Lott and just cut off his little finger that has a bad tendon (it’s called mallet finger – Lott had the same thing before the 1985 playoffs and just cut off his finger so he could continue to play).

The Giants are rumored to be in the market for a starting pitcher because they need Gaudin in the bullpen, and Lincecum continues to be ineffective (and might be demoted to the bullpen himself). Leading the pack of speculation is Bud Norris from the Astros, Ricky Nolasco from the Marlins and Mark Buehrle from the Blue Jays. The G-Men don’t want a rental and each of those three guys are under control of their club for at least the next two years.

The Series to come

The Padres are in 4^th place and with the injuries to the Rockies (Tulowitski being on the DL with a broken rib being the worst – he’s out for six weeks at least) they are expected to move up and challenge the Giants.  The Padres are 33 and 34, 2 and half games behind the G-Men so this series could very much result in a major NL West shift. The Friars have historically owned the Giants. This will be an important set of games.

The Marlins, on the other hand, are in last place in the NL East 18 and half games out.  If Nolasco is pitching watch to see how well he does at AT&T.  This will be a tryout. Can the G-Men take the Marlins?  Don’t be too sure.  The Giants have a bad history against last place teams (look at what happened against the Blue Jays in Toronto – they got pounded and then got pounded again at home).

Giants v. Nationals, Giants v. Rockies, Giants v. A's

The G-Men are now 24 and 20, tied for second place and struggling Actually, the G-Men are more than struggling, they are now playing at a percentage (.545) that won’t get them into the playoffs and they are looking lost in the process.  They need to win at a .567 clip to finish with 92 victories. Right now just winning a game (after a 1 and 5 road trip in which the starting pitching averaged a 9.82 ERA in losing 5 games) would be a very good thing.

The last home stand was very good. Our boys swept the Dodgers, lost 2 out of 3 to the Phillies and won 3 out of 4 from the Braves (a likely playoff team) for a 7 and 3 home stand.  In the one game that the Giants lost to the Braves (a 6 to 3 loss that wasn’t that close), however, the G-Men looked like boys playing against men, which was a harbinger of the disaster that this last road trip (the road trip from hell) turned into. One day they look pathetic, the next they look like the two time world champions that they are.

The Positives

The hitting is out of this world.  Scutaro is hitting .331 and is on a 17 game hitting streak. The Panda is right behind him at .302, with Posey (.294), Pence (.290) and Crawford (.288) all in the mix of hot bats (until today’s game when the G-Men were shut out for only the second time this year). The power is there also; Pence and Panda have 7 dingers each, Posey has 6 and Crawford has 5. Moreover the Gigantes are either 1^st or 2^nd in the NL batting with runners in scoring position, a sign that team hitting is clicking and Hensley Muelans is doing his job.

So, the question is: how do so many hot bats translate into a 1 and 5 road trip and falling into a tie for 2^nd place with the Rockies?

The Negatives

First, the starting pitchers are REALLY getting hammered, as a combined ERA of 9.82 on the road trip from hell shows. All the starting pitchers (including Bumgarner, who has now caught the “give up a big inning” disease also) keep giving up big innings. We now measure success by lasting 6 innings to keep the bullpen relatively fresh.  This cannot last people.  The bullpen is good (and Bochy just added a 13^th pitcher, not a good sign and it cost him Brent Pill off the bench, who was playing very well. There have been team meetings, soul searching and general angst.  Vogelsong is probably in the worst shape and he starts the game tomorrow night.  If he doesn’t last more than the 2 innings he made it through in his last start I think that the brain trust should think of sending him down to Fresno to get his head screwed on straight.

Second, the errors MUST stop.  The Giants have made 13 errors in the last six games, to 4 by the opposition. This from a team that prides itself on defense. The last time that there was a stretch of games that bad (in 84 I believe) the G-Men lost 92 games. Most of the errors (which shake up the pitchers, get them in the stretch early and help create the stressful big innings) are stupid errors (at least from major leaguers), like failing to hit the cut-off man (Pagan), not backing up a throw (Bumgarner), throwing off balance when you have no chance and throwing the ball away (Lincecum, Crawford and Panda).  These are brain farts. Unfortunately errors are like good hitting, they are contagious. Like Yogi Berra famously said: “we made too many wrong mistakes.”

The Series to come

The Nationals are in town for the next three days.  They are 2^nd in the NL east (23 and 21) behind the Braves.  This will be a test and we will hopefully see Bryce Harper (the rookie phenom, leading the Nat’s with a .297 BA and 11 dingers) play.  Last week he ran himself full speed into a fence (he is, after all only 20 years old and that play calls something about him into question) and is day to day.  This is a tough good team that is expected to make a run at the playoffs.

We know all about the Rockies (tied with the G-men one game back of the Snakes), and they are in over the weekend with a fully healthy Tulowitski and Carlos Gonzalez. After dropping 3 out of 4 to the Rockies on this last road trip hopefully the orange and black will be determined and will come back.

Finally, next week we have the interleague series against the A’s.  Always entertaining the A’s are a really good team (I love the “green collar” theme this year) and are in 2^nd place in the AL West behind Texas. This is your chance to see Donaldson (.317), Lowrie at short, Moss at 1^st, Crisp in CF and the team that has always played the Giants very hard.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar

Giants v. Phillies; Giants v. Braves

Greetings to all of our friends who love the two-time World Champion SF Giants! The G-Men are now 16 and 12 and having a weird year so far

Let’s start this blog off on a philosophical note.  There are a 162 games in a season and you can’t win every one.  If the G-Men finish with 92 wins they are an almost certain lock to win the NL West (they are now in 2nd place behind the torrid Rockies) or to get into the playoffs. 92 wins translates to a .567 season long wins versus losses ratio.  The Gigantes are currently winning at a .571 clip.  They are where they need to be so undue worry isn’t justified.

April has been weird. For example, the G-Men have already been involved in 5 series where there were sweeps.  The Giants won three of them (Rockies, Padres and Diamondbacks) and lost two (Brewers and Padres).  In addition, it seems like a majority of the games that they have won have been come from behind victories after the starters got pounded. Lots of late inning heroics (like Belt’s three run homer in the 8^th inning against the Snakes on Wednesday night in AZ).

So, let’s see what May will bring us, besides flowers and margaritas.

The Positives

Come from behind victories are a sign of character in a ball club; that means they never give up and they have confidence in themselves.  The G-Men have character to spare.  The fact Zito is still leading the team in batting average shows that.

In terms of players, Brandon Crawford (who has started every game but has cooled off at the plate) is making people forget all previous Giants shortstops (except maybe Omar and Richie). He is awesome, seldom makes errors and has shown enormous extra base power (tied with Pence with 5 homers, wow!).  Nick Noonan is a total gamer.  Who would have known?  He is batting something like .310 and will soon be pushing Scutaro for a starting job. He has already pushed Arias out of his usual late inning role.

Belt went into a slump but came out of it in a big way with game winning homers and hits.  It seems that the flu that caused him to lose 20 pounds in April and lose his stroke may have run its course.

Buster is picking up the pace after a totally flat April (he’s up to .267) and the Panda (4) and Pence (5) are blasting homers and generally looking like we expected them to look (fearsome at the plate with power to spare; the 470 foot Pence home run in Arizona was pretty awesome).

The Negatives

The starting pitchers are getting hammered.  They all (except Bumgarner, who is now the stopper) keep giving up big innings.  If someone had told me in March that Cain would have a 6.8 ERA and no wins in April I would have said they were crazy. Vogelsong is not far behind Cain, and Timmy is also over 4.  Zito (who is pitching tonight against Kershaw) has had a couple of meltdowns but is generally pitching well with 3 wins so far.

One of the really strange things is that the hitters the starters are not getting out seem to be the opposing teams 8^th and 9^th place batters. Opposing team pitchers are feasting on Giants pitching (first career home runs and the like).  That is a sign of a loss of concentration.

The bullpen (especially Romo, who has 11 saves already) is steady with Kontos and Gaudin being the best long guys.  The question now is what will happen when Affeldt gets off the DL (hopefully soon). Machi has been a revelation (he was brought up when Affeldt went down) and it will be hard to send him down again.  The problem is that he is a right hander.  The G-Men also seem to have a plethora of good young pitchers in the minors so if someone isn’t cutting it (do you hear footsteps Javier Lopez?) there are alternatives in Fresno.

On the defensive side of things there have been some brain fart type of errors (especially in the outfield) that have cost games.  Blanco and Pagan (both batting well above .280) both allowed the same guy to advance to 2^nd in two different games and in both he scored what turned out to be the winning run. Hopefully the coaches are working on this.

The Series to come

The Dodgers are 2 and half games back of the G-Men but hitting better as a team (Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzales and Matt Kemp are total studs).  The Dodgers problems have been injuries, pitchers and head cases (mostly pitchers but I put Hanley Ramirez in the head case category).  Tonight Kershaw goes against Zito.  This weekend will be a good test of the G-Men sucking up April and starting to play more consistent ball.

The Phillies are in 3^rd place in the NL East and basically playing .500 ball right now. Their big hitters are Michael Young and Chase Utley.  They have Kevin Frandson (remember him?) at third base. They also have some struggling starters (Halliday with an ERA of almost 7?) so the series should be very interesting. The Giants have a real chance here to make up some ground in the standings if they can hit the Phillies starters hard.

The challenge is going to be the Braves.  The tomahawk team is seriously hot right now. They are 17 and 11 and leading the NL East.  They are the team to beat.  Their big boppers are Justin Upton (traded from the Snakes because he was a head case) and Brian Johnson, the best catcher in the game not named Buster Posey. Their pitching has been great (most of their starters are hovering in the 3 ERA range) and the pitchers can hit (Tim Hudson has the best BA on the team – he and Zito were once teammates – maybe it was in the water in Oakland). If the Giants can take this four game series (or even split) they will have established themselves as the team to beat.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar

Giants v. Padres; Giants v. Diamondbacks

The G-Men after 15 or so games It’s very early in the season but never too early to start worrying. The G-Men came out of the gate pretty well (they have won every series until the last one) and are currently 9 and 7, but are third in the NL West after being swept by the Brewers in Milwaukee over the last three days. The hot team right now is the Rockies (they are supposedly no pitching but great hitting – however they have had both great pitching and good hitting so far and they are pounding every team they are playing). The Diamondbacks are second in the NL West at 8 and 6 and the Dodgers and the Padres are both below .500.

The G-Men have had problems on the mound and at the plate.  Currently the hitter with the best batting average on the team is Barry Zito, which says something (I’m not sure exactly what).  Buster is at .213 and can’t find his stroke, Belt got the flu early in the season, lost weight and still can’t seem to get untracked (hitting .170?)  The highlight reel guys are Brandon Crawford (who really is looking like the reincarnation of Cal Ripken Jr. and is batting .352) and, of course, Hunter Pence. Who would have believed that Pence would have already had 4 dingers and Crawford 3.

The solid players are the Panda, Scutero, Pagan and the new guy (Nick Noonan) who is really turning heads (although his shortstop range needs work).  The good news is that there have been comeback wins, the team is grinding and they are over .500.

The bad news is that the starting pitchers are looking vulnerable (except Bumgarner , who has a 1.77 ERA and is the star of the staff). Who would have believed that Matt Cain would have a 7.15 ERA after 5 starts (and no victories), that Barry Zito would have a 4.86 ERA and 2 wins (the ERA is mostly due to a REALLY bad inning in Milwaukee, almost matching Cain’s REALLY bad inning in the Cubs game last week).  Vogelsong isn’t doing much better with a 5.89 ERA.

The bullpen has been pretty solid; only one blown save by Romo and the only real injury so far is Affeldt (strained oblique) who is on the DL.  Affeldt’s injury did affect the bullpen rotation, which may have cost the game yesterday (although Zito’s giving up 7 runs in the second inning didn’t help matters much).

This home series against two NL West teams should be a real test.  The Padres are last in the NL West and are a classic “rebuilding team” but they are dangerous. I don’t know when Chase Headley is due off the DL but when he comes back the Padres offense gets dangerous again.  Also, the Padres staff ERA, it should be pointed out, is lower than the Giants.  Can the G-Men use a series at home against the Padres to right the ship?  We will see.

BTW: it was kind of interesting to see the Dodgers and the Padres mix it up last weekend and both lost players, which has hurt the Dodgers more than the Padres. Carlos Quentin was suspended for something like 6 games but the Dodgers Greinke is out for who knows how long with a shoulder injury from trying to match tackles with a hitter (who he plunked) that outweighed him by about 50 pounds (not smart).  Also, the Padres are riding a three game win streak including a victory against Clayton Kershaw and a sweep of the Dodgers.

The D’backs, on the other hand, are busy beating up the AL East at the moment (playing the Yankees, and winning).  Led by our old friend Cody Ross and Paul Goldschmidt, the Snakes have SIX regulars batting over .300 and a pitching staff ERA somewhere around 3.  There is a reason they are in second place with an 8 and 6 record. Arizona is for real and we will see them starting on Monday night.

Every game this year should be like a playoff game and the G-men have now sold ALL available season tickets so getting into the park will be a challenge.  On that note there is extra security this weekend at AT&T so if you get to the tickets, get to the game early.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar

Giants v. Cardinals (National League Championship Series)

The Series: The G-Men are playing the 2011 World Champion Cardinals, who got in (like they did in 2011) via the wild card. This is going to be a hard fought NLCS.  The Giants are the home team based on winning the division (and a better record) but the G-Men split the season series with the Cardinals 3-3, with a 1-1 split in SF and a 2-2 split in St. Louis.  The Cardinals (team BA of .271 and Team ERA of  3.71 are as close to the Giants (team BA of .269 and Team ERA of 3.68) as you can get. The Cards have more HR’s (159 to the Giants 103) but less stolen bases (G-men 118 versus Cards 91). Can you say evenly matched?

The question will be momentum and desire. The G-Men are coming off the most emotional comeback in the history of the NLDS, three games down on the road in Cincinnati and winning all three.  The Cards came back from 2 runs down in the 9^th inning of game 5 to knock out the Nationals (BTW: glad to see it, teaches the Nationals to shut down Strasberg for the playoffs, what horseshit was that?).  Will this series go the distance?  Hard to say but based on the statistics it looks like a 7 game series to me.

On the Cardinals side look out for Carlos Beltran (simple awesome, we should have kept him), Allen Craig, Matt Carpenter, David Freese, Descalso (perhaps the MVP of the Cardinals NLDS series) and Matt Holliday. Kozma, the new shortstop replacing Furcal, is a pistol and was batting .383 after one month in the majors. He is hot people. Finally, ignore Yadier Molina at your peril.  He might be the best catcher in baseball short of Buster. Pitching might be a weakness. But Lohse (16 wins and a 2.86 ERA), Wainwright (14 wins and a 3.94 ERA – he can be had BTW), Lynn (18 wins and a 3.78 ERA and a revitalized Chris Carpenter (just back from surgery) are going to be tough. The closer for the Cardinals (Motte) has 42 saves and is one of the save leaders of the NL.

The Positives:   Buster Posey. Period. Buster is best player in baseball right now (.338 BA, .408 OBA, 24 dingers, and 103 RBI’s) and the for sure MVP (and the Willie Mac award winner and maybe the comeback player of the year after the injury in 2011) and without him we are ten games back and not in the playoffs at all. That Grand Slam run in Game 5 in Cincinnati was chilling.  I thought that I was watching Robert Redford in the Natural hit the lights with Lightening boy.

Behind Buster (in all ways, including in the batting order) is the Reverend Hunter Pence, who is the emotional heart of the team after his magic in Cincinnati to rally the troops with his intensity.  He also plays a dynamite right field. For the first time I don’t miss Nate’s arm out there. The Gigantes are a veteran team (Angel Pagan, Marco Scutero, Xavier Nady) with a deep and skilled bench (Arias, Sanchez, Ryan Theriot, Aubrey Huff as a pinch hitter) and a strong bullpen (Casilla, Romo, Kontos, Affeldt and Lopez) and quality pitching (more about that below).

I talked about the Brandon’s (Belt and Crawford) in the last blog but I can’t say enough about these young men. Anyone who saw the picture of Crawford hanging over the rail at Candlestick when he was five years old and looking totally focused knows that this guy bleeds orange and black.  They are going to be mainstays of the G-Men for years to come.  Crawford is a human highlight reel who plays the best defense at short we have seen at AT&T since Omar was here.   Belt is as good defensively at first as Crawford is at short, and Belt is a better hitter with more power (I think that he has both Giants splash hits this year, I was there for the last one) and is fearless, as anyone watching him go over the rail for a foul ball in game 1 of NLDS knows.  He has found his groove and can now turn on the inside fastball.  I expect that we will see Belt being seriously considered for the third spot in the batting order in a year or two. He is that good.

And don’t forget Bruce Bochy. Bochy has been masterful this year with position changes, double switches, using the bullpen carefully, keeping players rested and making the right moves at the right time (although I must admit I got a little concerned in Game 4 of the NLDS when we were down to one player on the bench and Romo had to bat for himself -  for the first time this year).

The Questions: Once again, the Panda and the starting pitchers.  Pablo is overweight and looking tired. He swings at balls three feet off the plate (but occasionally connects for a ripping home run, like the one that went into the river in Cincinnati). His defense is OK but Arias is better and Pablo does have brain farts now and then. The starting pitchers are all gassed. You can see it. Now the goal is to get six innings out of the pitchers and turn to the bullpen. Putting Lincecum in the pen to relieve Zito worked like a charm but I expect that Timmy will get a start in the NCLS and Zito will be on the bench. Will they be revitalized for the NLCS?  I certainly hope so and expect so.

We are going to see Bumgarner and Vogelsong in the first two games. Bumgarner needs to focus (he is young but is growing up quickly and, hopefully, his recrd of pitching well at home will continue) and this is Vogelsong’s time – he has lived his entire life for this moment.

The Negatives:  There are very few. Panda’s weight, fatigue in the bullpen (is Affeldt’s finger OK?) and Mota.  LEAVE MOTA OFF THE ROSTER!  He may have cost us the first two games at home in the losses to the Reds and I shudder every time I see him come out of the bullpen.  Watching two losing games at home (including the 9-0 loss to the Reds) was gut wrenching.  Is AT&T a negative? The G-men seem to play better on the road than at home but then again all 5 NLDS games were won by the road team.  Maybe they are just too tight.

Wear Orange and Black. Bleed Orange.

Remember the Torture!

GO GIANTS!

The Czar