Location: San Francisco, Calif. | Ballpark: AT&T Park (41,915) | Spring Training: Scottsdale, Ariz.
Owners: William Neukom | GM: Brian Sabean | Manager: Bruce Bochy | World Championships: 5
Season in seven words: "88 wins with one functional hitter. Wow." ... Hero: Here's why my nonexistent Cy Young vote goes to Tim Lincecum: more innings than Carpenter, more bats missed than Wainwright ... Loserhead: Aaron Rowand can't hit and has slipped defensively to the point where he doesn't cover centerfield so much as keep it company ... Key need: Hitters that can hit. In an ideal world, they'd replace no fewer than six 2009 regulars ... Prognosis:: Buster Posey will upgrade the Molina-free lineup. Alas, with Bruce Bochy still captaining the ship, expect more batting-order bingo and strategic choices that defy both common sense and international law.
09/29/2009
10
8
Remind me again: Why did Bruce Bochy place Fred Lewis into witness protection a few months back? He isn't exactly an All-Star, but he's the rare Giant who recognizes the importance of getting on base on a more-than-occasional basis ... Tim Lincecum needs a nap. Good thing Bochy had him throw all those extra innings at the end of games the Giants had already won ... If you haven't yet noticed, I believe Bochy should be either indicted or disappeared.
09/22/2009
8
10
Since I've run out of ways to say "the pitching is very, very good and everything else is very bad" in English, I've decided to do so in Pashto, with some help from freetranslation.com: "?? ? ?????? ??? ?? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??" ... Imagine being stuck hanging around with Randy Johnson in the San Francisco bullpen? All the guys want to do is chomp down sunflower seeds and chat up some road beef, but The Unit probably puts a damper on the proceedings by shooting them one of his famed withering SHUT YOUR STINKIN' TRAP I AM TRYING TO IMMERSE MYSELF IN A METALLICA TRANCE glares. He plays baseball with all the joy of a celebrity doing court-mandated community service.
09/15/2009
10
10
Can they lap the Rockies or Dodgers and make it to the postseason? Sure! All they need are daily pitching masterpieces like the one Tim Lincecum authored on Monday, which would free their hitters from the smothering pressure of having to plate more than two runs per game. Feel free to rouse me if they win the next two against the Rockies, though. ... For a guy who has coasted on god-given talent for so long, Brad Penny sure seems to be pissed off at the world. He oughta channel some of that snort-tastic energy into either his conditioning or a nice new hobby, like gnome-punching.
09/08/2009
10
10
The following verbatim entries come from my hand-scribbled Giants game notes: "Batting order picked out of hat," "Posey blinking out S.O.S. again," "Holy mother of dumb," "13 relievers in a blowout win? Sure, why not." Given how the Giants have outperformed expectations, Bruce Bochy might actually get a few manager-of-the-year votes. This would be as much of a farce as anything we've seen in baseball in several years –- and remember, this is the same collection of voters who gave Justin Morneau an MVP award following a season in which he wasn't one of the top two candidates on his own team.
09/01/2009
10
12
Barry Zito, ace anew! Prepare for a raft of "How Barry Got His Mojo Back" stories, most relying on quotes from Rick Peterson and Jack Johnson. ... Freddy Sanchez's DL stint isn't anything that a team with a functional sixth-grade offense couldn't stomach, but to the Giants it's a gut punch. ... The other night, I heard a pundit quip that "if the Giants keep pitching well, they'll make the playoffs." Well, sure. That said, anytime the staff surrenders more than three runs, the Giants are going to have a hard time winning, regardless of last weekend's wizardry against the Rockies.
08/25/2009
12
13
That come-from-ahead loss in the 14th inning on Monday night was the worst fork-in-the-eye defeat I've seen in some time. ... Truth is, they played themselves out of three of the four games they lost to the Rockies over the weekend, with sloppy ball-handling afield and their usual sogginess at the plate. Good pitching can only compensate so much for a lineup that, on its best day, doesn't rank among the game's 20 best. ... Rumors persist that the Coors Field pranksters messed with the radar-gun readings on the scoreboard during Sunday's Lincecum/Jimenez battle. This might explain why Jimenez was consistently clocked at 106 MPH, while Lincecum didn't hit 65 all afternoon. Shame on them for messing with that most fragile of entities, the ballplayer's psyche.
08/18/2009
13
10
They played the Mets and Dodgers last week. They seemed more akin talent-wise to the former than to the latter. That is a problem. ... Before we make any big-picture pronouncements, let's see where they are after the weekend's four-game series in Denver. It'd be nice if the Giants would prove once and for all that they resemble even an average team on the road (where they're 25-34, versus 39-20 at home).
08/11/2009
10
12
Losing 2 of 3 to the Reds, who'd lost 14 of 16 coming in, is not the best way to announce one's Take! Us! Seriously! candidacy ... Once the Giants fall behind, as they did quickly and quietly in the first game of a big-ass series against the Dodgers on Monday, they're toast. Incredibly, they've only overcome a three-run deficit once this season ... For whatever little it's worth, Giants fans were much less vicious towards unrepentant estrogen addict Manny Ramirez than Dodgers fans were towards alleged HGH/the clear/the cream/nanodecosomethingorother fiend Barry Bonds ... I'm sure hoping that leaked track from the upcoming Barry Zito record, which has headline writers drooling over the probability of a "he sings like he pitches" caption, is a fake. The world doesn't need another Jack Johnson. Hell, it doesn't need the original one.
08/04/2009
12
14
The Giants are the mother of all terrifying first-round playoff match-ups, and might actually be favored if somehow they can line up Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain just so. Of course, first there's that small matter of outjousting the Rockies and Braves to get there ... Lincecum's change-up is capable of reducing grown men to tears and lifting starlets to new heights of undergarment-shedding frenzy ... In the wake of the Freddy Sanchez acquisition, I'd bench the ouchy/whiffy Edgar Renteria, shift Juan Uribe over to short and hope for the best. Renteria is the walking embodiment of the phrase "sunk cost"; whatever defensive advantage he once held over Uribe has gone the way of the eight-track.
Preseason Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
02/16/2009
19
-
Love the starting pitching, especially the low-cost flier on Randy Johnson. Hate the hitting, fiercely. Whoever assembled that group of no-hit-no-field position players should be drawn and quartered, or at least sternly scolded. ... Edgar Renteria is probably giggling with glee that he got a (wildly undeserved) two-year, big-money deal and nemesis Orlando Cabrera didn't. ... Manny would be a great fit here, just as he would be anywhere professional baseball is played. ... Relax, Bay City natives. That's not an earthquake, it's just 5-foot-11, 250-pound third baseman Pablo Sandoval rumbling around the basepaths, leaving a network of divots and sinkholes in his wake.
