When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

09.03.2007
No O

In RFK Stadium, teams score about as often as Larry Craig in a men’s room.

So with an offense already on life support, the result for the Giants — five runs in three games — was inevitable. Whether it’s Durham or Frandsen, Ortmeier or Aurilia, Schierholtz or Winn in the lineup, I’m afraid this will more often than not be the arc of games down the stretch: great starting pitching and either just enough or not quite enough scoring to make the pitching stand up.  

Which isn’t all bad. The young hitters will likely be in situations, as Dan Ortmeier was today in the top of the 9th, where a hit could mean the game. (He struck out after a well-fought at-bat against Nats closer Chad Cordero.) That’s good learning experience.

And the bullpen, which is undergoing auditions of its own, will be asked to work on the knife’s edge. Tyler Walker returning from TJ surgery and throwing well: Nice enough. Walker throwing well in two close games v. Washington: Even better. Walker doing it against a playoff-hungry Dodger team in Chavez Ravine: Another viable arm for next year’s bullpen.

Brian Wilson finally gave up his first run of the year to lose today’s game. Instead of exposing faults or flaws, the loss showed us that he’s human and showed Wilson that sometimes even a nasty 90–MPH slider nearly in the dirt doesn’t get the job done. 

For most of September, the youngsters will play teams fighting for the playoffs. Other than four against the Reds, the Giants play only the NL West from now on, and even Colorado, five back, has an outside shot.

That is, unless Bruce Bochy pulls the old must-play-veterans-to-respect-the-game horsepuckey. There was consternation here about Bochy’s quote this weekend that seemed to indicate his reluctance to play young guys down the stretch. The proof will be in the September pudding, of course, but I’m guardedly — OK, blindly — optimistic the concern will turn out to be overblown. First, as Schulman of the Chron notes here, Davis and Ortmeier have played a lot in August, starting 21 and 12 games respectively. (Ortmeier didn’t come up til the 10th, so he’s started more than half the games since his call-up.) 

Kevin Frandsen has gotten short shrift, but Bochy says here that Ray Durham could be coming off the bench more in September. Change that “could” to a “will” and you’re cooking with gas, Boch. The other rook who should see at-bats is Schierholtz, whose time would come mainly at the expense of Randy Winn.

Facing lefty Jeff Francis tomorrow, I predict this lineup in Colorado:

CF Davis
1B Ortmeier
RF Winn
LF Bonds
C Molina
2B Aurilia
3B Feliz
SS Frandsen
P Cain
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[September 3, 2007 11:03 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Lyle said

I think your projected lineup is right on the mark. So why do I feel like Bochy will start Durham anyway?