CF Davis
RF Winn
2B Durham
LF Bonds
C Molina
1B Fleas
3B Frandsen
SS Vizquel
P Lincecum

Amazing how well the San Diego fans reacted to Bonds’s home run Saturday. (Maybe there’s really something to that whole classy San Diego schtick.) Equally amazing was Bud Selig’s sourpuss reaction, according to those who saw him on TV. Hands in pockets, he pulled a facial expression “usually reserved for a first time urology patient,” writes BP’s Gary Huckabay, and only stood up when Tom Hicks — Tom Hicks! — told him to. Selig’s refusal to give an inch to Bonds extends to his “congratulatory” statements, another one of which he issued after #755. Stay clueless, Bud.

***

As Brian Sabean plugs away at potential trade partners, humming his finest worksong, the Giants will only unload some of their veterans this month if a contender suddenly, desperately needs to fill a hole. Keep your eyes on the injury reports, folks. For example:

* The Tigers lost backup infielder Neifi Perez to a drug-related suspension. Finally, the mystery of Neifi’s late-career power surge solved, eh? Apparently Los Tigres would like a glove-enabled shortstop for the stretch so they can move Carlos Guillent to first base more often. Pittsburgh’s Jack Wilson has cropped up in trade rumors, but wouldn’t Omar be a perfect fit? An instant crowd favorite, too.

* Alfonso Soriano is out for perhaps a month with a leg strain suffered in last night’s game. If it proves more serious, could this be an opening for Randy Winn, who would have to waive his no-trade clause? Unlikely, because the Cubs have uberprospect Felix Pie ready for duty, and even with the Cubs’ golden opportunity this year, I can’t imagine GM Jim Hendry would panic for the expensive proven veteran over the unproven youngster. Then again, Hendry traded for Jason Kendall…

* Anyone with pitching holes. The Tigers won’t have Kenny Rogers back as soon as they hoped. The Angels will miss Bartolo Colon the rest of the year. And it’s still a question whether Pedro Martinez can return to make a difference for the Mets. Enter Russ Ortiz. If he takes a couple quality turns in the rotation (I assume Noah Lowry will hit the DL, with my fingers crossed that it’s only a precautionary measure), Ortiz could be tempting to a team desperate for another starter down the stretch. Then again, because of his minimum contract he may not make it through waivers.

* Speaking of Lowry, here’s what BP’s Will Carroll writes this morning:

Noah Lowry was a pitcher with as much potential as Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain not too long ago, but as he left his last start with what's being called a "tight forearm," the signs don't look so good. Despite having 12 wins for a sub-.500 team, Lowry's control and K rate have been descending quickly, though his velocity has been normal. Those are among the signs of an elbow problem, though initial reports from the Giants indicate that they don't feel it's a ligament problem. After Lowry's early exit, the Giants were forced to use Barry Zito on his throw day, and he responded with a perfect 17-pitch inning. Lowry will attempt to throw on the side Tuesday, but don't be surprised if his start is pushed back, or if he's even pushed to the DL while the Giants attempt to make life easier for a strained bullpen.

If Lowry is disabled and Ortiz is traded, the Giants could shift Jonathan Sanchez into the rotation and call up Erick Threets. Or keep Sanchez in the pen and call up Travis Blackley, the guy they got for Jason Ellison. Blackley has been unspectacular with Fresno this year, but he’s still only 24 and worth a look.

Here’s something else I missed over the weekend.

Note above I didn’t write “the Giants may win a few more games,” because I’m not holding out for any such splendor in the grass. To paraphrase Axel Rose, I used to love the bullpen, but I had to kill the bullpen after Friday and Saturday’s ickfests, and as the Giants slog through this stretch of 60 games in 45 cities in 20 days while singing 88 lines about 44 women, or whatever it is, I can’t see the ‘pen getting any better. Oh wait, maybe they’ll call up Scott Munter. Mmmkay.

Nice move: Barry Zito pitched in with a scoreless relief inning today to help the frazzled bullpen. The bad news is that Zito threw today because Noah Lowry left early with a sore arm. Keep your fingers crossed it isn’t serious. If it is, remember pitching injuries are a part of the game, and the Giants are fortunate to have decent reinforcements, such as…

PLODAW (player of da weekend): Pat Misch, who gave up a couple runs but struck out eight without walking a batter in his first major-league start. Huzzah! When other teams break down his performance on video, would it be considered a Mischigander?

And congratulations to Tom Glavine, an old-school lefty malo who keeps on keepin’ on with win #300 tonight, as well as to Alex Rodriguez, who is sometimes called A-Rod. He hit home run #500 yesterday and will almost certainly break Barry Bonds’s all-time record as long as he doesn’t get eaten by alligators or become addicted to cough syrup. In case you’re wondering, Barry Zito has 110 career wins and needs an average of 18 wins a year for the next 11 years if he’s to win #300, like Glavine, in his age-41 season.  

***

In honor of my favorite Mexipunk band, here are a few shout-outs to other people doing Giants-related stuff:

* High school journalism teacher Matt Johanson has written a book about his favorite Giant memories, Game of My Life. If you like it, drive over to Castro Valley High and tell him in person.

* The SFist has a contest: rename Dodger Stadium. I’m late to plug it as the Giants just ended their series at Chavez Latrine, but I think there’s still time to land that left jab. (The LAist is running a similar contest about Mays Field.)

* One of my favorite writers covering the Giants? You might be surprised: it’s Chris Haft, the former daily-paper journo who took over the sfgiants.com beat from Bulwer-Lytton Professor of Metaphor Rich Draper. Despite claims of independence from the Giants and MLB, Draper turned the gig into an ever-astounding absurd wet kiss. (This was one of my favorites: "Somebody keeps whispering in Noah Lowry's ear, and it's not like he's hearing voices. It's his own body doing the talking.")

But props to Haft, who’s managed to tell it straight without (so far) getting fired. His most recent mailbag column was more honest than a lot of local beat writers have ever been. He calls Bonds an “albatross,” he cautions those who see Feliz’s latest hot streak as a sign that Pedro has changed his horrible approach at the plate, and he says if Sabean can’t turn the Giants around in two years, he should be dismissed. Agree or disagree with those positions, you certainly can’t accuse him of kowtowing to the brass. Keep it up, Chris.

The Giants had their own dirtbag, but the good kind: Steve Kline. A guy who’d rather grow a beard and scratch unmentionable places than throw an inside fastball to Luis Gonzalez. I don’t know how he did it, but Kline bailed out Brad Hennessey in the ninth to preserve the win. Hennessey was as bad in the ninth as he was great in the eighth, as if he couldn’t stand too much success.

A note about Zito: he got squeezed on the run-scoring walk to Russell Martin (since when are belt-high fastballs not strikes?). But more importantly: Joe West was calling strikes below the knees. Why was Zito not throwing there? It wasn’t pretty, but he avoided the type of meltdown from now on known as the Cincinnati Bowtie. Remember, it’s all about connections.

PLODAG: Kline. Runner-up: Pedro Feliz, with two RBI singles. Stop it, Petey, you’re gonna make me love you in spite of myself.  

Sort of. WXRL is one of those statistics that make Bruce Jenkins’ head explode as he chases the nerdhats with calculating machines off his bucolic greensward of yesteryear. It’s definitely an Internet thing, because you can go to Baseball Prospectus, the secret-password stathead basement clubhouse, and look it up, sort it, tab it, LOVE IT.

I speak today of WXRL because Randy Messenger gave up some bad hits to the bad Dodgers last night, and the Giants lost the game. Still, Randy Messenger has a 2.75 ERA, which is very very nice. He must be very very good, no?

The problem is, ERA doesn’t really tell the story of a reliever’s season. Here’s an extreme example: Joe Loogy comes in 20 times with the bases loaded and two outs. All 20 times, he lets all three runners score, but no runs are ever charged to his record. What’s more, in five of those games, his team takes the lead the next inning, and Loogy is credited with the win. That’s a 5–0 record with an untarnished 0.00 ERA in 20 games. Wow!  

If we had watched all 20 games, we’d see past the Potemkin village of his numbers, but what about a less extreme example? Say, a guy with a 1–3 record and a 2.75 ERA in 46 games? How do you measure a reliever’s effectiveness at preventing baserunners from scoring in high-pressure situations?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you WXRL. It stands for “Win Expectation above Replacement, Lineup-adjusted,” which means it gives extra props to guys who enter in a crucial situation and retire, say, the 3–4–5 hitters with the bases loaded. It gives more credit for one-run saves than for three-run saves. It measures all relievers, be they closers, set-up guys, or middle relievers.

(For a discussion of WXRL versus other advanced relief-pitcher stats, click here.)

The top ten in WXRL this year: Putz, Saito, Wagner, Pena, Okajima, Betancourt, Papelbon, Hoffman, Neshek, and Nathan. Note four of the ten (in boldface) are not closers.

The stat is measured in how many wins a player has contributed to his team. Putz has given the Mariners 5.2 wins, Nathan has given the Twins 3.3 wins.

The highest-ranked Giant is Brad Hennessey with 1.7 wins, good for #48 on the list. The worst Giant reliever is Randy Messenger. In his 28 2/3 IP with the Giants, Messenger is in negative territory; he has cost the team a sliver of a win (-0.03). It’s hard to reach negative numbers in this stat; most on the list are at least at the neutral zero or above. (In his 23 2/3 IP with Florida, Messenger added just 0.15 wins.)

This doesn’t mean he won’t improve, but it suggests right now he’s not the guy to bring in when you need a strikeout to preserve the game.

More kudos, from BP’s Christina Kahrl (no Sabean fan, she): “Sabean just reaped an outstanding financial divided that should help greatly in making over the team in the winter to come. It may not be a repeatable achievement, but this ranks among the better deadline moves made by anybody.”

OK, Brian, so far so good. Now let’s see you make a good trade with someone whose skills at running a franchise extend beyond one of those KFC/Taco Bell hybrid huts. Hello, I’m Dave, and the word of the day is “crunchewmelty”!

*** 

Matt Morris is not a happy camper, and he hasn't been one for a while. A couple weeks ago he loosened his tent flap and told the world the Giants seemed more interested in milking the Bondstravaganza than, um, hello, winning ballgames?

Hearing yesterday that he'd been steel-toed out of town, Morris had more choice words: "It is what it is."

Pittsburgh is what it is — Matt Morris’s new home — mainly because Morris pitched like a friendly Jugs machine the past month (motto: “Everyone Loves to Hit!”). A few more solid outings, and he might have been chasing a playoff spot with Atlanta, Philadelphia, or Seattle.  

I've been to Pittsburgh in the summer, and I found it green and leafy and hilly, a bit like San Francisco but with more river, more humidity, and more fried food. It's got a fine scientifically-minded university and a football team everyone is nuts about. Their baseball team leaves a lot to be desired. So does ours, but theirs might be better to pitch for. Again, here's Morris:

"I'm excited about getting back to the NL Central and getting some better defense and some young guys out there who are looking to play hard," Morris said.

That, ladies and germs, is known as a parting shot. So is this:

"It's been hard (in San Francisco) - it's almost been that you start to accept it (losing) and I hate to say that, unfortunately. It was different. I was used to (Cardinals manager) Tony La Russa in the past and he kind of runs the show and there's a lot of structure. I went to the Giants where it was totally opposite, a different, laid-back feeling.''

It's easy to dimiss Morris's comments as sour grapes. But let's assume for a moment he speaks the truth, that the Giant clubhouse is too laid-back. Implicit in his LaRussa comment: Bruce Bochy does not run the show, and I’ll give you three seconds to guess who does. 

Next year will be a high-profile clubhouse chemistry experiment: what happens when you remove the best offensive player and the most distracting clubhouse element all in one go? Will the extra harmony quickly be smothered by all the extra-crappy offense? Will the good cheer help oil the gears of a precise, energetic, well-honed small-ball strategy?

If a Bonds-less Giants return to respectability next year, the proponents of chemistry — not to mention the Bonds haters — will pump their fists in glee. I can see the headlines now: “Bye-Bye Barry: Addition by Subtraction.” (Hey, not bad. I should do this for a living.)

But there will be no return to respectability, even mediocrity, if the best cleanup hitter the Giants can find next year is Ray Durham.

Near-future agenda: In the next 30 days, Sabean will keep trying to trade veterans who clear waivers. Also on his to-do list: pluck the player-to-be-named from the Pirates’ farm system. There’s an excellent discussion on the McChronic about the possibilities.

But let’s enjoy tonight’s win. With games like this, who needs 755?

PLODAG: Brad Hennessey, who threw all kinds of strikes and nailed down the save. 44 innings, 29 Ks, only 10 walks. I’m impressed. I would write something like, “Next year’s closer?”, but I don’t want to jinx him.

ALSO: Yes, the trivia answer from the previous post is Jason Schmidt. Second-best prospect traded by Schuerholz is Jermaine Dye. The next best is Turk Wendell, and he isn’t close.

“Davis is a worthless major leaguer.”

“Is this a joke?”

“You have to look at it as going out and signing him for $10 million for one year… I really think it is a good one year ‘signing.’”

***

Matt Morris is gone, folks. Traded to the Pirates for Rajai Davis and a player to be named later.

Davis turns 27 in October and only recently had his first taste of the major-league life. Not exactly a hot prospect, but Matt Morris was not exactly a hot pitcher.

Good thing about Davis: His career minor-league OBP is .375. Getting on base a lot is a good thing. He’s also very fast, with 251 stolen bases and 71 caught stealings over seven years. In very limited MLB action he continued to get on base. Peruse his minor-league stats at your leisure.

What we still don’t know: the name of the PTBNL and whether the Giants are paying any of Morris’s salary. I’ll guess… um… Yes! Wait a sec: Henry Schulman says no. Or he says that a team source says no.  My second guess: the PTBNL will have some salary in return. Uh-oh: Could it be Jack Wilson, the Pirates’ overpaid, light-hitting shortstop? If so, could there be another trade as-yet-unreported for Omar Vizquel?

Other trades of note:

* Eric Gagne to Boston for young starter Kason Gabbard and two minor-league OF’ers. Papelbon, Okajima, and Gagne in one bullpen? Not only that, but the Yankees are still stuck with Kyle Farnsworth. Given that the Red Sox were on Gagne’s no-trade list and the Yankees weren’t, this has to be the biggest coup of the deadline.  
* Wilson Betemit from the Dodgers to the Yankees for Scott Proctor. I would have liked the Giants to try for Betemit. His batting average sucks, but the rest of his offensive game isn’t bad.
* Morgan Ensberg to the Padres. S.D. also acquired lefty reliever Wil Ledezma from Atlanta and utility guy Rob Mackowiak from the ChiSox.
* Braves trade Kyle Davies to KC for Octavio Dotel to add to the Mark Teixeira acquisition. John Schuerholz is a zen trade master, as detailed here, but I wonder if he’ll rue giving up Saltalamacchia. (If you’re not a BP subscriber, here’s the upshot: Of the 87 prospects Schuerholz has traded, only 10 have had “careers of consequence.” Guess who tops the list?) 

Second question of the day: Who should replace Matty Mo in the rotation? 

***

P.M. UPDATE: Two relatively minor trades today underscore the Giants’ weakness as sellers. First, the Phils nabbed Cincy RHP Kyle Lohse for a double-A pitcher. Lohse is a step down from Matt Morris, but he’ll be a free agent after this year. Thanks to Morris’s month-long slide, his contract that extends through 2008 is going to be hard to move.

In the second deal, the Mets traded two minor leaguers for Twins’ second baseman Luis Castillo. Ray Durham seemed a potential fit once we learned the Mets’ Jose Valentin was out for the year, but Ray’s skills, like Morris’s, have degraded so quickly that opposing GMs have to wonder if this is the beginning of the end. If their contracts were up after this year, perhaps they’d be worth a flier, but unless they show a couple weeks’ worth of improvement soon, they’ll likely be Giants in September.

As for the blockbuster Mark Teixiera trade, the Braves are giving up a trunkful of talent. It’ll be interesting to see if Teixiera’s power numbers hold up in the pitcher-friendly Turner Field.   

1) Will Pedro Feliz’s recent hot streak — 18–for-49 since July 15, raising his averages to a still-lousy .251/.293/.441 — make him tradeable? And if so, to fill his spot at least temporariily what about taking a flyer on Morgan Ensberg, who was just released by the Astros?

Though Ensberg is having a miserable year, here are his career numbers: .266/.367/.475. That’s so much better than Feliz, it’s not even close. If the Giants don’t have many options for third base next year and Ensberg can be coaxed here cheaply, why the hell not give him an audition now?

One possible answer: he’s toast. He’s had shoulder problems for some time now, and it’s possible that nothing but rest will bring him back to his previous levels.

2) Is Barry Bonds done? This could be it. Sure, he’ll hit a home run here, a home run there, especially when the Rick Vanden Hurks of the world are on the mound, but he looked extremely pitchable this weekend. The only time he looks dominant is after a nice long rest, and baseball doesn’t work that way. The next two months could be ugly.

3) What about August? The trade deadline of July 31 is only relative. If players clear waivers, they can be traded until the end of August. With another Matt Morris stinkbomb today, I doubt any GM will want him now when, with some luck, they may be able to snag him in August if he starts to pitch better. Other Giants vets — Feliz, Durham, Klesko — could also be wait-and-see pickups in August. Note: When I say Morris sucked today, I’m only going by the stat line. I didn’t see or hear the game. The 8 Ks and no walks in 7 innings, however, make me wonder if he pitched much better than the 13 hits indicate? Were there a lot of bloopers and bleeders?

Let’s play along. Let’s imagine Zito is not only recovering from his poor first half, he’s about to launch the Mother of All Second Halves. Which, by the way, is what I’m going to name my organic whole-wheat pizzeria.

Let’s imagine that this theoretical Mother consists of Zito snapping off seven complete-game shutouts in his next seven starts. As reader Big O likes to shout when women suddenly bust out the backyard hula hoop: Hoochie mama! (I heard it from a very credible source.) With 63 consecutive scoreless innings, Zito would enter September with a 3.59 ERA.

Now let’s float gently back to Planet Earth. Even if Zito has a more plausibly excellent August -- say, an average of two earned runs and 7 innings per start -- he'll still enter September with a 4.63 ERA.

To put it simply, he needs the best two months of his career, or perhaps anyone's career, just to finish the year with an ERA below 4.00, which isn’t exactly the type of best-case-scenario calculation you want to make about the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history.

ERA isn't the end-all measuring stick of a pitcher's performance, of course, but it gives you a pretty good thumbnail sketch. And having watched or listened to a good portion of Zito's starts, I can say his defense and bullpen help -- Chulk's choke Sunday in Milwaukee notwithstanding -- haven't contributed unfairly to his bloated ERA.

Still, if Zito throws a complete game shutout tonight against the Marlins…ya gotta believe!

You know what was cool about today’s game? Not just Lincecum pitching well, but also Bochy letting Jack Taschner pitch the 8^th in a pressure situation just a week or so after The Special Agent was on the cusp of a demotion for stinking up the joint. Boch gets cool points in my book. If Taschner goes on to have a couple good years, I’ll give Bochy much credit.

You know what else was cool? Giants pitchers: 10 K, 2 BB.

PLODAG: Dave Roberts, three more hits. He’s raised his averages from .203/.276/.246 on July 1 to .258/.322/.352. It stands to reason that the elbow problem that required surgery was bothering him more than he let on, and now he’s finally healthy. If he can get his OBP into the .360 range by the end of the year, he’s made himself useful. Nice to see what happens when a real leadoff guy does his job well.

"If someone wrote that stuff about me and I didn't sue their [butt] off, am I not admitting that there's some legitimacy to it?"

Bonds in fact did sue over Game of Shadows but dropped his suit a few months later. If he hadn’t dropped it, the writers’ butts would have come off and Schilling would have been satisfied. More:

"It goes to the Mark McGwire thing in Congress. I mean, I'm a huge Mark McGwire fan.”

Mark asked me to let everyone know he’s thrilled. I mean, Curt Schilling? A fan? It doesn’t get any better than that.

“But I just always thought it was very simple: If you did something and someone asks you if you did it and you didn't do it, you say no. Any other answer than no is some form of yes, isn't it?"

Curt, who urged a national TV audience before the 2004 presidential elections to vote for Bush, also has a strong sense of mor-uhl clayr-uh-tee. While Rafael Palmeiro was pointing his finger and McGwire was hiding in his turtleneck, here’s what Schill said before Congress:

"I think while I agree it's a problem, I think the issue was grossly overstated by some people, including myself.”

Costas was curious about this statement. Schilling explained: 

"When you're sitting in front of Congress and you're under oath, you'd better be damn sure if you're going to mention a name that you are 100 percent guaranteed sure somebody did something.”

And when you’re sitting in front of Bob Costas and you’re under the influence of your own ego-toxicants? Like our President says, shoot mouth first, ask questions later, Beansprout! Heh heh! 

In the aftermath of all this, Bonds of course does the mature, veteran-savvy, high-road thing. He calls Bob Costas a “little midget man.”

Which, technically speaking, he is. More or less. But I’ll give Costas, one of the most overrated sports announcers in sports-announcing history, the last word for now.

"I've actually always had a pretty cordial relationship with Barry,” Costas said.

Bob: Barry, my dear fellow! How are you?
Barry: Who? What? Did I just hear a voice from somewhere in the vicinity of my navel?

"I have no ill feelings toward him personally. I regard him as one of the greatest players of all time who got [an] inauthentic boost and then became a superhuman player. I wish him no ill whatsoever.”

Wait, no. My blog: I get the last word. La ultima palabra, baby. Does anyone else notice a resemblance between the Costas quote above and Bud Selig’s statement about attending Giants games while Bonds aims for the record?