Before you sniff that it was only Arizona that Matt Cain shut out Thursday night, please know the D-Backs bring the lumber at home.
A few other late-night notes from my mountain getaway:
* The more I think about deadline trades, the more I want someone who can hit second and push Freddie Sanchez down to 8th. He has zero extra base power, and I'm not seeing a lot of bat control, plate discipline or anything else that's supposed to come with OMG!!FORMER BATTING CHAMPION!!11!. I'd write it off as a bad patch, except that Sanchez has never been a huge plate discipline guy. His OBP is mainly built upon getting basehits to fall in. And these days, he's having trouble finding holes. I still love his D, but he's not carrying the load a number two hitter should.
* Baggs has a great notebook piece tonight on the Giants' plans to limit Madison Bumgarner's innings. It's an issue I raised a few weeks ago, and I think it will loom ever larger as the season wears on, especially if the Giants are battling down the stretch and Bumgarner remains one of their best pitchers. One idea is to alternate Wellemeyer and Bumgarner, writes Baggs. Given Wellemeyer's weird home/road splits this year, at least it would make for an easy way to divvy up their starts.
* Barring injury or trade, the Giants are on their way to having five players with 10 home runs or more -- six if the Panda finds his power stroke in the second half. It's not the same as six guys with 20 or more, but it's more than we could've asked for in late April or early May. The bad news: Unless Juan Uribe or someone else gets ridiculously hot, the team will probably have only one 20-home run player (Aubrey Huff leads the team with 17).
* My favorite secret stat of the year: Aubrey Huff, 5 for 5 in steal attempts.
