Giants v. Braves

The Positives:  As of this morning, the Giants are in second place in the NL West, one half game behind the Dodgers.  Given what happened with Melky this week, that’s the positives.  OK, for more, Buster Posey is practically single-handedly carrying the team, Brandon Belt and Crawford are playing very good ball and hitting well (both averages are climbing, and Crawford has an 8 game hitting streak), Hunter Pence is starting to show what he can do (which is attack the ball; his swing is vicious), and the PANDA IS BACK! The Questions: What was Melky thinking?  That he wouldn’t get caught? That his agents would protect him? That the Barry Bonds lesson has been forgotten? A 50 game suspension basically means that he’s never coming back to the Giants (I agree with JT Snow) and we need to move on. The question is how?  Soriano hates SF (and he’s an asshole besides carrying a $45 million contract – he did clear waivers I understand) and anyway there is no one out there capable of hitting .351 and carrying a team from the three-hole. Is Gary Brown ready?  Probably not. Sabean might or might not make some moves.  Frankly, he may not need to.  The line-up is good (not as good as with Melky) but good so if the pitchers come through the playoffs could still happen.  I heard Marty Lurie on NPR yesterday predicting that the G-Men would win the division.  Right on Marty!

The Negatives:  The pitching staff looks tired.  Two bad starts in a row for Vogelsong and Zito and we need to see what Lincecum does this week against the Dodgers. Cain and Bumgarner are still looking strong. The relievers have also been giving it up and we don’t have a closer; this closer by committee idea is a dog that won’t hunt. I won’t even talk about the line-up.  They just need to suck it up.

The Division: It’s between the G-Men and the Dodgers. The Gigantes go into Chavez Ravine tonight a half game down to the Dodgers and can expect taunts of “cheaters” by the blue crowd (as we say at the Lair, “blue cheats”).  The response should be one word (“Manny”!!) at the top of our lungs at Kemp. It’s going to be vicious from here on until the end of September.  Almost all of the games are against the NL West, and the majority are at home.  This is it, the stretch run.  Remember the 1951 Giants came from 13 game back to beat the Dodgers, we can do it also.

Giants v. Padres, Giants v. Mets

The Positives:  The Giants are in first place in the NL West, 1.5 games in front of the Dodgers and playing their best baseball of the year.  They are finishing up a 4 and 2 road trip having won 2 out of 3 from both the Braves (nipping at the heels of the Nationals in the NL East) and the Phillies (hurting for reasons that are not all that clear because they are a very good team).  This follows up on a horrible 1 and 5 road trip before the All-Star break, redeemed by the G-Men practically singlehandedly winning the All-Star game (four Giants on the roster, with the Panda hitting a three run triple and Melky a two-run homer) and assuring that the NL has home field advantage in the world series. The pitching is as good as it ever has been.  Lincecum has had two good starts in a row (cross your fingers that he’s back), Zito has had something like six straight quality starts (including today when the game was lost in the 11^th inning and the fine game he pitched in Atlanta),and Cain, Vogelsong and Bumgarner are simply the best rotation in baseball.  To top it off, the Giants bullpen is really good with Affeldt and Lopez doing their job with little drama and Romo being routinely awesome.

On the hitting front, Melky continues to lead MLB in hits and the G-Men have shown flashes of power (2 dingers from Schierholtz today for example, after a Grand Slam from Crawford yesterday after a three-run homer the day before – Crawford is officially en fuego) and the team batting averages and RBI’s are improving steadily. The defense is also routinely excellent (even though early season errors continue to weigh the stats down) and what can you say about Buster Posey. What a stud!  If he continues the way he’s going (over .300, hits to all field, multi-hit games and solid behind the plate) he will be in contention with Kemp for the MVP

The Questions: Has Nate earned a starting spot for the rest of the season?  If he keeps hitting dingers the way he is doing now there is no way Bochy is going to remove him. Can Blanco return to form?  He missed a suicide squeeze sign yesterday and he looks tired.  He needs a rest.  It looks like Huff is done (for his career I bet) with his latest injury and Hector Sanchez is on the DL but is expected back quickly.  It was a real joy to see Eli Whiteside (Crash Davis incarnate) come up and take a start behind the dish, settle everyone down and get a couple of important hits.

The Negatives:  It’s like a broken record but runners in scoring position continue to haunt the Gigantes, and the power numbers are way low for a contending club.  The Giants are gap to gap hitters but in the smaller ball parks they need to start hitting homers.  That brings me to Brandon Belt.  He is once again lost at the plate. He’s a great defensive first baseman but a streaky hitter, and he is not on a streak right now. If Sabean is going to dip into the trade market by the 31^st (during this series of home games, when the trade deadline comes) he has got to be looking for a power hitting first baseman, or someone that can play third and send Pablo to first.  There are a lot of candidates, including Carlos Quentin from the Padres and Placido Polanco from the Phillies.  The Giants just need a solid hitter, not a superstar rental (ala the Beltran deal last year).  None of us know exactly what Sabean is going to do but for sure it’s something. Sabean is constitutionally unable to stop working the phones.

The last word on the negatives has to be Santiago Casilla.  I thought that putting him in for the same yesterday (after he blew a save in the Atlanta game, his 5^th blown save in 8 games) was a good call for confidence but he still looks like a deer in the headlights.  Casilla is MUCH better suited to earlier innings. There are a couple of closers out there and Sabean might very well go after one of them, maybe Broxton from the Royals (who are in fire sale mode) if we can stand having another ex-Dodger on the team

The Division: Realistically, it’s between the G-Men and the Dodgers now. The teams are currently 1.5 games apart and playing each other a LOT between now and the end of the season in September (which actually ends up in LA on the last weekend of the season).  The Dodgers are back at full strength with Kemp off the DL and next weekend’s games should be classics, which is why the tickets are already gone. I suspect that the division lead may change more than once between now and October, which isn’t a bad thing as long as the Giants are on top in October.

The Games: The Padres are in fourth place (15 games back) in the NL West (above the Rockies) but have always been tough on the Giants. The Padres certainly know what is at stake and would like nothing better than to be a factor in the division race by knocking off the front runner.  The Mets, who are in third place in the NL East, 8 and /12 games out, are in town for four games.  The Mets (damn it all) just got swept by the Dodgers in NY so the way I look at it the G-Men have to be on the attack big time.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar

Giants v. Astros

The Positives:  The pitching staff is one of the best in the majors, Tim Lincecum aside (more about him below), Ryan Vogelsong proved his 2011 comeback was no fluke, Matt Cain threw a perfect game in an All-Star half and Madison Bumgarner continued to establish himself as one of the game's best lefties. Santiago Casilla has performed nicely (even though he kind of lost it during the last series), getting a lot of save opportunities thanks to the nearly unhittable Sergio Romo. The outfield defense has been stellar. The infield corners got a boost with Brandon Belt becoming the everyday first baseman and Pablo Sandoval getting better by the week. What can you say about the Melk man?  He is on track for the ML hitting title in 2012. The Giants 762 hits rank fourth in the NL behind the Cardinals, the Phillies and the Rockies, so they are hitting the ball. The Questions: The Giants are on pace to score 636 runs, which would be 66 more than last year, but they have not hit consistently and can't make up ground with the long ball when they fall behind. They spent five weeks of the first half without Pablo Sandoval. If the 3-4-5-6 quartet of Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey, Sandoval and Angel Pagan ever clicks at the same time, this offense will be good enough to take the West. It's awfully hard to win when you lead the league in errors, as the Giants do with 69, but at least they are trending in the right direction after tightening their defense in June and July. That also goes for Brandon Crawford. His 12 errors are the third-most among NL shortstops, but he committed 10 in his first 38 games.

The main question is whether or not this team is good enough once it gets into the post-season.  The last set of games at home and on the road against four first place teams showed a lot. They played fine against the Dodgers (a sweep at home), OK against the Reds at home (a 2-2 series split) but gave it up against the red-hot Nationals (a sweep by the Nats in DC) and lost the series 1 and 2 against the Pirates.  Sure the heat had a lot to do with it but still you have to beat the good teams to advance in October and right now that looks really iffy.

The Negatives:  Gregor Blanco and Angel Pagan are both looking very tired. Maybe the break will help them. Brandon Belt keeps reverting to bad habits and become vulnerable (again) to the inside fastball. Casilla looked like a deer in the headlights when he tried to save the games in which the G-Men were ahead against the Nationals.

But the biggest negative is Timmy’s loss of control over his fastball.  Now, because he can’t control the corners of the plate, everyone is waiting on his breaking stuff and hitting him like a piñata at a five-year-olds birthday party.  If he doesn’t come back the Gigantes probably don’t make the post-season.  If he had won just half of his games the G-Men would be five up in first place right now. If he fails on Saturday there is no telling what Sabean will do – send him down to the minors, put him in the bullpen, ship him back to Seattle; whatever, without Timmy we are in deep you know what.

The Division: It’s between the G-Men and the Dodgers now, with the Snakes coming on  from the outside.  I keep hearing rumors that Arizona wants to trade Upton (why?  He’s an MVP candidate) so that says that they have problems we probably don’t appreciate. Most of the Giants games in the second half are at home, and most are against the division, so now is the time to start putting it together. Regardless we are in for a great second half of baseball.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar

Giants v. Dodgers, Giants v. Reds

The Positives: Well, there is Cain’s perfect game for one!  The Gigantes are playing good ball.  The defense is getting better (less errors, more spectacular plays) with every game.  The outfield (all four players, Cabrera, Pagan, Blanco and Schierholtz who is getting regular time) is the best (and the fastest) that I can ever recall seeing. Crawford and Theriot are awesome up the middle of the infield and Brandon Belt’s glove has never been questioned. Posey and Sanchez are both quality receivers and with Arias backing up the Panda in the late innings the defense is stellar. On the hitting side Belt has apparently found his home run stroke (and his power bat) which is the next step in his development as the quality first baseman that we all believe he can be (isn’t confidence wonderful?).  Cabrera continues to stun with a .351 batting average and the team as a whole has probably raised its batting average by 15 percentage points over the last three weeks.  Buster is leading the team in dingers (something that we can finally talk about) and the speed on the base paths (more stolen bases to this point in the season than in the entire year last year) is really fun to watch.

From a pitching perspective you can’t get much better than Cain, Bumgarner and Vogelsong.  The new guy, Shane Loux, looks really good and it doesn’t get much better than Romo and Casilla (although Casilla giving up a bottom of the 9^th 2 out, 3 and 2 count 3 run homer to a rookie on the A’s last night wasn’t entirely endearing).

Expect to see at least three Giants on the All-Star team (Cabrera, Posey and Cain) and maybe more. God knows that Blanco has been playing like an All-Star. Speaking of Blanco, his 7^th inning catch that saved Cain’s perfect game reminded me of the great Mickey Mantle 7^th inning catch (almost the same play) that saved Don Larson’s perfect game in the 1957 world series.

The Questions: The Panda is still not completely back and his weight is still an issue.  That’s why Arias is a late inning replacement. On the other side of the weight issue Timmy lost a lot of weight in the off-season and some are blaming his inconsistent performance (one inning great, the next horrible) on not having enough heft to get behind his pitches. On Timmy, will his talks with his original coach (his Dad, who he didn’t want to include in the “what’s wrong with Timmy” discussion) may make a difference? We will see. On the whole this team is jelling pretty well and we now know what we have.

The Negatives: Is the team good enough?  The Giants are probably the 4^th best team in the NL at the moment but they have a disturbing habit of losing to good teams (like the Angels and the Marlins). The biggest problem is the two starts (Lincecum and Zito) whose games have become an adventure in wondering when they will flame out and allow a big inning.  Zito starts tonight against the Dodgers and we will see.

The Division: It’s now all about the Giants and the Dodgers. The teams are three games apart and this week will tell us a lot.  The Dodgers come into AT&T for the first time this year tonight. While this week is important the bigger test will be in September when almost all of the games are division games.  Right now the goal should be to keep things close.

The Series:  This is the test. First the Dodgers, who lead the NL West, and then Dusty Baker’s Reds, who lead the NL Central.  This series will establish how good the G-Men actually are.  This home series will tell us if the G-Men are for real.  I’m ready.

Giants 2012 Exhibition Baseball vs the A's

Needless to say we are all ready to “dive” into this season, so I started early - - right after the last season was over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUIqgr9IylU

This exhibition homestand features the A's on Monday April 2^nd at 7:15 and again on Wednesday April 4^th at 12:45. The A’s have a fine young pitching staff, the new Cuban star Yoenis Cespedes in left and Coco Crisp in Centerfield. This is a weird series because the A’s will have already opened their season (in Japan; they play two real games against the Mariners this week but then come home for another exhibition series.  I don’t know how that is going to work (do they get to add new players for the Exhibition?).  For the Giants, these two games will determine who starts the season and who goes to Fresno. I’d be there except that I have to be in Vegas with the wholesalers next week.

Last year I predicted a Giants division victory.  I hadn’t counted on Posey going down in May and Freddy Sanchez going down in June, or that the Giants would stop hitting completely (even with Carlos Beltran). Of course the lowest batting average of all major league teams, the lowest percentage of hits with runners in scoring position, the fewest home runs, the fewest runs scored and the fewest RBI’s probably played a part.

My end of the year predictions were that Burrell and DeRosa would retire and that Torres, Ross and Whiteside would be gone.  I was right about Burrell, Torres and Ross and the jury is still out on Whiteside (I still think that he’s going back to the minors to continue his Crash Davis gig).  I predicted that Huff will be on the bench for much of this coming season and, given what Brent Pill and the Giraffe (Belt) are showing in spring training I am holding to that prediction.

This year the G-Men are once again clearly the class of the division from a pitching perspective what with Timmy on fire, Cain being Cain (Mr. Steady) and Bumgarner just plain looking and pitching like a stud.  Zito got married in the off-season and maybe that will help him keep his pitches down (It hasn’t so far but he is doing a serviceable job). Vogelsong was the unexpected star of the pitching staff last year (and the Willie Mac award winner) but is having a hard spring getting over oblique strains.  The big question is whether he will be ready to start or will be on the DL at the opening of the season. If Vogelsong doesn’t start then Eric Surkamp is next in line (although he got shelled yesterday). However possibly the most important event of the spring would be the signing of Matt Cain to a long term (five years is the rumor) contract for right south of $95 million.  Cain deserves it and the Giants have the money.

The relievers are super. Wilson looks like he is back to his old self (spending most of his time talking about working on his arm slot), Romo is simply the best set up man in the league, Javier Lopez is a winner (and a very cool guy) and the rest of the bullpen is back almost intact, including Affeldt, who will probably never try to make his own hamburger ever again.

Let’s do a straw pool: is it time for the beard to go?

The position players are where Bochy is going to be challenged.  It’s rare for the Giants to have so much potentially good hitting, and nowhere to put them all. Angel Pagan (left field) came over from the Mets and Melky Cabrera (center field, is it a major league rule that a guy named Cabrera has to be on every team?) came over from the Royals in the trade for Jonathan Sanchez - - end of an era there .  Both Melky and Angel are quality players, with speed and good defense (although Pagan isn’t exactly hitting the cover off the ball in Spring Training). However this is the year that the G-Men attempt to go to a speed game, and those two can do it. They already have more stolen bases in the spring than the G-Men had almost all last year.

The biggest news in spring training is a young man (28, not really that young in baseball years) named Gregor Blanco, who has been in baseball for several years but has been injured.  He was the MVP of the Venezuelan League this winter, is batting something like .430 with power, may be the fastest man on the team and is playing great defense. He will be pushing Schierholtz in right field (who will probably start, but nothing is for sure), and is almost a lock to make the team.

The real story, however, is the infield. The Panda is set at third (although his hitting hasn’t been exactly off the charts, his weight is where the team wants and he looks, well, Panda like).

Crawford is set at short (he has been hitting much better this spring but Bochy is going to slot him 8^th to take the pressure off and would be ecstatic with a .250 season).

Second base looks like Burriss is finally going to get his shot because he has been playing and hitting great.  Freddy Sanchez is most likely going to open the season on the DL but is getting very close. Rumor has it that Fontenot and Theriot (who came over in the off-season from the Cardinals) are on the trading block but both are late season injury insurance unless they get traded.  Both are utility infielders. Remember that the Giants let Jeff Keppinger go in favor of keeping Fontenot (because Fontenot has better defense) so if Mike is released that will be the last act in the trade last year of two of the Giant’s best young pitchers (Henry Souza was one) that got Keppinger from the Astro’s..

First base is really crowded. Huff is starting off on his usual contract season run, playing good.  He  says that he’s doing Pilates again.  But the real story is Brent Pill and Brandon Belt. Both are really good defensive first baseman, both can back up in the outfield and both probably can’t make the team (unless Sabean works some magic). The question is who gets sent down. Most observers believe that it will be Belt because Pill is a right handed bat off the bench, which the Giants really need, and Pill is actually older than Belt.

Now we come to the real question: who is the back-up catcher?  Posey is the starter and he looks like he is back from his injury last year (remember my Carleton Fisk analogy, I hold to it). Bochy says that Posey will also get starts at first so the back-up will play.  Right now Chris Stewart, Eli Whiteside and Hector Sanchez are competing for the job.  As usual, Whiteside and Stewart are batting around the Mendoza line but Sanchez (who is young) is hitting over .300.  My money is on the rookie Sanchez starting the season out as the back-up catcher.  He has nothing to learn in Fresno and the G-Men need his bat.

The rest of the division has a lot of question marks. The Dodgers are for sale and continue to be involved in the McCort divorce and they have dumped a lot of payroll (although resigning Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw were really good moves). They are picked to finish fourth in the division because of all the drama, and a real pitching fall off after Kershaw.

The Rockies are looking good from a hitting perspective (as always) and Tulowitski is back (this year with Scutero) so the defense will be solid, but have shaky starting pitching. Colorado is picked to finish third in the division. The Padres have good young pitching, good defense and nothing to lose. However I still think that they are going to finish last in the NL West.  Remember that the Padres have historically owned the Giants and let’s see if this year is any different.

The real story is the Snakes, who won the division last year.  They have Justin Upton, Ian Kennedy, Paul Goldsmith, Kirk Gibson as manager (I’ve always disliked Gibson, ever since he was a Dodger, he’s a hot dog but he does motivate players – at least he’s not Steve Garvey or Steve Sax) and a lot of hitting.  The Snakes are the favorites to win the division so every game against Arizona all year will be like a playoff game against the Dodgers.

Keep in mind that this is the year of the new playoff rule, where there are two wild card teams in each league who will play a one-game sudden death playoff at the end of the season. The G-Men, who are picked to finish second in the division, are one of the few teams with enough starting pitching to get though that kind of playoff scenario.

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.

Ciao, and GO GIANTS!

The Czar