First place Giants keep rolling!

After taking 3 out of 4 from the Central division leading St. Louis Cardinals and regaining sole possession of first place in the NL West.  The Giants came home last night and took care of business against the Colorado Rockies.

For some reason, the Giants can't score until after their opponents do.  But as long as they keep winning I guess that it's OK.  I no longer get too upset over the other team scoring first as it seems that the Giants' offense doesn't realize that there is a baseball game going on until that happens.

The lineup that Bochy put out there last night may just be the best offense that the Giants have.  At least until Pablo Sandoval returns.  The outfield of Ross, Torres, and Schierholtz are easily the best offensive and defensive options that the Giants have in the outfield.  Oh and that guy Schierholtz only had one hit, but it came during the three run fourth inning and he eventually scored.  Just sayin...

As for the infield, Burriss definitely earned another start with his 3 hit performance and Crawford was right in the mix as well.  I hope this is the beginning of the end of Miguel Tejada's time in a Giants uniform.  I loved the guy in Oakland (hell I even have his rookie card), but as Bob Costas said during Thursday night's game on MLB network, Tejada "is a shadow of his former self."  Also, according to Carl Steward, I'm not the only one who feels Miggy might be done.

Cain didn't have his best stuff, he did walk four guys, but he made up for it by striking out 7 and holding the Rockies to just one run.  Cain has always been a good pitcher.  He has never been a dominating pitcher.  He has just always found ways to win games.  I know his last few starts has caused some concern, but he really has always had hiccups like these along the way.

Tomorrow's forecast calls for rain.  That's a bummer.  Hopefully they can squeeze the game in but we will see.

Go Giants!

Is Nate Schierholtz the Giants MVP?

Last night's game was amazing.  It had a 3 run comeback, multiple lead changes, and extra innings.  Through all of that, one guy emerged as the star.

Nate Schierholtz.

I seriously believe that this guy is the Giants' MVP so far.  At least as far as position players go.  Nobody else on this team has contributed offensively, defensively, and on the basepaths.  OK well maybe Burris or Ford run  a little better than he does, but that's about all that they do so far.

Hell, Schierholtz even leads the team in homers since Pablo went down.  Sure he's only got 3 over that time but when the team leader has 5 and he hasn't played in over a month that is huge for an offense.

Look, I know that Bochy likes to let veterans play and try to get hot.  But he also showed last season that he isn't afraid to replace an underperforming veteran with an up and comer when he replaced Rowand with Torres. The time has finally come for Boch to give Nate the starting role in right field.  Ross has played well enough to play left and of course Torres is the guy in center.  Burrell is not much more than a bench guy at this point and he may even need to be an emergency first baseman.  I know I would feel more comfortable with him there than I would with Burriss over there.

Nate has been getting the majority of starts in right but now it's time for him to be there permanently.

In other news;

Brandon Crawford has hit just enough to convince me that he is an upgrade at this point over Miguel Tejada.  I am sure that Crawford can hit .217 and play a whole lot better in the field than Tejada can.  I floated the idea on Twitter during the game and I want to get it out there here.

I think the Giants should release Tejada when Pablo Sandoval comes off the DL.

I'm pretty sure there is zero to no chance of that happening, but I can hope.  Besides, the way the Giants players are getting injured maybe Tejada will go on the DL.  It has to happen sometime in his career.


Maybe I should have read Andrew Baggerly's blog before I wrote mine.  You can read it here.

Tejada comes up big in the 9th!

Miguel Tejada looks like he is happy to be back in the Bay Area.  After he homered in his first AB at AT&T (As a member of the Giants) he came up with a huge 2 out, 2 RBI double in the 9th inning to send the Giants home winners on the day that they received their World Series champion rings.  During the ring ceremony Tejada, and Brandon Belt, took part in the team picture where all of the players were holding up their hands with their new rings on them.  Tejada had his hand behind his back and from the looks of his 9th inning heroics, he is hungry to get one of his own.

Say what you want about whether Rasmus should have caught the ball or not, but this is what Tejada was known for in Oakland.  He was always coming up with the big hit for the A's.  I remember being at the Coliseum  back in 2002 when they were on their 20 game win streak and Tejada hit a late inning homer to give the A's a victory (it was like their 16th or 17th in a row).  But that was what he was known for.  The guy is obviously not the player he was in 2002, but if he can come through with some clutch hits like he used to, I think the Giants fans will be happy to have had him play for them.

Cain turned in another solid performance and the team actually pulled one out for him.  More evidence that we could see big things from Cain.  This is the type of game that the Giants always seemed to lose for him in the past so the baseball gods are smiling on him now!

As for Rasmus' miscue in the outfield.  Well it's about time.  The Giants have given away enough games due to poor defense this season.  it's about time they won one due to poor defense.

Giants glad to be leaving Los Angeles

The Giants pitched and hit well enough to be 4-0.

They defended well enough to be 1-3.

That really is what the series against the Dodgers boiled down to.  The Dodgers caught the ball when they had to and the Giants didn't.

Even a World Series championship hasn't kept Giants fans from being fatalists.  If you peruse Twitter and take a look at some of the blogs you would probably be convinced that this is going to be the downfall of the 2011 Giants.  Now, this could very well be the case, but I don't think it's going to make a huge impact on the team over the long run.

The reason why I don't think that it's going to be such a huge impact on the season is that the bad defense isn't characteristic of the Giants.  Over the last 2 seasons, they have been pretty good defensively.  The lapses by Pablo Sandoval (despite what fans think) and Buster Posey are uncharacteristic of their play normally.  Miguel Tejada has also been a capable defender of the course of his career.

The only real defensive liability the Giants have right now is Huff in right field.  The game on Sunday put that liability on display for a national audience.  The problem is that the only solution to that situation would be to put Huff back at first.  But then what do you do with Belt?  Put him in right?  I'm not sure if Belt is any better in right than Huff but the idea doesn't appeal to me.

Offensively there are a few concerns.  Tejada has been terrible and his AB with 2 outs and the bases loaded was the picture of getting yourself out by being too aggressive.  Pat Burrell has two homers but other than that he is 0 for 12.  Also, despite his big homer in the second game of the season, Belt hasn't done too much offensively.  Really, other than Freddy Sanchez and Pablo Sandoval, the offense hasn't been too impressive statistically.

Despite all of this, the Giants scored 18 runs in four games.  Which breaks down to about 4.5 runs per game. As long as they are putting up 4.5 runs a game I guess you can't complain too much.  (although if you take the 10 run game out of the equation, they have scored 8 runs in 3 games for an average of 2.6 RPG)

So what does it all mean?

At this point, it doesn't mean a whole lot.  Does anybody really think the Padres are going to continue their success of the first 3 games?  Or Kansas City?  Or Baltimore?  Sure, it's frustrating to a lot of the experts because they "predicted" these struggles but the so called "Giants" experts are the same guys who said the Giants would never win anything with Bochy and Sabean at the helm.

The Giants could stumble this season, there is no doubt about that.  But this is largely the same team that won it all last season, so they deserve some benefit of the doubt.  They had some stretches last season where they were terrible and the pitching has been good so far this season, other than one bad inning by Runzler which was directly related to poor defense(although that didn't show up in the box score).

So, ask me in a week or two if I am worried.

Giants land Tejada for one year.

The San Francisco Giants signed Miguel Tejada to a one year deal for $6.5 million dollars.  The Giants are now paying two former Oakland A's about half of the entire payrolls the early 2000's teams were pulling down.

I don't hate this deal.  I don't like this deal.  I do think it's a little much for a guy who will hit .260 and give you maybe 10-15 homers.  Couldn't they get that much production from Emmanuel Burriss?

Probably, but they wouldn't get the leadership that a guy like Tejada brings to the table.  Unless it's a major injury, this guy isn't going to miss a whole lot of time on the field.  At one point Tejada was the active leader in consecutive games played.

His power numbers actually went up when he came to San Diego last season in a ballpark that is just as pitcher friendly as AT&T is.  There have been scouts out there who said that that Tejada is going to be the free agent bargain of the season.  So this could be a diamond in the rough type of signing.  Not Aubrey Huff type diamond in the rough but good for the value.  A guy who got stronger in the second half of the season at 35 years is not necessarily a sign of a guy who is breaking down.

Tejada is more of a third baseman at this point in his career so this could be a challenge to Pablo Sandoval.  Although if they wind up playing Tejada at third they still have a hole at short.  Mark Derosa has played short in his career, but he is more of a left-fielder at this point and I would suspect that the Giants are really hoping DeRosa fills more of that Super-Utility role that Uribe has filled for them the last few seasons.

Lastly, I still think the Giants can make a move for Jason Bartlett of Tampa Bay.  The price has got to be right however.  He is young and cheap.  His hitting style would probably play well in the spacious AT&T park.  There is no guarantee that Sandoval is going to be counted on and Tejada at third with Bartlett at short would be a real possibility.

Now to paint my Miguel Tejada Atheletics bobblehead orange and black!

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.