Did the Giants finally get mad?

GIANTS 9 - BREWERS 2

Jose, can you see where that ball finally landed?

Did the Giants get mad finally or did just Jose Guillen get mad?

Guillen basically did what the Giants were hoping he would do today.  He carried the team to victory.  HE hit a grand slam in the first inning just as I was tweeting about how Barry Zito is cursed.  He came up with the bases loaded in the 5th and delivered two more runs with a single and single-handedly defeating the Brewers.  Pat "the Bat" later added some frosting to the cake with a 3 run homer that basically turned the game into a laugher.

Barry Zito turned in another excellent performance and ran his record to 110-6 when the receives 4 or more runs of support.

I don't know if the Giants got mad or not.  I guess we will have to wait until Tuesday in Chicago to be sure.  But things couldn't have gone better for the Giants today.  The Padres fell to the Cardinals 4-1.  The Dodgers proved that maybe Joe Torre isn't a liar by waiting until the 11th inning to stun the Rockies 7-6  after being down 6-1 in the second inning.

All of today's events mean that the Giants are guaranteed to at least be tied for first place on Tuesday when Matt Cain takes the hill against the Chicago Cubs and Carlos Zambrano who of course has been on fire since he has returned to the starting rotation.

Oh BTW, the Giants mathematically eliminated the Brewers from the postseason today.

Bruce Bochy is a genius

GIANTS 10 - DODGERS 2

The Genius at work

Yes, Bruce Bochy is a genius.

As hard as those words were to type, I had to type them.  there is no other way to describe his decision to put Edgar Renteria in the leadoff hole.

Admit it, you probably had the same reaction as every other Giants fan when you saw that ol' Sleepy had Renteria leading off tonight.  As a matter of fact, I was so sure Bochy lost his mind when I saw it that  I tweeted: "Wow, Rent batting leadoff! I hope Sanchez has another no-no in him tonight."  Well Rent proved me wrong by going 4 for 5 and being a table-setter just like a leadoff man should.


Speaking of Jonathan Sanchez....


He absolutely dominated the Dodgers tonight.  The first inning looked pretty scary as Juan Uribe appeared determined to throw the game away again when he air-mailed Ryan Theriot's bunt attempt in the first inning.  This allowed Rafael Furcal to score and sent Theriot to 2nd.  The Dodgers had one run already in and a runner on second with no outs.


The old Jonathan Sanchez would have gone on to fall apart and allow 4 or 5 runs.  But this is Dirty Sanchez we are talking about here.


And Dirty he was.


Sanchez settled down to strike out 12 Dodgers and walk exactly zero.  I will say that another way, Jonathan Sanchez walked ZERO batters in 7 innings!  Five days after walking 7 batters in 5 innings the lanky lefty walked 0.  Striking out 12 batters, a career high for Sanchez, while walking 0 is a feat that has only happened 12 times in Giants history. (Tim Lincecum has done it 3 times!)  So Sanchez has another page in the Gigantes long history books.


And you guys wanted to trade him for that Adam Dunn guy.  


I can't end the article without mentioning the offense.  They finally joined the party today.   After scoring a grand total of 9 runs in their last 5 games, the offense busted out for 10 runs in one game!  Did I mention it was against the Dodgers?


Aubrey Huff continued his MVP push by getting the scoring started with a 4 run homerun off Dodgers starter Ted Lilly.  Meanwhile, back at the batcave, Buster Posey followed him with a solo shot and the Giants were suddenly up 5-1 effectively deciding the game.   But the Giants would pour on 5 more runs and getting a homerun from another guy I'm sure Giants fans weren't too excited to see in the lineup tonight: Jose Guillen.  Guillen went 3 for 3 by the way,  (you genius Boch!)


Tonight the Brewers, who have lost 10 of their last 15 games, come rolling into town.  They have hopefully given up on the season as their record would indicate.  This would be great since the Padres are playing the Cardinals and Tony Larussa and Albert Pujols would never let their team throw in the towel no matter how many games back they are.  


Randy Wolf Vs. Madison Bumgarner tonight.  Stay hot Madbum!

Are the Giants really any better than they were last season?

Here we are 131 games into the season.  They have a record of  72-59. There are another 31 games left and to the casual observer the Giants this season would be a better team than the team we had last season right?

That's extremely debatable.

But Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria are on the bench!  We have Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell!  Buster Posey instead of Bengie Molina!  Hell, even Jose Guillen is hitting .372 since coming over from the Royals!

Sure those names sound better than Fred Lewis, Randy Winn, and Rich Aurillia.  But does the result on the field look any different?

Exhibit A:

Through 131 games last season the Giants had a record of ............. 72-59.  they were 6 games back in the standings to the LA Dodgers.  Well I guess since they are only 5 back of the Padres they must be doing something right!

Exhibit B:

Last season the Giants team Batting Average was .257.  This season it's .263.  or about the difference that Jose Guillen's .372 has been making over the last week or 2

Exhibit C:

The pitching has been much more dominant!  Last season's ERA 3.55 to this season's 3.70!  Yes the pitching this season, this includes the starting pitching and the bullpen, has a HIGHER ERA  than the Giants pitchers put up last season.

The Giants need to go 16-15 the rest of the season to match last season's 88-74 record.  After losing 2 out of 3 to the Diamondbacks that looks like a tall order.  The hitting is prone to go into deep sleep and the pitchers just look worn out.  From Tim Lincecum's struggles to Jonathan Sanhez's inconsistency.  The only thing that is saving this season right now is the fact that the padres may finally be fading having lost 4 in a row and the Giants still have 7 games left with them.

At this point, the Giants are what they are.

They are a mediocre team in a mediocre division.  The fact that the entire National League seems to be mediocre helps their situation tremendously in the wild-card hunt.  There is no team that looks capable of running off 10 wins in a row right now.  So the Giants should remain in the postseason picture until the very end of the season.

I want to say it will be a fun ride.  But based on the season so far, I think it is going to be more like a torturous one.

Giants score 11 runs again! It's still not enough,,

REDS 12 - GIANTS 11

At least the game was exciting.

The score was 10-1 going into the bottom of the 5th.  I was at work at the time and was pretty glad I wasn't watching the game.  I got home and decided to check out what the carnage was only to see that the Giants had pulled to 10-8 in the 8th inning.  Andres Torres tied the game and I couldn't believe my eyes!  Next thing you know Aubrey Huff is hitting a sacrifice fly to put the Giants ahead 11-10 in the 9th inning!

Then Pablo Sandoval showed some of that lackluster defense that he has been showing a little too much this season.

Pablo threw away the second out of the 9th inning allowing the tying run to get to second.  That run scored on the double by the next batter and tied the game.  Some guy named Nick Massett came in and struck out 4 G-men in 2 innings and Francisco Cordero shut them down for 2 more innings and then the Reds scored off of Barry Zito in the 12th and the game was over.  Reds win.

There are a lot of positives to take from this game.

The 1933 New York Giants 

The Giants scored 11 runs in their third consecutive game(the first time they have done that since 1953 and the first time ever in San Francisco), they pounded out at least 17 hits for the 3rd straight game (first time since 1933!), they came back from 9 runs down!  Pablo Sandoval, Jose Guillen, Juan Uribe, Mike Fontenot, Jose Guillen, and Andres Torres each had multi-hit games.

There were some alarming stats too.

The 8 runs, 7 earned,  that Madison Bumgarner gave up.  It could just be a result of the rookie facing the highest scoring team in the league or a result of a guy who has passed his career number of innings pitched and is running on fumes.

The Giants also committed 5 errors.  Yes 5 errors! sure 3 of those were committed by pitchers and 2 of them were committed by Ramon Ramirez in his 2 innings of work and of course the most costly error of all was Pablo Sandoval's error in the 9th.

So you take some good and you take some bad.  Ultimately this game will be filed in the "L" column and that's what will count at the end of the season.  Hopefully the Giants can keep scoring runs with the D-backs coming to town tonight.

I almost forgot to mention that Brandon Belt made his AAA debut last night.  What does the kid do?  He hits his 20th homer of the season and steals his 12th base.  Look out for this guy in September.  Head on over to 22Gigantes to see some pictures and a video from the game.  It's worth it to hear Gigantes' son screaming "DADDY I JUST GOT HIS AUTOGRAPH!" After Belt "Belted" his homerun.

Burrell and Guillen homer. Giants still lose.

PHILLIES 9 - GIANTS 3

Things sure started out good for the Giants.  They scored two runs in the first off of Phillies starter Roy Oswalt in an innings which was highlighted by former Phillie Pat Burrell hitting a homerun.

Barry Zito battled through the first four innings and held a 2-0 lead into the 5th and then it all unraveled for him when he gave up 2 runs in the 5th and 2 in the 6th.

The only other highlight came in the 7th when the newest Giant, Jose Guillen, hit his first homerun as a Giant.  At this point it was still a game because Guillen's homerun made the score 4-3 Phillies.  But then Chris Ray, who had been pretty reliable since coming over in the Bengie Molina trade, came in and gave up 4 ERs without recording a single out to make a manageable deficit become unmanageable.

Much is being made about the Giants' alleged lack of success against teams with winning records.  But this is where the Giants season goes back to their atrocious record against the Padres.  the Giants are 31-41 against teams with winning records.  If the Giants had been able to win say 3 more games against the Padres so far this season and have a  record of 5-6 against them, their record against winning teams becomes slightly better at 34-37. They are still not world beaters but they are at least closer to .500 which is what you want to be against the good clubs.

Hopefully tonight's matchup of Matt Cain and Joe Blanton starts the Giants on the right path.  It's a winable game considering Blanton's 5.69 ERA.  The Giants need a win tonight to reclaim a tie in the wild-card standings.

Giants lose to Padres again. It's getting ridiculous

PADRES 3 - GIANTS 2

The Giants lost to the Padres for the 8th time in 9 games.  If the Giants had managed to win 3 of the 8 games they lost, which is less than half by the way, the Giants would be sitting in first place right now.   But no, the Giants can't even win a game against the Padres pitcher, Clayton Richard, who has been struggling in his last few starts.

Jonathan "Mr Guarantee" Sanchez pretty much lost the game by way of his horrible bunting in the second inning.  With runners on 1st and 2nd and nobody out, Sanchez bunted right back to the pitcher which enabled the Padres to throw out Juan Uribe at third base.  This is like the 8th time that Sanchez has been unable to execute a bunt properly this season.  I think 7 of those came against the Padres.

The Giants must win these next two games against the Padres.  If they don't they will be 5.5 games back.  They still play the Pads 7 more times after but if they can't win these next two games then I have no reason to believe that they can win any of the other 7 games they will play against them.

Oh and don't think that Bruce Bochy didn't have his hand in this debacle.  For some unexplained reason, Aaron Rowand was in the starting lineup again.  Not only did Rowand get picked off of second base in the 2nd inning, he struck out to end the game with the tying run on first base.  Rowand should be nowhere near the starting lineup at ever again this season.  If the Giants want to win this thing they can't keep trotting out the closest thing to an automatic out that the Giants have.  I am actually glad that the Giants got Guillen now if it means that Rowand will get even less playing time.

The other bonehead Bochy decision?  Batting the slumping Freddy Sanchez second.  In the 40 games since Sanchez was last at a .300 average, Sanchez is batting .223 with a horrendous OBP of .289.

Pablo Sandoval has been having his own struggles this season but he has been coming on in August.  Even if you go back 40 games with Pablo he is batting over 40 points better than Sanchez .265 to .223.  During the month of August, even with the 0 for 3 last night, Pablo is batting .326.  this would make him the perfect guy to bat in the 2 hole.

Bochy is a fan of saying that he likes to "Play the hot hand" yet for some reason the "hot hand" was hitting 6th and the stone cold hand was hitting 2nd.  A lineup that makes more sense, now that Guillen is in SF, looks more like this:

Torres, Sandoval, Posey, Burrell, Huff, Guillen, Uribe, Sanchez

Oh and the Padres even broke the Giants' Orange Friday mojo by handing them their first loss in the Orange unis.

Giants finally pull the trigger on Jose Guillen

The San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals surprised nobody and were finally able to pull off the deal that had been in the rumor mill for about a month now.  The only thing surprising about this deal is the fact that the Royals threw in so much money and that we didn't give up Brandon belt to get him.  At least I'm hoping we didn't!  (The Royals will be getting a Player To Be Named Later and usually this means that the Giants gave them a list of names they could pick from and I would be SHOCKED if Belt's name was on there.  It probably wasn't because he would probably already be on his way to Kansas City right now if he was.

This is another solid, if unspectacular deal for Brian Sabean this season.  Guillen is in a contract year, has good power, and has just gained 15.5 games in the standings.  He is in a position where he can succeed. I know everybody is worried about his defense and about his low average over the last month or so but the defense hasn't hurt the Giants so far when it comes to Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff and the average can be thrown out the window because Guillen suddenly has some motivation.

Think about it.  Guillen is a guy who is labeled as a complainer and a malcontent.  He throws tantrums, criticizes his teammates, and is just a negative presence altogether.  These kinds of guys need a reason to get motivated.  he has been sitting in K.C. waiting for the day that they traded him away.  Now, he is on a contender and he will be close to the lead on Sportscenter almost every night.  He will be able to put up numbers to pad his next contract, which hopefully will not be coming from the Giants.

I am a little concerned that Bochy has already anointed him the everyday Right Fielder, but Boch also said that Burrel would be coming off the bench and he is in the lineup every day.  Maybe Bochy means the opposite of what he says!  ( really if you look back at a lot of Bochy's quotes it's true!)

Anyway, Guillen is not Adam Dunn But he is the best that the Giants are going to be able to do without giving up Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, and Brandon Belt.

Oh and the way I envision the lineup with Guillen and the resurgent Panda:

Torres, Sandoval, Posey, Burrell, Huff, Uribe, Guillen, Sanchez

Round one goes to the Braves

BRAVES 3 - GIANTS 2

The game started off good.  The Giants had Jair Jurrjens on the ropes in the first inning and were unable to deliver the knockout blow.  The same in the second.  As a matter of fact he was on the ropes in almost every one of the first 5 innings.  But one of the things that has plagued the Giants all season long came back to bite them.

Hitting with runners in scoring position.

The Giants were 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position,  They hit 5 doubles and were only to get Andres Torres home in the 1st.

Tim Lincecum did not pitch too poorly either.  He went 6 1/3 innings gave up 6 hits, walked 3, and struck out 7.  He hung a curve to Alex Gonzales which landed in the left field bleachers and Eric Hinske took a high fastball over the centerfield fence on a flyball that just seemed to keep carrying and carrying and landed maybe 2 feet over the wall.  In fact, both homeruns Timmy gave up just barely made it out.  That's how close this game was.

This has led some people to theorize that their great July was against subpar competition and not against any first place teams.  They say that August will be much tougher and the Giants will be exposed against teams like Atlanta, San Diego, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Cincinnati.

What they fail to realize is that, other than San Diego, the Giants have winning records against all of the teams mentioned.  The Braves did tie the season series at 2-2 last night, but the Braves have the best record in the NL and the best record in baseball at home.  A split in this series would be a huge success and is still very possible.

Link of the day:

We should know the fate of Adam Dunn sometime today.  Apparently the Giants put in a claim on him but a team lower in the standings blocked them.  It could really be any team other than the Padres and Braves since they are the only 2 teams with better records than the Giants.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was St. Louis.

The Royals DFA'd Jose Guillen yesterday as well.  The Royals have 10 days to trade, waive, or release him.  I guess that the Giants are internally weighing their options with him but nothing is concrete.  I, for one, would not be too disappointed if we didn't get him because the more I think about it, the more I think he duplicates Pat Burrell and he could possibly not be a good fit in the clubhouse.

Ace Killers

GIANTS 6 - MARLINS 4

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

OK so they didn't beat Josh Johnson or Ubaldo Jimenez.  They did put 7 runs on the board against Jimenez earlier this season before the the Rocks tied the game.  The Giants did eventually win that game.  Against Johnson, they put three runs on the board which might as well be seven runs since JJ had not allowed more than 2 runs in a start in 13 straight starts.

Now 3 runs in 7 innings is still a quality start and Matt Cain matched Johnson run for run only allowing only 3 runs in 7 innings.  He actually pitched a little better than JJ did allowing only 4 hits to Johnson's 8.  Cain's only 2 mistakes turned into all 3 of the Marlin's runs on the day.

The fact that Cain allowed 3 runs and wasn't tagged with the loss marks a change in the Giants, and Cain's fortunes.  In the past, Cain would have taken the hard luck loss after giving up 3 runs.  Last night the Giants scored 3 runs for him while he was in the game and even went on to win the game after he left.

The other big news of the night is obviously Buster Posey extending his hitting streak to 20 games.  He has now moved in to the position of favorite for rookie of the year.  Posey's numbers rival Jason Heyward's with about 150 less ABs.  The other favorite, Washington's Stephen Strasburg was scratched from his start Tuesday night  and the clock is ticking until the Nats shut him down for the season.  I can't really come up with any other NL rookies who can compare to Posey.

Trade Rumblings:

I'm not too thrilled with the rumors of the Giants interest in the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista.  The guy has hit 28 homers so far to be sure but he is hitting in a Blue Jays lineup that has considerable more pop than the Giants do, his home games aren't currently being played in AT&T park, and he is only hitting .245 on the season.  Is he going to be an automatic out when he isn't hitting homers?

Jose Guillen is a head case, All through his career he has been up and down performance-wise.  Last season he only hit 9 homers to go along with 40 RBIs.  He does have 59 RBIs and 16 HRs this season and he could be the Giants' target seeing as he will probably come cheap since KC will be looking to dump salary.  A package deal that brings Scott Podsednik along would be a great move for Sabean provided A) the price is right and B) Guillen doesn't have an attitude like he did with the Angels

Adam Dunn is the guy I would most like to see the Giants get.  The guy bats around .280, he hits bombs, and has seven  30+ homer seasons in his career.  He is 7 away from his 8th and the best part about Dunn is that he will only be 31 this offseason.  He hits bombs that will easily get out of AT&T and he is OK defensively.  Although the asking price is reportedly Madison Bumgarner and if that's the case I'll pass.

At this point Guillen and a left handed middle reliever seem to be the most likely moves the Giants will make.  If they can somehow come up with Podsednik too, then the moves look good.