Great assessment, Lefty. I appreciate your acknowldegement that
Cain's grooving pitch, to Cruz of all people, was a stupid mistake. Is this coaching? Why, at a crucial point in the game do you groove one? Challenge is one thing. Groove is another.
Also, good call on the OF placement. I have never understood this, particularly at the MLB level. Little League, yes, MLB, why? These guys can run back. Taking even 5 steps back, to prevent the kind of fiasco we witnessed last night when Winn let an eady catch sail over his head, is one thing. But to get so deep is ridiculous. I understan, I think, the idea that getting deep gives better angles on balls in the gap, but you do not need to play so deep you can get everything over your head by crawling, but can't get most balls in front of you.
I hope we never see Frandsen at SS again. Boards for hands and limited range. 2b, OK, especially since he is outhitting Durham for June (250 - 239) or 3b (250 - 238), but, please, not SS.

Our lack for losing low scoring games is truly astonishing.

It's not only the fact that this offense is 13th in the NL in runs scored but that the offense is so easily shut down--too many players with low on base percentage (.313 team OBP but it would be much, much lower without Bonds), as well as little overall ability to get key hits and productive outs.

Damn shame to see good pitching go to waste on a team that isn't built for small ball.

We're probably comparing root canals and kidney stones here, but for what it's worth... I can stomach a well-played 3-1 loss a lot more than most others. It's the walks and errors (physical and mental) that kill me. For 28 2/3 innings in this series, walks and errors weren't a problem, but then, all of the sudden: mental error, physical error, bad pitch, walk, walk, brutal physical error. One dumb defensive inning out of thirty ain't bad, but the team's margin of error is pretty thin these days.

Still, compared to the eight game losing streak, which featured 45 runs allowed and only one decent start, these last two losses have been downright peaceful.

This has to be the most frustrating season I can remember. Maybe '94 was the last one like this because of the expectations built up in '93. Nonetheless, everytime it looks like the team might be turning it around (3 game winning streak, then going for 2 straight series wins), they go on and real off a losing streak to at LEAST match the winning streak. Horrendous.

The problem for the most part has been the hitting, specifically in anything resembling a clutch situation. If Barry or Molina aren't up, the team is screwed. Also, despite their turnaround, I have some real doubts about the bullpen. Yeah, their ERA looks great now, but does it actually apply when the team is trying to hold a close lead? There haven't been enough of those situations to really answer that for me,but the small sample size indicates that it will be a problem.

Lastly, in the few games I've gotten to see him play, I absolutely love Schierholtz's approach at the plate, as well as his arm in the field. Money be damned, I'd like to see Roberts and Winn split CF and Nate get the lion's share of the starts in right.

Frank... about the "grooving" mistake, I generally assume that a certain amount of pitches in a game aren't going to go where they're supposed to. Some of those are going to be well out of the strike zone, some are going to be accidentally perfect (maybe hitting a corner of the plate away from where the target was set), and some are going to be grooved.

But so often I hear someone like Krukow, who knows about a million times more about pitching than I do, say something like "If you're going to miss here, miss outside." My first thought is always, how can you control where a ball ends up when you miss the target? A miss by definition is a screw-up; it's like saying, "If you're going to miss this free throw, don't hit the rim." I mean, you can cheat a little, I guess, and just try to throw the ball a bit outside in the first place, but if you're trying to throw to a corner and you don't have perfect command, isn't throwing a fat strike always a risk?

Do you have a take on this, Lefty, ya old twirler? How does a pitcher with intermittent command avoid grooving one?

Pants, good comment. Actually, I might have been wrong (imagine that). I thought the count was 3-0 and he grooved one assuming Cruz wouldn't swing 3-0. Now I am not sure what the count was. It sure was a fat pitch, though.
Barton, here are the teams BA #s for June - other than Bonds, no offense at all:
Out BAs for June:
Winn 253
Feliz 238
Omar 257 (almost a resurgence for him)
Molina 235
Durham 239
Aurilia 217 (thankfully, only 23 ABs)
Bonds 344
Klesko 254
Roberts 220
Frandsen 250 (is this higher than his fielding avg?)
Schierholtz 342

Actually, the team doesn't need 2 "big bats" they need these guys to hit 265 - 285 and show some of the veteran savvy we've heard so much about.

One other thing I think is interesting. Our runs scored vs runs against. Here it is by month

month W-L Runs Runs ag'nst
Apr 13-11 93 90
May 12-16 121 112
Jun 8-17 87 106

One little wrinkle. So as not to skew the numbers too much from the blowouts (the 15-2 and 15-3, the 13-0 and 10-2 games, where we won one and lost one of each type) I used 5 runs instead of the larger number.
We were actually doing OK, stumbling but not falling, until late May, when we came home, lost 3 to Colo, went to NY, lost 2 of 3 and the rest, as they say, is history.

A couple things:

>Why, at a crucial point in the game do you groove one? Challenge is one thing. Groove is another.

Cain didn't intentionally groove the ball to Cruz. He tried to hit his location, and he missed. It happens. Why, after a lifetime of brushing your teeth, do you still poke the toothbrush into your gum once in a while? Pitching is a series of violent and complex mechanisms, and they don't always produce the intended result.

Point #2 re. Frandsen: yesterday's egregious brought to the surface a big question: is he cut out for the bigs? I'm not saying he's a bust, but so far he's shown little plate discipline, no power, and shaky defense. He needs to show more, preferably in an everyday situation for a couple of months when they trade Pedro Feliz.

>yesterday's egregious brought

that should be egregrious *error*, of course.

Maybe this says more about my state of mind than anything else, but did anyone else see a resemblance between the picture in Lefty's post...and Brian Sabean?

Put the shades on Sabes, give him the bad bowling shirt and the hand cannon, put him in the room with Ralphie B. Yeah, I can definitely see it.

Lefty - I think Frandsen is cut out for the bigs. He hit two rockets off of Maddux and got no hits. So the boxscore looks bleak, but it doesn't tell the real tale.

The young ones can get flustered early in their careers. It happens to everyone. If we didn't stick through with Cain, would he be the best 2-9 pitcher in the history of baseball? Of course, Kevin is hardly of Cain's status, but the point remains, give the kid some more time. I mean he barely plays as it is. He just doesn't get the consistant playing time needed to get comfortable. If we treat him like Linden, then he will turn out like Linden. Not to mention that Kevin is more naturally a second baseman.

>give the kid some more time

Absolutely. And that time should be soon. Sabean should move Feliz for whatever he can get and let Frannie play out the year at 3B, results be damned.

I'd say trade Durham too, but if/when Bonds leaves, Durham could be the only legitimate hitter in the middle of the lineup for 08. And right now I don't think his trade value is very high anyway.

Lefty, I was originally under the impression the count was 3-0 and Cain just threw it up there to get strike 1, assuming Cruz wouldn't swing on 3-0. If the count was different and he jsut missed his spot, I'm a lot more understanding. I know that happens. ACtually, I am amazed at how often pitchers get away with mistake pitches. So, what was the count?

MARK IT ZERO!

Lefty - I completely agree. Feliz should be moved for a bag of chips and a pepsi if you can swing it. Who cares what you get in return? (I presume some sort of A or AA prospect). And you eat his salary for the year just so you can move him. (We did the same thing with Benitez and actually got something juicy for it)

As for Durham, I would love to see him traded too, but his value is in the dumpster right now. His value was highest before this season started. So what could we have gotten then? A couple prospects? I say just cut bait and get what you can now, and let someone take his playing time. If Durham does stay, I'd be OK with it, as long as he does not bat in the 1-5 hole. 6th seems like the place for him.

Many others (on different websites) think my idea is dumb overall but here it is:
1. Get rid of Sweeney, Durham, Feliz for whatever you can by the trade deadline.
2. Try to swing a trade: Morris for a juicy young prospect, hopefully a corner infielder.
3. Bring up Horwitz for 1B/OF, De La Rosa for 3B, and keep Figueroa as the defensive specialist. You can replace him with Lewis if Horwitz can become an everyday 1B. Frandsen to 2B. Knoedler replaces G-Rodriguez.
4. Get the kids some playing time. More rest for Barry, Roberts, Winn, Aurilia, Klesko and Vizquel.
5. Take whichever guys show promise and roll them over into next year.
6. Spend a good portion of the $35M available after this season in free-agency. Bring in at least 1 marquee player.

I know that smallball teams don't win often, but I can't help but think that our ballpark is built for smallball and pitching. We pretty much have the pitching thing down. We just need a team that can consistently put up 4-5 runs/game. A singles and doubles hitting team that has speed and hits for average more than power.