Good old Ryan Rohlinger -- or as the Associated Press likes to call him, "Brian Rohlinger" -- earlier today cranked his third ninth-inning home run in four games, this time to beat Milwaukee 8-6. If you remember back to last spring, Rohlinger put himself on the map with an unexpected power display. He must love that end-of-game, dregs-of-the-bullpen pitching.
Which brings us to today's topic. The Giants lead the majors this spring with 23 home runs. And without Manny Ramirez, last time I checked. That's all well and good, but let's take a closer look. Here's the list of the real pitchers, ie, the starters, the Giants have faced in Cactus League play, and their linescores.
3/9 Manny Parra (Mil) 4 IP 1 H 0 ER 1 BB 3 K
3/8 Dana Eveland (Oak) 3 IP 4 H 1 ER 0 BB 0 K
3/8 Nick Adenhart (Ana) 3 IP 2 H 0 ER 0 BB 1 K
3/7 Frank Morales (Col) 4 IP 3 H 0 ER 0 BB 3 K
3/6 Dustin Moseley (ANA) 3 IP 5 H 2 ER 1 BB 1 K
3/5 Trevor Cahill (OAK) 3 IP 1 H 1 ER 1 BB 3 K
I'd go back further, but you get the point. They're doing little damage against the starters, four earned runs in 20 IP the past six games. Most of the Giant runs are coming against bullpenners and guys who won't be in the majors this year. They've hit guys like Eveland and Moseley, back-of-rotation types, but more often than not the team is posting goose eggs the first time or two through the batting order.
It's a nice story when Ryan "Brian" Rohlinger can straighten out the fastball of Jose Meat a few times in the last inning of a meaningless game, but I fear the real story is happening much earlier.
The team's power hopes just dimmed a bit more, as Josh Phelps was re-assigned to minor league camp. The CBS story linked above quotes Bruce Bochy that Phelps, with only 8 at-bats this spring, has a nerve problem in his shoulder. He needed to be healthy, powerful and consistent this spring for a shot at the opening day roster, and it looks like it ain't happening.
Also sent down were Pat Misch to AAA and P Ramon Ortiz, C Todd Jennings, P Ronnie Ray to minor-league camp. Misch will probably be one of the first call-ups if the Giants need a starter. My guess is that Misch, who's been around long enough to log nearly 100 big-league innings, will get one more shot at some point at proving himself in the bigs, then the team will move on.
Does Rohlinger have a legitimate shot if he does a little more weight training, as is mentioned here? (In baseball, it's also known as, wink, wink, "weight training.") The new flavor of the week, dark horse version, is minor-league veteran Andres Torres. If Eugenio Velez doesn't convince the Giants he can play outfield on occasion, the Giants might carry Torres as a late-inning D and pinch-running guy, as Schulman wrote earlier today.
Last year's non-roster surprise was Keiichi Yabu. Any guesses for this year's version?
