Uribe to LA

Juan Uribe assured that another nice thing will ever be posted about him on this page!

Juan signed a 3 year $21 million deal  to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This deal may work out to the Giants' favor in the long run.  Uribe has missed a few games in each of the last few seasons due to nagging injuries.  His average and OBP are subpar, his defense is OK at best, and did I mention that he tends to have a lot of nagging injuries?  The injury bug is really the biggest question mark that I have about this deal.  A guy who has a lot of muscle strain type injuries like Uribe has will only miss more games as he gets older.  Although I'm not too upset that it will be the Dodgers dealing with this.

Juan made a big impact on the Giants in his two years with the team.  He had two huge RBIs in the Phillies series and is a huge reason they made the World Series.  The homeruns he hit during the regular season always seemed to come at key moments.  He will definitely be missed.

This does leave the Giants with a glaring hole at shortstop.  Look for them to make a deal for a guy like Jason Bartlett from the Rays.  The Rays are said to be looking for some bullpen help which I think that the Giants can come up with.  The internal options are not good.  They can try Emmanuel Burriss but he has not shown anything at the big league level that would make you think he could come close to filling Uribe's shoes.  Brandon Crawford is just terrible with the bat and beyond him there isn't much help.  The Giants may resign Edgar Renteria but if they do it will not be as a starter.

The Giants are also said to be interested in Miguel Tejada, but his best days are behind him.  If they could give up Dan Runzler and another bullpen arm, they may be able to swing a deal for Bartlett and while he isn't going to put up 20+ HRs he may just be the guy that is available and is the best fit for the Giants.

Only time will tell.

Edgar Renteria homers to give the San Francisco Giants their first World Series title!

GIANTS 3 - RANGERS 1

Edgar Renteria is the World Series MVP for the San Francisco Giants.

Wow.

Somehow the fact that a guy who was castoff and considered one of Brian Sabean's worst signings being voted as the World Series MVP makes sense, Aaron Rowand being in the starting Lineup for the deciding game 5 was just right, and Tim Lincecum being on the mound was perfect.

All of this, all the beards, the waiver wire claims, the pitching, the clutch hitting, and did I mention the pitching?  All of this adds up to the first World Series in San Francsico history.

Tim "The Franchise" Lincecum struck out 10 Texas Rangers, the team with the highest batting average in baseball during the regular season, and held them to one run while outdueling Mr. Postseason Cliff Lee.  Edgar Renteria hit a three run homerun in the 7th inning to break a 0-0 tie and account for all of the Giants runs.  It was a typical Giants victory.

That's the way the season should end.

I'll have more for you guys as the week goes on.  Right now I want to just sit back and soak in the atmosphere.  Tomorrow night I'm gonna head up to the bay with my cousin so we can watch the parade in San Fran so it's gonna be a long week since I'm gonna have to work on Thursday!

Celebrate San Francisco fans!  Your Giants are World Series Champions!

Finally!

Cain and the Giants beat down the Rangers

GIANTS 9 - RANGERS 0

ESPN took a poll before the World Series started and 49 out of 50 states picked the Rangers to beat the Giants  in the World series.

I wonder what kind of results you would get if you took that poll again today?

The Giants dominated the Rangers in every facet of the game last night.  They shut them out (for only the sixth time this season) and they brought the big bats with them that they used last night.

The story of the game is Matt Cain.  After toiling in relative obscurity for the first 5 years of his career, he started to get a little recognition last season with his selection to the All-Star game last season.  He didn't get to pitch thanks to a line drive thanks to a line drive off his forearm but it was the first recognition of what a good pitcher he is.

Last night he put himself amongst the immortals.

With his 7.1 innings of shutout baseball, Cain becomes the fourth pitcher to throw 20+ consecutive innings without allowing an earned run.  That list of  4 now has two Giants on it and Christy Matthewson is at the top of that list with 27 consecutive innings pitched.  Cain probably won't get a chance to catch the All-Time Giants great since his turn doesn't look like it's going to come back around again.  no matter what, Cain has shown the world the great pitcher that Giants fans have known they have had for a few years now.  The guys over at RaisingMattCain must be going crazy tonight!

The guy that got all the scoring started was Edgar Renteria.  His solo homerun in the 5th got the scoring going for the game.  He was the latest of a long line of heroes who have stepped up for the Giants this postseason.  But Renteria stepping up is possibly one of the most inspiring. Edgar is a guy who had a pretty solid career, from his game winning hit for the Florida Marlins in game 7 of the 1997 World Series to all of his postseason experience with the Cardinals and Red Sox he has produced.  Then he came to the Giants and has done nothing but struggle.  Both with his health and with his bat.  A lot of Giants fans have considered his signing a bust, and up until this world series it has been.  But this World Series is making Brian Sabean look like a genius for signing him.

Renteria has said he is contemplating retirement after the season.  If he does retire, then there is no better way to go out than the way he has been this World Series.

Enjoy the off day today. The series picks up again tomorrow in Texas.  Jonathan Sanchez Vs. Colby Lewis.  So far this series has been relatively torture-free but this is the 2010 Giants so don't be surprised if a little of that creeps in.  The Giants really only have to win one game in Texas.  At this point, it doesn't look like the Giants will be coming home except to enjoy the parade down market street.

Giants - Braves 2010 NLDS preview

If the old saying "Good pitching beats good hitting" holds true then the San Francisco Giants should win the world series.

But they play the games for a reason.

The Giants bring their historically good staff into the first round of the playoffs to face the Atlanta Braves staff which isn't too bad itself.  In fact, the Giants led all of baseball with a 3.36 ERA and the Braves were the third best with a 3.56 ERA.  The most impressive stat coming in to the series though is the fact that the Giants entire pitching staff, not just the starters, has allowed 2 runs or less in 15 of their last 19 games.

The hitting is surprisingly close.  Giants hitters own a .257 season average while the Braves hold a .258 season average.  Also, in perhaps the shocker of the playoffs, the Giants have outhomered the Braves 162-139.  However the Braves hold the edge in runs scored 738-697 seeing as how the Giants are the lowest scoring playoff team from the National league.

In order for the Giants to win this series their pitching needs to keep up it's amazing pace.  If they can continue their run of 2 runs or less then they have this series in the bag.  (Atlanta owns a 5-39 record when scoring 2 runs or less)  The offenses are so closely matched with the Braves having scored 4.6 runs per game this season to the Giants 4.3 runs per game.  This series may come down to which team hits the clutch homerun.

Over the past 2 days there has been a lot of speculation over who will and who won't make the postseason roster.  Most of that speculation has focused of 3 guys:  Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, and Edgar Renteria.  I really expect all 3 guys to make the roster.  Rowand rakes against Derek Lowe (11-23 .481) and Tim Hudson (8-21 .381) in fact, he has the best numbers against those 2 guys on the team.  So expect to see a lot of Rowand in this series.  Renteria makes the team because realistically he is the only guy other than Juan Uribe who can play shortstop.

That leaves Barry Zito.

Zito has been both brilliant and horrible this season.  He choked his chances of starting in this first series away on Saturday against San Diego.  But I can't even imagine a scenario in which a guy who threw 199 .1 innings for your team doesn't make the postseason roster.  He is one of the few guys on the team with postseason experience, in fact he is the ONLY starter with postseason experince.

But having said all of that, I still believe there is a chance that Zito is left off the postseason roster.

 t's going to be series with a lot of 2-1 and 1-0 games.   Both of these teams have trouble scoring runs (the Braves lost two games out of their last 3 to the Phillies who had absolutely nothing to play for).  But the Giants are just a little bit better at keeping the other team from scoring.

Giants in 4.

Giants sweep the Dodgers in SF for the first time since 2003!

GIANTS 2 - DODGERS 0

It was a night of firsts.

Matt Cain's first win in 9 decisions against the Dodgers, Giants first sweep of the Dodgers in SF since 203, Javier Lopez's first appearance of the season, and Edgar Renteria's first clutch hit as a Giant!

Well OK, maybe Rent has had a few clutch hits as a Giant, but this one is the biggest this season.  (this one was the biggest last season)  But it didn't make it any less surprising.  I loved Joe Morgan's comment early in Rent's at bat when he mentioned that Renteria has had a repuutation throughought his career for being a clutch hitter.  Probably one pitch before Rent drilled his triple into the left centerfield gap that Matt Kemp totally misplayed from a double into a triple.

The fact that Rent was up with 2 runners on at all made me question Joe Torre's status as a great manager.  Torre, for some reason that I still can't figure out, intentionally walked Aaron Rowand, who was hitting a robust .230 against LHP this season, so that lefty Clayton Kershaw could face Edgar Renteria, who was batting .333 Vs. lefties this season.  Edgar promptly ripped the triple into the alley and scored the only 2 runs of the game and single handedly was responsible for the offensive side of things in tonight's victory.

And they say Bochy is a bad manager!

The battle of the trade deadline acquisitions was decidedly in the Giant's favor as well.  Javier Lopez made his Giants debut and threw 2 pitches to the new Dodgers leftfielder, Scott Podsednik, who he got to ground out to end the 8th inning.

It doesn't get any easier for the Giants.  Starting Tuesday, they face the Colorado Rockies in Colorado.  They will be throwing Sanchez, Bumgarner, and Lincecum at the team that has won 4 games in a row after losing their previous 8.  Then it's off to Atlanta to face the always tough Braves and to have the 2 top NL ROY candidates face off against one another.

Link of the Day:

John Bowker is in a better place now.  It seems that after the initial shock of being traded wore off .  john Bowker realized that the Giants have done him a favor by sending him to Pittsburgh.  He wasn't going to get a chance to play everyday in San Francisco while they were in contention.  Hell, he wouldn't have even put on a Giants uniform until September at the earliest.  But in Pitt he will get a chance to play.  The Pirates aren't going anywhere and they play in a more hitter friendly park than the Giants do.  Good luck Johnny B. and hopefully Bowkermania will catch on in Pittsburgh!

Giants dominance of Astros ends for a game

Astros 6 - Giants 3

It's one of those things that had to happen sometime.  The Giants finally lost to the Astros after 10 consecutive wins against them.  Barry Zito also lost to the Astros for the first time this season after having gone 2-0 and having given up only 3 earned runs to them in 13 innings this season.

The loss could just be that law of averages catching up to them.  It could also point to something bigger. 

After a streak of 12 games in which they scored 3 runs or more in every game, the Giants have now endured a stretch where they scored 3 runs or less in 5 of their last 7 games.  The offense that appeared to be clicking now seems to be struggling once again.  The Giants did manage 4 extra base hits a night after they didn't have any.  They did miss a ton of scoring opportunities which seems to be the story of this team this season.

Andrew Baggerly of the San Jose Mercury news had some interesting insights to Posey and Molina.

On Posey he said that Buster's wrist has been bothering him.  Buster said that it's been something that has bothered him all season.  Bochy insisted that there was nothing to read into Posey's absence and that he would catch against Joe Martinez on Saturday. 

"Sometimes it's good to get a couple days," Bochy said. "He's just getting a little break right now."

I find that statement strange since Bochy is the same guy who kept insisting earlier this season that Pablo Sandoval didn't need a day off because he was 23 years old and should be able to handle playing every day.  Posey, who is also 23, however gets what amounts to 3 days off in a row after Monday's off day. 

Bochy knows these guys better than I do so it's tough to say what it was that led to the way that they were each handled but it does seem strange.

On Molina, Baggerley said that he was getting the same feeling of frustration from Giants management that he was getting right before Aaron Rowand's banishment to the bench. There was also some talk of an elbow injury with him, which could explain a lot of his problems throwing out baserunners this season although he did throw one out last night, I would not be surprised one bit to see Bengie spend an extended period of time on the bench.

Some good news is that Edgar Renteria is batting .333 since he has returned to the lineup.   It's only been 9 ABs but he has been hitting at a .326 clip all season besides his multiple trips to the DL.  How he fits into an already overcrowded infield is a nice problem to have.  But given that Bochy is trying to achieve a "sense of oneness." I think he will get his share of ABs.

Nate watch:
Nate popped out with runners on first and second base in the 8th inning.  At this point, Nate must stand in the on deck circle before each at-bat and think that it doesn't matter what he does because he won't start the next day.  Burrell, who wasn't supposed to start every day has and he started out OK but he is now 4 for his last 19 which works out to a whopping .235 average.  One of those 4 hits was a HR though.