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.

Despite 2-4 road trip Giants are ahead of where they were last season

Obviously they are nowhere near their 6-1 record to start the season, but that wasn't the biggest issue that they had last season.

Their biggest problem last season was their 7 game losing streak to the Padres.  That is what haunted them all season long and the biggest reason that it took them  until the last day of the season to clinch.  Think about it.  If the Giants won just 2 of those 7 previous games (they easily could have since they lost two of those games 1-0) then the final series would have been meaningless.

There is plenty to be excited about.  They are coming home for 6 games, they are going to have their ring ceremony, and Buster Posey and Aubrey Huff came out of their slumps today.

That is the biggest development of all.  The pitching has been outstanding, but the offense has been lacking.  Sure they busted out for 10 runs against the Dodgers but that was with Mark DeRosa and Aaron Rowand.  The Giants regular starting lineup was only averaging 2.5 runs per game up until today.  They only scored 1 run in 2 out of 4 games!  

Look, I'm not naive enough to think the Giants are going to score 8 runs a game on a consistent basis.  But with Sanchez, Huff, Sandoval, and Posey all hitting well at the same time, the Giants pitchers aren't going to be constantly pitching in tight games.  Add a nice game from Brandon Belt into the mix and the Giants look very tough.  Forget about all the doomsayers and the talk about a 1-4 start.  The Giants hadn't won a world series for 50+ years before last season so they are used to overcoming long  odds.

7 IP 3H 1ER 0BB 13 K

That's the line put up by Tim Lincecum today.  The fact that there really isn't much new to say about this performance by the freak just shows how good he is.  Most guys put up a line like this and people start to lose their mind.  But Timmy puts up this line and Giants fans just say "That's Timmy for you."  If their is one guy who is going to overcome the east coast bias and the near inevitability of the Cy Young award going to some Phillie, it's Timmy.

Home opener is Friday, after another off day, and Johnny no-no gets the nod.  He pitched great against the Dodgers, but was done in by errors.  He pitches better at home then on the road, plus the Giants face Jake Westbrook who go lit up in his last start (16.62 ERA), so it should be a great opener!  

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.

Belt Belts one but Sloppy Giants fall to 0-2

It was the moment that Giants fans have all been waiting for.  Brandon Belt's first big league homerun.  IT came in his second big league game and he hit it where the big boys hit em!

The excitement lasted for about an inning and a half.

That was how long it took for the Giants to literally give the lead to the Dodgers for the second straight night.

Their two errors in the sixth brought their total to five for the last two games and the unearned run total to 3.  But there were positives in the two games.

Brandon Belt.

Belt has looked like every bit the big league player we thought he might be.  He doesn't look overmatched at the plate and, the two unearned runs aside, he almost was the hero of the game.  I saw a tweet, from John Shea I think, that said Will Clark hit a homer in his first game and Belt hit one in his second game.  If this guy turns out to be as good as Will "The Thrill" we will be happy for a long time.

Jonathan Sanchez.

Ol' Dirty pitched well enough to win.  Unfortunately, his error in the 6th inning was basically the deciding factor of the game.  But 8 strikeouts in 5.2 IP is something to get excited about.  If Johnny No-No pitches like this all season then not trading him for Prince Fielder was a good move.

Pablo Sandoval.

I know he made a throwing error tonight, but if Sanchez fields Gimenez's comebacker then all is forgotten.  The bigger story is the fact that he is leading the Giants in hits (sure it's only 3, but it's a start) and he has looked much improved on defense.  (error notwithstanding).  I think this season is going to be a return to the Panda that we all know and love.

I'm not gonna dwell too much on the fact that the Giants are 0-2 right now.  I know they looked pretty bad but everybody has stretches.  It looks like the little tailspin they went into at the end of spring training has kind of carried over into the regular season.  Hopefully they can pull out of it behind Cain today.

Giants begin their title defense tomorrow!

The San Francisco Giants begin their World Series title defense tomorrow!

I just love writing that!

Brandon Belt made the roster pushing Travis Ishikawa to the waiver wire, and Aubrey Huff to right field.  Ishi can still be traded, but I doubt that any team is gonna give up too much for him when they could get him for nothing when he clears waivers.  The Giants could send him to Fresno and he could refuse that to become a free agent. His future is in limbo right now.

Huff in right gives the Giants a projected starting lineup of Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Belt, Sandoval, and Tejada.  It seems to be a slightly more potent lineup than last season and they have a very deep bench with Fontenot, Schierholtz, Mark Derosa, and Eli Whiteside.  Any one of those guys could start on the right team.  That's saying something since this team was searching for depth, particularly at shortstop, this offseason.

Oh yeah, I forgot Aaron Rowand is on the bench too.  Hopefully he is the one who gets the ax when Ross comes off the DL, but there is a very real possibility that Nate goes.  Not because it is the best move for the Giants, but because it really appears that the Giants are gonna let Rowand clog up a roster spot for the duration of his albatross of a contract.  I think that Nate is more valuable to the club but what are you gonna do?

It's so great to be done with Spring training!  Lincecum Vs. Kershaw tomorrow at 5pm!