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Apr 9 / 10:48am

Giants Off to 0-3 Start Thanks to...Pitching?

The Giants opened their season in Arizona. Which should have been a tip-off all by itself. The G-men often struggle in the Arizona desert. You'd think that this close to Spring Training in that state, they'd be acclimated. You'd be wrong.

At least as far as the pitching is concerned.

In recent years, Giants' pitching has been top-rank while their offense has sputtered and been terribly inconsistent. Now it appears that their starting pitching is -- for the moment at least -- the bane of their existence. The Diamondbacks won all three games by one run even though the Giants scored four or more in all three contests. Last season, when the Giants scored four or more, they had a huge upside W-L percentage.

But the present starting rotation had a three-day ERA of 8.22. And defense -- the other supposed mainstay of this year's version -- stumbled as well, committing three errors each in Games 1 and 3. Frighteningly enough, SS Brandon Crawford committed two errors in the three-game set, which is a radical departure from his usual steadiness. (To be fair, the D-backs committed five errors Sunday as well; the Chase Field infield is a piece of burnt concrete that induces errors.)

Meanwhile, the hitting, while anemic -- the team BA is .219 and with runners in scoring position, it's .217 -- has been timely. The Giants went long four times in three games. Meanwhile, the highly touted starting three of Lincecum, Bumgarner and Cain served up six gopher balls.

Last year, ace Lincecum had a mediocre 13-14 year in the W-L department primarily because of poor hitting support. The Giants batted just under .200 behind him and he lost six shutouts. But he was, for the most part, pretty sharp, earning a respectable 2.74 ERA while holding opponents to a .222 average. If he can relocate his form and the Giants can up the hitting average while maintaining some HR power, this start could be an aberration, but still....
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Apr 6 / 11:50pm

Giants Lose Season Opener Thanks to Muffs, Timmy

Last year, the SF Giants averaged 2.79 runs per game when their supposed ace, Tim Lincecum, was on the mound. They served up 10 shutouts behind him. No wonder he had such a so-so record.

The good news is the G-Men scored four runs in their season opener at the Diamondbacks this afternoon. The entirely revamped offense showed signs of resurgence, though they left eight men on base which is a continuation of another somewhat disturbing trend from 2011.

The bad news is that Lincecum pitched like he did too often last season: erratic start, settle down, then fall apart with little notice. He was helped along by three errors committed by the defense, the most egregious being committed by shortstop Brandon Crawford and third-sacker Pablo Sandoval. The latter was scary in large part because it continues a pattern we saw too often last year and during spring training.

But this one can be laid at the feet of Lincecum. The unevenness with which he pitched in streaks was reminiscent of last year, particularly against the D-Backs, who've now beaten him four straight times.

Melky Cabrera was the hero for the Giants, scorching a line-drive homer onto and over the right-field fence to score two runs at a time when the Giants were trailing 3-0. 

One game does not a season make. Nor does it make a trend. But it does make for nerves.
Filed under  //  Baseball   Giants   Lincecum  

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Jul 18 / 2:49am

Two Rarities in Extra Innings Giants Win

Chris_stewart

There are a few plays that a baseball fan sees so seldom that when they occur they are like little gems that any fan worth his peanut shells enjoys savoring over and over. The Giants, who defeated the San Diego Padres 4-3 in 11 innings yesterday at Petco Park, pulled off two of these beauties in one inning.

In the top of the final inning, the Giants scored what proved to be the winning run on a brilliantly executed suicide squeeze bunt by Catcher Chris Stewart that scored Emmanuel Burris. 

Then in the bottom of that frame, with Brian "Fear the Beard" Wilson in relief playing his usual "let's make this win as dramatic as we can",. Stewart provided the first half of a sparkling 2-5-4 double play that pulled the peanuts out of the fire, as it were.

The suicide score was a thing of drama and beauty. Burris had set things up when, after singling to get aboard, he stole second and then ended up at third when the Padres throw to second scampered into center. Padres Manager, former Giants pitching ace Bud Black, suspected the the Giants' skipper, Bruce Bochy, might call for the squeeze, so he thwarted it with a pitch-out. Burris stayed solidly at third. Black then ordered reliefer Chad Qualls to pitch to Stewart. On the pitch, Burris took off for home and Stewart laid down a perfect bunt on the third-base side for the easy score.

Kyle Phillips, the Padres' catcher, tried to move two runners along in the bottom of the 11th, only to fall victim to brilliant heads-up defense by the G-men. Stewart pounced on the bunt, which traveled down the third-base line and not quite far enough to be effective, and fired the ball to Pablo Sandoval, who made a quickl-thinking throw to first and got Phillips for the back end of the double play. Burris covered first on the play.

The Giants broke form to win this one, stealing a team-record-tying six bases in the game. 

The win kept the Giants up by 3-1/2 in the NL West over the Diamondbacks as the rest of the division fades from view. The orange and black have won seven of their last nine.
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Jul 2 / 11:30pm

Giants Eat Tigers, Spit Them Out Behind Sizzling Zito

My San Francisco Giants drubbed my old home team Detroit Tigers in a rain-delayed marathon in Detroit tonight by the NFL-like score of 15-3. A lot of folks will look only at that fact and say, "Yeah, give ME 15 runs and I can win, too. Zito's a bum." Ahem. The Z-man pitched six innings of scoreless ball despite a more than two-and-a-half-hour rain delay between the second and third innings. That's his second win since coming off the DL. I, for one, am glad to see him back (though I'll admit having some trepidations about him earlier).

The Giants have now won nine of their last 11 starts and are 3 up on the Diamondbacks and 6-1/2 ahead of the Rockies. The Padres are the only club in the West keeping pace at the moment and they're still 10 games back.

But lest the Giant sticks get big bat-heads over their 15-run outburst, they might want to take note of the fact that the Tigers have been playing like housecats of late, giving up 14 or more runs in three of their last five games. Over that span they are 1-4. As skipper Jim Leyland said, it's getting ugly out there. Detroit remains a contender in the AL Central but they've dropped from first to second and are 1-1/2 back of the Indians.

If the Giants can hang on to their present .571 pace to the All-Star break July 12, they're going to be hard to catch down the stretch when guys start coming back from injuries.
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Jun 30 / 3:50pm

Giants Split With Clubs. Grrrrrrrrr

It always bugs me when the Giants lose to the Chicago Cubs. For some reason -- perhaps their Century of Mediocrity -- I've always held the Cubs in disdain. (Though, I hasten to add, not their fans, who have to be the largest group of Saints assembled in the United States in the 20th or 21st Century.) 

Many years ago when the G-men still played at rundown Candlestick Park, I had season tickets in an upper box. I always try to get to the park to watching batting practice. As I arrived at the park for the opening of a three-game set with the Cubs (a set which my guys swept!), I spotted a lone Cubs fan about 25 rows up in the upper reserved seating. I made my way up to his seat. He was decked out in full Cubs regalia, up to and including the two-beer-can-baseball-cap-with-straws that always seemed to me in those days was like the world's greatest invention ever.

I looked at him and with what I hope was a puzzled look, I said questioningly, "Chicago Cubs?"

Without missing a beat, the guy said defensively, "Hey, any team can have a bad century!"

So when my G-men started out in Chicago a few days ago winning a twilight twin bill 13-7 and 6-3, I thought they were going to breeze through the Windy City and pack four more W's under their belts. But 'twas not to be. After dropping a real classic 2-1 yesterday, the Giants went down to a 5-2 setback in 13 innings today. That meant they split the series and, sorry guys, but that just isn't good enough.

At least the split didn't cost them in the standings. They remain 2 up on the Diamondbacks and six up on Colorado.

Next up for the Giants is my hometown favorite Detroit Tigers, who are locked in a race for the top of the AL Central with a 44-38 record compared to the Giants 46-36 slate.
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Jun 19 / 2:30am

A's Drop G-Men Again But Standings Remain Unchanged

Well, those rabble-rousers from across the SF Bay in Oakland have done it again. They beat my Giants for the second straight day today by a score of 4-2. Once again, anemic offense by SF was the primary cause of defeat. Both teams managed seven hits but the Giants stranded more runners and couldn't even capitalize on two Oakland errors.

Giants' starter Johnathan Sanchez lost for the third time in four starts, dropping his season record to 7-6. After a strong early start, he started leaving the ball high in the zone and the A's hitters, exhibiting unusual patience for the second straight game, out-waited him.

The loss didn't hurt the Giants in the standings as the NL West race stayed about the same, with the Giants clinging to a half-game lead over the Diamondbacks. Colorado picked up a win and moved within 3-1/2 games of the lead in what is quickly becoming a three-team race with 10 games left to the mid-season point.

Hopefully the Giants can escape Oakland tomorrow with a win before coming home to face the lowly Minnesota Twins and the AL Central leading Cleveland Indians. After that, they travel to Chicago to take on the lowly and perennially disappointing Cubs. The end of that three-game series marks the mid-point of the season.
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Jun 17 / 11:53pm

A Cross-Town Rival to Growl and Grimace At: Oakland Tops Giants

Interleague play tonight saw the Giants lose to Oakland at the A's Coliseum, by a score of 5-2. It was a 3-2 contest much of the night but the G-Men played some sloppy defense and the A's played classic AL small ball to eke out the runs they managed off Tim Lincecum, who dropped to 5-6. Thing is, this was Lincecum's first-ever loss to a team he has flat dominated every other time he's faced them.

The loss stung a bit more because the A's came into the game with the second-worst record in the American League. But the A's have shown some savvy in the last few days as they made this their third straight win, a rarity for a team now being handled by an interim manager.

It also gave the Diamondbacks a chance to move within 1/2 game of the Giants' lead, which they did.

I've observed for many years that the teams who make it to the playoffs are very often those who avoid having too many stretches of three or more losses. The Giants go into tomorrow afternoon's game needing a win to stop their current skid at 2.
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Jun 17 / 12:04am

Giants Can't Sweep But Go Down Fighting

The G-Men lost to Arizona in 10 innings tonight on a walk-off homer by Justin Upton. The Giants trailed 2-1 from the 5th inning but managed an unearned run in the 9th that sent the game into extra innings.

SF stays atop the NL West, 1-1/2 games ahead of the Diamondbacks. Meanwhile the Rockies dumped the Padres to move within 5-1/2 of the leaders.

Both teams played ineffectively at Chase Field, but the Giants managed an anemic six hits on a night when hits were relatively easy to come by in other NL contests. Lack of offense has been the biggest result of the Giants' injury debacle which has gutted the heart of their otherwise potent lineup. The return of Freddy Sanchez (soon? please?) will help a lot but the squad is several weeks from being able to return star catcher and offensive hero Buster Posey.
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Jun 16 / 12:04am

Giants On Verge of Sweep of D-Backs

The San Francisco Giants conjured up quite an offense in Arizona tonight, scattering 10 hits all over Chase Park and thwarting the recently surging Diamondbacks 5-2. Even though Giants' pitching yielded nine hits to the home team, they were tough enough in the clinch to keep Zona from scoring a run after the fourth.

I continue to be encouraged by the G-Men, who have been bitten by the injury bug pretty hard the past few weeks and have seen the middle of their line-up erode faster than an Arizona sand pit in a gully-washer. Manager Bruce Bochy has to get a lot of props  for the way he's keeping the lineup fresh and the players up and ready to play despite the difficulties.

Meanwhile, Colorado kept pace with a win that kept them 6 games back but the pre-season favorite Dodgers are playing el-foldo once again and find themselves nine off the pace while the Padres, also recipients of much pre-season hype, are in double-digits in the GB column at 10.

It's fun being a Giants fan at the moment and while I've been around baseball way too long to become complacent in mid-June, the fact is that they can only get better after weathering the current injury storm and heading into the stretch. We're two weeks from mid-season and I'm liking what I'm seeing there.
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Jun 15 / 12:19am

Giants Staying Up Despite Downers

The San Francisco Giants remain in first place in the NL West tonight, up by a game and a half over the D-Backs who pulled ahead of them a week ago. This despite the fact that the Giants have been without a pretty core group of guys:

Catcher Buster Posey, who's out with an ankle injury
2B Freddy Sanchez, whose shoulder injury from June 11 has him sidelined
Ace pitcher Tim Lincecum who, after a great start, has had trouble finding his stuff lately

They did get third-sacker Pablo "Panda Bear" Sandoval back tonight after 47 days of injury-caused sit-downs and he played a key offensive role in the Giants' 6-5 win over Zona.

It's actually pretty surprising that the G-Men are in such good shape. Offensively, they rank in the bottom four of the NL in batting average (.241), runs (236), on-base percentage (.309) and slugging percentage (.363). Their pitching has been predictably excellent, though, with a team rank of fourth in the league on the basis of a 3.25 ERA.

But they seem to have just enough offense just enough of the time to stay at or near the lead in their division. 

Good teams win when their good players are down, even though they have to win ugly. The Giants have had quite a few ugly games this season but they're atop the division and, BTW and FWIW, they have the second best winning percentage in the entire NL and the fourth best in all of Major League Baseball. They're clearly doing something right.
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