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

06.14.2009
6/14/09: The Giants' Perfect Weekend

Giants 7, A's 1: How could it get any better? The weather was great, the pitching was off the hook, The Kung Fu Panda went deep, Nate Schierholtz had one of the most exciting plays ever witnessed in this blessed ballpark, and the team on the ugly end of the whoopin' stick was the A's.

Right -- it could've been better. It could've been the Dodgers. In fact, it could've been either of the next two teams to visit, the Angels or Rangers, and the sweep would have been more significant. Oakland is a flawed team and, not to take anything away from the last three nights of spectacular mound work, a bit wheezy once you get past the budding young rotation. Jack Hanahan, sixth place hitter? Raj Davis pressed into a starting role? Jason Giambi, old and unenhanced?

Jack Cust showed why he really should be a DH as he clanked around right field all weekend, which leads me to ask: Why in the hell would an opposing manager put his worst outfielder in right at Mays Field? Bob Melvin did it late last year with Adam Dunn, and it cost them crucial runs.

While you ponder that, let's get to our players of the week:

On offense, Pablo Sandoval takes the honor not only for his power -- two crucial homers and a double -- but for his smaller ball. His bunt single started the rally Friday night against the otherwise flawless Vin Mazzaro, and he walked three times this week, twice coming around to score. My runner-up isn't Nate Schierholtz, though huzzahs for his nice series this weekend with the inside-the-parker, two fine throws his pinch-hit RBI single. No, it's Andres Torres, who came up 14 times, got on base seven times, hit two triples, a double, and walked twice. Show me a better fifth outfielder in baseball right now.

Among pitchers, Matt Cain had one trophy-case start and one grind-it-out win. It's hard to pick anyone else.
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7 Comments

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Geoffrey | June 15, 2009 6:13 AM | Reply

This was indeed the perfect weekend for the giants. Three good victories with great starting pitching giving the bullpen a rest.

I agree on the praise for Panda, he has been awesome recently and is establishing himself as a possible (position player) face of the franchise. Torres has also been excellent, I did want to see him try to steal home after his triple although Nate's insane inside-the-parker more than made up for that.

Overall it's hard not to feel good about the Giants at the moment

obsessivegiantscompulsive | June 15, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply

Sweeps are nice but kind of flukey sometimes.

What is more important, as ELM astutely noted, the A's main strength is their starting pitching, and we faced arguably their two best starters in Mazzaro and Outman and beat both of them. Plus, the Giants put up a lot of runs on the board over the weekend, as well, against their good pitching staff, starters and relievers. I think that deserves noting.

And, yes, it would be more significant against the Angels or Rangers, but still, it was against a team that was on a steamrolling run, winners of 8 of 10, and the Giants stopped them cold with our pitching. This is as it has been all season long - the Giants need to do more with each series - because they are a young team with more to prove in order to get our excitement up for the team. It was still a nice performance, overall.

Jason | June 15, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply

This was an exciting weekend. I am so pumped for our next 2 series as they will be a HUGE test for us. I think I would be as excited to pull 2 games from each the Angels and the Rangers as I was this weekend.

Kudos to those that Lefty has mentioned. I think we have a 3 way tie for the offensive MVP for the series in Sandoval, Torres and Schierholtz!

Zito has to keep our momentum going tonight!

50andstillfly | June 15, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply

Great move by Bochy and great comment by Krukow: on Saturday, Kruk noticed that the Giants had 3 shortstops in the infield (Renteria, Burriss and Uribe) and 3 center fielders in the outfield (Winn, Rowand and Torres), and sure enough they turned in a number of stellar defensive plays to pave the way for Unit to cruise to a win. Not a lot is being said about Bochy these days, but he is doing a nice job overall with this team.

aGIANTman replied to comment from 50andstillfly | June 15, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply

I think Bochy has done fine on the pitching side (lately) but he has not faced a lot of tough decisions. However, not so much on the offensive side. His line-ups are terrible everyday. Also, I am not sure to what degree he has any say in the following matters concerning which I think the Giants are making very serious errors: (1) Burriss over Frandsen; (2) Lewis on the bench [I would only bench him against a few tough lefties or I would send him down to AAA to work on his swing if he has options]; (3) Molina at the clean-up slot. A fourth error is less egregious, but Rowand should not be hitting in the lead-off position unless it can be established that this is the cause in his upsurge. I also think his handling of Ishikawa this season has been very problematic although I have no problem with Sandoval over Ishikawa as a short term thing -- that is if Sandoval's injury is legit and it is really safe for him to play 1B but not 3B (although I have a hard time understanding how this could be the case from a medical standpoint since he could have to throw across the diamond or to another bag at anytime).

obsessivegiantscompulsive replied to comment from aGIANTman | June 15, 2009 8:23 PM | Reply

I think it is more a matter of much lower risk than no risk, playing 1B over 3B.

I have had no problem with his handling of Ishikawa. If Ishikawa isn't hitting against RHP, he is certainly not going to hit against LHP, so I understand platooning him for the most part. But when Ishikawa started hitting on May 11th, Bochy played him in most of the games from that point until Sandoval was untimely (for Ishikawa) injured. He started in 12 of the next 16 games and had an OPS over 1.000.

Lewis has no options left, and his offense has been hurting the team a lot, as I showed in the other thread, Lewis hasn't hit for much since April 22nd. Sit him down for a while, give Schierholtz a chance to do something, then reassess after the A's series in Oakland.

I think the reason Molina has been cleanup is because there is no one better in that position based on ability and experience. Sandoval would be a better choice but that's a lot of pressure to put on him when he's still trying to adjust to the major league lifestyle. Lewis would have been a good choice early on, but with little power, don't seem to be the right choice. Winn would handle the position OK mentally, but again, no power.

Rowand when he is hitting is a better choice for power and OBP, and now that he is hitting, perhaps they can do that with him. Ishikawa is the prototypical cleanup hitter, lots of walks, and hopefully lots of power, but he's young too and, worse, unproven, particularly the power part. And you know why Renteria and Burriss are not considered.

And there you have it, Molina is the best choice for that role out of the current players at the start of this season.

I think that the next time Molina has a bad streak, they might put Sandoval into that position, as he seems to handle all situations the same, and thus would not bow to the pressure of hitting there.

aGIANTman replied to comment from obsessivegiantscompulsive | June 15, 2009 11:22 PM | Reply

Its too bad Lewis doesn't have options. I disagree regarding Ishikawa because consistent ABs are important and his splits are not severe. I also disagree regarding Molina. Bochy has tried nothing else and Molina is so poorly suited to the 4-hole with his OBP of death and slow speed. Either Sandoval or Winn or even Lewis would have been better choices at the 4-hole to start the season, although Lewis would have been a disaster.

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