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

05.12.2008
Sweet Holm

Thanks to the continuing exploits of their 28–year-old rookie backup catcher, the Giants take two of three to win the weekend series from the Phillies, leaving Bruce Bochy to grumble again about the blown chance to win the previous weekend’s series in Philly — or even to sweep it.

Bruce, let it go. You’re not exactly nailed to a cross, but it never hurts to whistle a few bars of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” as in, hey pal, your 2008 San Francisco Giants are a couple players away from being a decent team, especially if those players can play infield defense, get on base frequently AND hit the ball out of the yard.

Easier said than done, of course, and time has a funny way of turning promise into illusion. But we’re two or three games short of the quarter post, and the whole Gamer/Bonds Who?/Young Guys/Great Pitching motif is making sense, however clumsily executed. Even though a portion of the unwashed masses isn’t convinced and threatens to send mid-weeknight attendance below 30,000, people paying attention are having more fun than any other fans of a 16–22 team in the history of baseball. (Proprietary formulae to calculate the ratio of fun-having to bitching/moaning among various segments of a fan base available upon request.) 

A few notes as we head into an intriguing four-game series against the suddenly hot Astros:

* Aaron Rowand, Mr. Gamerlicious, is actually doing everything the Giants promised and more. He’s on pace for nearly 50 doubles and slugging .557 despite only four homers.

* Fred Lewis is in a 3–for-31 funk. Bochy sat him against some of the lefty starters in the past six games, but not all of them. Should Boch have let him play through the whole time? Will Freddie right himself against the Astros’ string of righties?  

* Matt Cain has only three quality starts out of eight this year. His main problem has been the walks, driving up pitch counts and taking him out of games early when he’s otherwise pitching well. His last two starts were a good trend: one walk per start, although the one walk against Pittsburgh was the opposing pitcher, and it started a two-run rally.

SMALL PRINT UPDATE: Welcome Orange, Black and Blue to the Giants-related blogroll, and welcome Omar Vizquel back to the active roster. Brian Bocock is now in AAA, which is still a shocking promotion over last year.







[May 12, 2008 3:16 PM]  |  link  |  reply
bigO said

“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” I'm tryin', I really am BUT we've got ZITO goin' 2nite.

[May 12, 2008 5:30 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

How could you miss "Holm Sweet Holm" as a title? I'm shocked, just shocked! :^P

When a team has a player like Lance Berkman sizzling hot like the sun, it makes any team hot. Cooling him down would go a long way towards being competitive with the Astro's, but unfortunately all teams have been trying to figure that out his whole career, so keep your fingers crossed. Plus the Merc noted that he kills LHP (and Zito is pitching...)

I've been meaning to post on Rowand, yeah, don't hear many people extolling that deal still, but he was a good acquisition that will border on great if he can hit like he did in 2007 and 2004. I still say that he can do that.

[May 12, 2008 9:05 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Johnny Disaster replied to obsessivegiantscompulsive

"Sweet Holm As a Batter"?

[May 13, 2008 11:36 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to Johnny Disaster

Oh, that's good.

[May 12, 2008 6:19 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Evan said

Lewis's funk probably has something to do with all those lefties, but it's also textbook batted-ball regression. At his high point, everything he hit was falling in and his BABIP was .435 or so. Now it's down to .365, right about his career average. If he can stay at that level, he's doing well.

Another fun detail gleaned from Fangraphs: Lewis swings at a mere 14.6 percent of pitches outside the strike zone. That's fairly awesome plate judgment -- he's among the best in the game on that particular list.

[May 13, 2008 11:39 AM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to Evan

Yah, BABIP will inevitably come down, but also look at his game log during the funk: tons of strikeouts, 15 in 35 ABs, including two games with 4 Ks.

[May 13, 2008 6:32 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Fwotyoz replied to ELM

I'm definitely willing to accept the "he was swinging long after hitting the splash hit" argument. Two opposite field hits last night definitely back that up.

Also, the BABIP is definitely a factor.

[May 13, 2008 11:31 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Scott said

So what would the best infield defense be? Vizquel at short, for sure, and Bowker has looked pretty good at 1st. Aurilia/Castillo is going to be below average at 3rd, I think, and would Burriss be better than Velez/Durham at 2nd? Hard to believe he could be worse...

The outfield defense is 3rd in the NL, fortunately, but that infield defense is killer.