Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sweep! or Bleep?
So just when the Giants seem poised to go in for the kill and finish off the three-game sweep of the Marlins, they roll over for a 22-year-old with an ERA of nearly five? Blargh. I'm glad I was at work and missed the whole sorry display. Oh well, the point here is to win every series, and the Giants accomplished that. Don't blame us fans for being greedy, though, and wishing for a three-game fish fry.
I guess that's all there is to say about today's game. All it takes is something like this to bring us back to the crushing reality that the Giants still have a pretty crummy offense. They've been plating more runs of late, which is great and all, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Bengie Molina is still the cleanup hitter and Aaron Rowand is the team's second-best hitter.
A deal is coming, but probably (hopefully) not one that will relinquish one of the "Big Four" prospects. If that's the case the return will probably be pretty uninspiring. I wouldn't be surprised if the wonderfully "meh" Adam Laroche finds his way into a Giants uniform soon, although I think I'd just as well take my chances with Travis Ishikawa's improving bat and magical glove.
--Ryan Sadowski gave up his first runs as a major leaguer today. His first two starts were awesome, and stories like his are great, but the pessimistic stat nerd in me is ready to whip the pen out from the pocket protector and scribble all over his sudden success. As I'm sure you know, his minor league numbers are not spectacular at all. Not in the least. He's like the Mark Gardner of AAA. Solid but decidedly averagish. That isn't the greatest indicator of future major league success.
Jonathan Sanchez has regained his starting spot with Randy Johnson on the DL, which means that Sadowski gets an extended look. Will his variety of slop and breaking balls hold up over a larger sample size? Is he better than Matt Palmer? Will the Big Unit's injury and Sanchez's general flakiness force the Giants to swing a minor deal for a veteran hurler? I don't know. What I do know is that in the past the Giants would be giving Sadowski's starts to some burned-out husk like Jamey Wright or Russ Ortiz. At least we get to have some fun learning if the rook has what it takes.
I guess that's all there is to say about today's game. All it takes is something like this to bring us back to the crushing reality that the Giants still have a pretty crummy offense. They've been plating more runs of late, which is great and all, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Bengie Molina is still the cleanup hitter and Aaron Rowand is the team's second-best hitter.
A deal is coming, but probably (hopefully) not one that will relinquish one of the "Big Four" prospects. If that's the case the return will probably be pretty uninspiring. I wouldn't be surprised if the wonderfully "meh" Adam Laroche finds his way into a Giants uniform soon, although I think I'd just as well take my chances with Travis Ishikawa's improving bat and magical glove.
--Ryan Sadowski gave up his first runs as a major leaguer today. His first two starts were awesome, and stories like his are great, but the pessimistic stat nerd in me is ready to whip the pen out from the pocket protector and scribble all over his sudden success. As I'm sure you know, his minor league numbers are not spectacular at all. Not in the least. He's like the Mark Gardner of AAA. Solid but decidedly averagish. That isn't the greatest indicator of future major league success.
Jonathan Sanchez has regained his starting spot with Randy Johnson on the DL, which means that Sadowski gets an extended look. Will his variety of slop and breaking balls hold up over a larger sample size? Is he better than Matt Palmer? Will the Big Unit's injury and Sanchez's general flakiness force the Giants to swing a minor deal for a veteran hurler? I don't know. What I do know is that in the past the Giants would be giving Sadowski's starts to some burned-out husk like Jamey Wright or Russ Ortiz. At least we get to have some fun learning if the rook has what it takes.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Good Zito Rears His Head; Gets Our Hopes Up...Again
When Barry Zito does this I just get flashbacks to the post-1997 Shawn Estes years. Every once in a while Estes would have these shutdown starts where his velocity was back up and his curveball was filthy, and we'd all think that the All-Star of '97 was back to dominate the NL again. Then in his next start The Flake would return and opponents would carousel around the bases in a sea of free passes. The 1997 version of Estes never did return, forever convincing me that his one great season happened only because I wished him good luck at a card signing in the winter of '96.
Zito isn't the monumental head case Estes was, but I still get those same vibes when he breaks out a shutdown start like tonight. Are we back to seeing the Zito of yore, where he gets strikeouts with his curve and keeps his walks under control? Or are we just going to be treated to Bad Zito again in his next start? At this point I just close my eyes, cross my fingers, pray that he can stay in the strike zone, and then don't be surprised when he can't.
To his credit, the game he pitched today was a gem. I felt the need to rip him on Twitter before the game, so maybe he was trying to prove something to me. I guess I should put up a disparaging tweet before every Zito start, to act as a motivator or a weird reverse good luck charm. Then again, the only people who see my little remarks on there are friends and family members who are dumbfounded that I'm egotistical enough to have a Twitter account in the first place, so I doubt it has much effect.
Zito was never in trouble at any point in the game tonight and a little Bruce Jenkins came out of me when I saw Bruce Bochy come to pull him in the ninth inning. If he were yanked for Brian Wilson, I would have been incensed, but instead it was the awesome Sergio Romo, who came in and dispatched Dan Uggla and Jorge Cantu as if he was brushing flies off of his shoulder. When does the "Romo for Closer" bandwagon start spinning its wheels?
The hitting star tonight was Juan Uribe, who blasted a two-run homer off of Josh Johnson, who is one hell of a pitcher (and who is now free from the negligent hand of Joe Girardi). I'll give Uribe this; he doesn't get cheated. All three of his home runs this year have been no-doubt-about-er's, and his shot tonight was a rocket into the seats.
Uribe has been a nice find, and has been a valuable bench player so far. I don't want him as my starting second baseman, though. Remember, kids, "good utility player" does not equate to "adequate starter". Uribe swings at damn near everything and his .305 OBP isn't what you want from an everyday player. Um, or at least more than one everyday player.
I'll take the good glove and the decent bat while it lasts, though, at least until the Giants find an upgrade. Seriously, just let Kevin Frandsen go out there and play for a month. Emmanuel Burriss got his shot and failed (at least for now). Now it's Frandsen's time. I doubt he's going to hit .069 forever.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Vote Pablo
Pablo Sandoval's big blast tonight helped the Giants break the curse of Sean West, and Matt Cain continued to break the Curse of the Nolan Ryan 1987 by winning his 10th game. The Giants' last attempt to crack Sean West was characterized by a lot of first pitch flailings, which led puzzled fans to shrug and say, "Dudes, the guy has a K:BB ratio of 1:1. Taking a freaking pitch!"
When Aaron Rowand went up hacking at West's first two offerings tonight, it seemed like more of the same, but luckily the team was able to work the count a little and put some runners on for Sandoval's blast (though it helped that West suddenly couldn't find the plate when faced against Cain and his mighty .194 batting average). The win pushes the team ever closer to that magical "10 games over .500" plateau that no one in their right mind imagined the Giants would reach this year.
As far as Sandoval's rise to the ranks of Giants royalty goes, I couldn't have put it better myself. So you know what to do. Go here, get your ballot box-stuffing gloves on, and mouse click like you've never mouse clicked before. There's no limit to this thing, so if you have an hour to kill, and are willing to risk an arthritic right finger, vote away. I've already voted ten times, and I'm sure there's another fifty in me before the night's through. Seriously, I'll have memorized every number combo on that stupid verification line in no time.
More about Pablo: Remember back to the time when we were all worried that his inability to take pitches would be the death of his career? Yeah, all the way back in early April? Well, if you're into the whole "on pace" thing, Sandoval is now on pace to draw about 45 walks. That's not Barry Bonds, but it's way more than we could ever have imagined after watching him swing at everything and its mom's dog last season. Couple that improved plate approach to the fact that he's been essentially a net even at third base (at least according to UZR), and it's safe to say he's exceeded our lofty expectations. The superlatives just won't stop.
Vote Pablo!
--Brian Wilson is getting the job done in the sense that he's racking up saves by giving up two runs with a three-run lead and driving us all insane. That's nice, I guess. Please, though, Giants marketing department, stop treating him like he's this shutdown closer who makes opposing hitters quiver in their spikes. He just isn't that good. If I have to watch that ridiculous mafia/meat commercial where Tim Lincecum flips him the ball at the end one more time, I'm jumping off the nearest flight of stairs.
Few epitomize the asininity (real word? I'm going with it!) of the save stat than Wilson, where mediocre pitchers are celebrated as heroes based on a dumb number tallied solely on some rather arbitrary definition of a late-game situation. Hey, I guess it's the only way Ryan Franklin gets into an All-Star game, though.
When Aaron Rowand went up hacking at West's first two offerings tonight, it seemed like more of the same, but luckily the team was able to work the count a little and put some runners on for Sandoval's blast (though it helped that West suddenly couldn't find the plate when faced against Cain and his mighty .194 batting average). The win pushes the team ever closer to that magical "10 games over .500" plateau that no one in their right mind imagined the Giants would reach this year.
As far as Sandoval's rise to the ranks of Giants royalty goes, I couldn't have put it better myself. So you know what to do. Go here, get your ballot box-stuffing gloves on, and mouse click like you've never mouse clicked before. There's no limit to this thing, so if you have an hour to kill, and are willing to risk an arthritic right finger, vote away. I've already voted ten times, and I'm sure there's another fifty in me before the night's through. Seriously, I'll have memorized every number combo on that stupid verification line in no time.
More about Pablo: Remember back to the time when we were all worried that his inability to take pitches would be the death of his career? Yeah, all the way back in early April? Well, if you're into the whole "on pace" thing, Sandoval is now on pace to draw about 45 walks. That's not Barry Bonds, but it's way more than we could ever have imagined after watching him swing at everything and its mom's dog last season. Couple that improved plate approach to the fact that he's been essentially a net even at third base (at least according to UZR), and it's safe to say he's exceeded our lofty expectations. The superlatives just won't stop.
Vote Pablo!
--Brian Wilson is getting the job done in the sense that he's racking up saves by giving up two runs with a three-run lead and driving us all insane. That's nice, I guess. Please, though, Giants marketing department, stop treating him like he's this shutdown closer who makes opposing hitters quiver in their spikes. He just isn't that good. If I have to watch that ridiculous mafia/meat commercial where Tim Lincecum flips him the ball at the end one more time, I'm jumping off the nearest flight of stairs.
Few epitomize the asininity (real word? I'm going with it!) of the save stat than Wilson, where mediocre pitchers are celebrated as heroes based on a dumb number tallied solely on some rather arbitrary definition of a late-game situation. Hey, I guess it's the only way Ryan Franklin gets into an All-Star game, though.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Now That...That Was Sweet
I think if I were a Cardinal fan, the moment in tonight's game where I would have thrown down my bowl of potato chips in a sea of expletives was right when Juan Uribe blasted one into Big Mac Land. You know it's time to check out what's on the History Channel when the guy with the 80 career OPS+ is hitting tape measure shots to widen an already sizeable deficit. Oh, and Tim Lincecum is on the mound, too. Yeah, God vs Satan is looking pretty good right about now.
Credit Uribe for that jaw-dropping bomb and also for a couple of sparkling defensive plays. Against all odds, Uribe has made himself a useful player so far, hitting enough to support his stellar glove. This talk of him being the regular second baseman from now on, though...there's gotta be somebody out there who the team can make a cheap trade for.
Tim Lincecum. What can you say? Not only is he making the Bruce Jenkins of the world misty-eyed by tossing complete games in seemingly every outing now, he's doing it by throwing less than 100 pitches per outing. It's a far cry from the grueling 138-pitch shutout that so enraged the pitch count mob.
Lincecum now is, dare I say it, pitching even more brilliantly than last season. His walk rate is way down, he's throwing less pitches, and yet his strikeout rate is actually up! That's just plain scary. The commentators on the MLB Network (which I swear is God's gift to me, for some reason) were talking about how hitters just can't pick up the ball at all when it leaves Lincecum's hand, because of his unorthodox delivery. That's challenging enough, but couple that with the fact that he's throwing 96 with filthy offspeed stuff and...well, I'm glad I'm not up there trying to hit that.
--Well, I've gone and done it. I've sold my soul. I'm on Twitter, and you can follow my hilarious witticisms by going here. Because we all know you want to know what I'm doing 24 hours of the day.
Credit Uribe for that jaw-dropping bomb and also for a couple of sparkling defensive plays. Against all odds, Uribe has made himself a useful player so far, hitting enough to support his stellar glove. This talk of him being the regular second baseman from now on, though...there's gotta be somebody out there who the team can make a cheap trade for.
Tim Lincecum. What can you say? Not only is he making the Bruce Jenkins of the world misty-eyed by tossing complete games in seemingly every outing now, he's doing it by throwing less than 100 pitches per outing. It's a far cry from the grueling 138-pitch shutout that so enraged the pitch count mob.
Lincecum now is, dare I say it, pitching even more brilliantly than last season. His walk rate is way down, he's throwing less pitches, and yet his strikeout rate is actually up! That's just plain scary. The commentators on the MLB Network (which I swear is God's gift to me, for some reason) were talking about how hitters just can't pick up the ball at all when it leaves Lincecum's hand, because of his unorthodox delivery. That's challenging enough, but couple that with the fact that he's throwing 96 with filthy offspeed stuff and...well, I'm glad I'm not up there trying to hit that.
--Well, I've gone and done it. I've sold my soul. I'm on Twitter, and you can follow my hilarious witticisms by going here. Because we all know you want to know what I'm doing 24 hours of the day.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Not So Memorable Memorial Day Weekend
The Giants rolled into a six-game road trip that took them to San Diego and Seattle, two of the most pitcher-friendly ballparks in the world. Hitting home runs in that place is harder than beating this bleeping game (seriously, angry nerd alert...it's damn near impossible). The Giants: a team with an almost comically anemic offense, hitting in two of the most spacious, frustrating baseball fields known to man. Yeah, how else did you think this was going to go?
The first time I ever visited Petco Park, to watch the Braves and Padres play in 2006, its reputation as a place where offense goes to die had already been firmly cemented. It was well-known by that point that the last portion of Ryan Klesko's career was essentially one long running joke, the punchline being the big league frowny face he was sporting walking back to the dugout when every one of his long fly balls was caught at the warning track.
When I saw a game there, imagine my surprise when five home runs were hit (one of them a 475-foot blast by Andruw Jones that I believe is still the Petco record-holder for distance) and the Braves ran up the scoreboard to the tune of an 11-3 victory. The previous day, the score was 15-12, and the third game of the series ended at 10-5. What? I felt like I'd entered some sort of bizarro San Diego, some sort of pocket universe where runs were easy to come by.
Petco Park has now become a nightmare zone for the Giants, much like Coors Field used to be, and I dread when the Giants have to face the Padres there. Not only is it just frickin' impossible to muster runs, the Giants somehow always find a way to lose in ridiculous ways. It all started here. They blow saves, they give up game-altering hits to the crappiest of players, and...oh yeah...Scott Hairston kills them in every way possible. Seriously, when Hairston came to bat against Brian Wilson with the bases loaded Thursday night, I should have just turned off the radio, but my inner masochist kept me around to endure the inevitable. It was more painful than watching Adam Lambert disgrace U2's "One" on live TV.
At Safeco, against a miserable team with an equally pitiful offense, the Giants dropped two of three, and I missed the one win because I was out seeing the new Terminator movie.* I was around to watch the horrid 12-inning fiasco on Friday night and this afternoon's loss to King Felix. The weekend drops the Giants to 19-24 and the hopes of being a sneaky contender are falling fast.
The Good (boy is that ever relative).
Aaron Rowand is hitting again, perhaps rejuvenated by the move to leadoff. Fred Lewis is hitting with power, finally. Pablo Sandoval is still hitting, but he's hurt again. The starting pitching is still solid, for the most part. Matt Cain is finally getting the run support and the breaks he's deserved for two years. Jeremy Affeldt is still awesome, but Justin Miller has almost been as good.
The Bad.
The offense, obviously. Brian Wilson is just a mess right now. That commercial airing now where Lincecum flips the ball to him in the meat locker and tells him to finish off the hapless executive is an 11 out of 10 on the mind-numbingly pathetic scale. Jesus Guzman's glove is worse than anyone could ever have imagined, and that's saying something, because we all figured he was the second coming of Dick Stuart, anyway. I've seen people whiff epically while striking out, but never when receiving throws from the second baseman while trying to play first base. The Giants still don't have a home run from a first baseman this season, and we're almost in June. That's embarrassing beyond words.
Stankeye will be at Mays Field tomorrow for Memorial Day. I'll be sitting in the right field arcade seats with my Tim Lincecum jersey, busily cheering on the good guys. I'm rather pissed that I missed Lincecum by one day, and instead get to watch the inevitable never-ending conga line of Atlanta baserunners resulting from Jonathan Sanchez's inability to find home plate. Oh well, come say hi if you're in the vicinity. Or throw beer at me, whatever.
*Which, shockingly, is not bad at all. Being a fanboy of the first two films, I was really expecting the worst, especially from a film directed by McG, but it delivers the goods, with some pretty solid action sequences.
It is one of those movies, though, that if you really start to think about it, the cracks start to show. Like, when John Connor and the good Terminator dude are storming the machines' compound at the end, and all the machines know that they're there, why the hell do the machines only send one terminator in to kill them? Why not send like a hundred?
The first time I ever visited Petco Park, to watch the Braves and Padres play in 2006, its reputation as a place where offense goes to die had already been firmly cemented. It was well-known by that point that the last portion of Ryan Klesko's career was essentially one long running joke, the punchline being the big league frowny face he was sporting walking back to the dugout when every one of his long fly balls was caught at the warning track.
When I saw a game there, imagine my surprise when five home runs were hit (one of them a 475-foot blast by Andruw Jones that I believe is still the Petco record-holder for distance) and the Braves ran up the scoreboard to the tune of an 11-3 victory. The previous day, the score was 15-12, and the third game of the series ended at 10-5. What? I felt like I'd entered some sort of bizarro San Diego, some sort of pocket universe where runs were easy to come by.
Petco Park has now become a nightmare zone for the Giants, much like Coors Field used to be, and I dread when the Giants have to face the Padres there. Not only is it just frickin' impossible to muster runs, the Giants somehow always find a way to lose in ridiculous ways. It all started here. They blow saves, they give up game-altering hits to the crappiest of players, and...oh yeah...Scott Hairston kills them in every way possible. Seriously, when Hairston came to bat against Brian Wilson with the bases loaded Thursday night, I should have just turned off the radio, but my inner masochist kept me around to endure the inevitable. It was more painful than watching Adam Lambert disgrace U2's "One" on live TV.
At Safeco, against a miserable team with an equally pitiful offense, the Giants dropped two of three, and I missed the one win because I was out seeing the new Terminator movie.* I was around to watch the horrid 12-inning fiasco on Friday night and this afternoon's loss to King Felix. The weekend drops the Giants to 19-24 and the hopes of being a sneaky contender are falling fast.
The Good (boy is that ever relative).
Aaron Rowand is hitting again, perhaps rejuvenated by the move to leadoff. Fred Lewis is hitting with power, finally. Pablo Sandoval is still hitting, but he's hurt again. The starting pitching is still solid, for the most part. Matt Cain is finally getting the run support and the breaks he's deserved for two years. Jeremy Affeldt is still awesome, but Justin Miller has almost been as good.
The Bad.
The offense, obviously. Brian Wilson is just a mess right now. That commercial airing now where Lincecum flips the ball to him in the meat locker and tells him to finish off the hapless executive is an 11 out of 10 on the mind-numbingly pathetic scale. Jesus Guzman's glove is worse than anyone could ever have imagined, and that's saying something, because we all figured he was the second coming of Dick Stuart, anyway. I've seen people whiff epically while striking out, but never when receiving throws from the second baseman while trying to play first base. The Giants still don't have a home run from a first baseman this season, and we're almost in June. That's embarrassing beyond words.
Stankeye will be at Mays Field tomorrow for Memorial Day. I'll be sitting in the right field arcade seats with my Tim Lincecum jersey, busily cheering on the good guys. I'm rather pissed that I missed Lincecum by one day, and instead get to watch the inevitable never-ending conga line of Atlanta baserunners resulting from Jonathan Sanchez's inability to find home plate. Oh well, come say hi if you're in the vicinity. Or throw beer at me, whatever.
*Which, shockingly, is not bad at all. Being a fanboy of the first two films, I was really expecting the worst, especially from a film directed by McG, but it delivers the goods, with some pretty solid action sequences.
It is one of those movies, though, that if you really start to think about it, the cracks start to show. Like, when John Connor and the good Terminator dude are storming the machines' compound at the end, and all the machines know that they're there, why the hell do the machines only send one terminator in to kill them? Why not send like a hundred?
Monday, May 18, 2009
#%@&!
Pick a curse word, any curse word. That was the theme of the Giants-Mets series this weekend, at least until the Giants managed to salvage the final game behind a suddenly run-support-laden Matt Cain. If you had told me before the series that the Giants would stake Tim Lincecum to a four-run, late-inning lead in one game, then score six runs off of Johan Santana in another, and still lose both of them, I'd have accused the good people running the Mays Field grandstands of sprinkling too many hallucinogens in your garlic fries.
Friday's game was particularly infuriating because Bochy trotted a clearly fatigued Lincecum back out to pitch the seventh inning, and things promptly went straight to hell. Lincecum's velocity was down, he had no control, Merkin Valdez came in and, before you could howl, "Sergio Romo, where are you?", the game was tied and all momentum was with the Mets.
After two innings of heretofore typically brilliant relief work by Jeremy Affeldt, the Giants' appointed "best reliever" came in and literally threw the game down the left field line. Memo to Brian Wilson: The badass closer look, with the mohawk and the tats and all, works as long as you're blowing high cheese by batters and making them quiver in their britches at home plate. Until then, you just look like a fucking idiot.
Matt Cain played the stopper Sunday, running his record to 4-1, as he's seemingly getting the run support he's long deserved. Ironic, because he's probably pitching as bad as he has since he came up. His K/BB rate is easily his career worst and his strikeouts are way down. Even in Sunday's ballgame, he walked five guys and had runners crawling all over the bases. In his walktastic second inning, the Giants seemed destined for a depressing repeat of the previous three games, but Cain got a double play to escape a potential disaster. So for a guy whose career has been rife with bad luck, it's amazing how suddenly the leprechauns have taken a shine to him.
Some probably look at Cain's bad peripheral numbers and his glistening 2.65 ERA and say that this tower of blocks is perilously close to tumbling. Fair enough, but perhaps his ability to squirm out of trouble is a testament to his superior stuff. Cain has always been tough to hit, and guys with good stuff generally have lower BABIPs simply because they give up less line drives. So maybe he's better suited to getting out of jams than your everyday Joe? Does that make the abundance of baserunners okay? I don't know, but darn it, it'd be so much easier to watch if he'd just stop walking people.
Friday's game was particularly infuriating because Bochy trotted a clearly fatigued Lincecum back out to pitch the seventh inning, and things promptly went straight to hell. Lincecum's velocity was down, he had no control, Merkin Valdez came in and, before you could howl, "Sergio Romo, where are you?", the game was tied and all momentum was with the Mets.
After two innings of heretofore typically brilliant relief work by Jeremy Affeldt, the Giants' appointed "best reliever" came in and literally threw the game down the left field line. Memo to Brian Wilson: The badass closer look, with the mohawk and the tats and all, works as long as you're blowing high cheese by batters and making them quiver in their britches at home plate. Until then, you just look like a fucking idiot.
Matt Cain played the stopper Sunday, running his record to 4-1, as he's seemingly getting the run support he's long deserved. Ironic, because he's probably pitching as bad as he has since he came up. His K/BB rate is easily his career worst and his strikeouts are way down. Even in Sunday's ballgame, he walked five guys and had runners crawling all over the bases. In his walktastic second inning, the Giants seemed destined for a depressing repeat of the previous three games, but Cain got a double play to escape a potential disaster. So for a guy whose career has been rife with bad luck, it's amazing how suddenly the leprechauns have taken a shine to him.
Some probably look at Cain's bad peripheral numbers and his glistening 2.65 ERA and say that this tower of blocks is perilously close to tumbling. Fair enough, but perhaps his ability to squirm out of trouble is a testament to his superior stuff. Cain has always been tough to hit, and guys with good stuff generally have lower BABIPs simply because they give up less line drives. So maybe he's better suited to getting out of jams than your everyday Joe? Does that make the abundance of baserunners okay? I don't know, but darn it, it'd be so much easier to watch if he'd just stop walking people.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Who Is Shairon Martis?
If you watched Shairon Martis beat the Giants today and thought that his name sounded somewhat familiar, that's because it should. Martis, waaay back in 2006, was flipped to the Nationals by our very own Giants for two pointless months of relief work from Mike Stanton. See, there he is, look at him, pitching pretty damn well as an 18- and 19-year old in the lower levels of the Giants farm system. Now he's 5-0 to start the season, and that on a terrible team. Yeah, that trade seems worthwhile now, doesn't it?
To be fair, Martis isn't exactly blowing anybody away, with a mediocre 21:17 K/BB ratio in 41 innings. He's gotten more than a little lucky, shocking since he's a flyball pitcher and the Nats have a miserable oufield defense, as evidenced by Josh Willingham's bumbling around on Monday. Martis also wasn't a great prospect, but he was good enough not to be thrown away for an interchangeable left-handed reliever for the stretch run in a lost season. Whatever soured the Giants on Martis is probably lost in the history books forever, but he's 22 and doing some good things in the majors, so the trade that looked weird at the time could really come back to bite the Giants in the ass.
On the bright side, the Giants won two of three, finally showing some life at the plate. Daniel Cabrera will do that for you. I mean, is that guy awful or what? I wonder, if you're going to have a bad team, is it better to have good hitters like the Nats do but a horrible pitching staff that will give any lead back right away, or decent pitching with a horrid offense? It's a toughie, but the Giants have generally been the latter since 2005 and they've been pretty excruciating to watch much of the time.
Erstwhile offensive black hole Travis Ishikawa's bat came alive in the series, but that presents a curious chicken-and-egg question. Is the Ish just legitimately seeing the ball better, or was he just feeding on the really awful Nationals pitching? He still hasn't connected for a home run, and neither has any Giants first baseman, which is just unacceptable. Adding salt to the wound, apparently we have to tolerate this powerless attack while Brian Sabean didn't even consider signing Adam Dunn, who already has 11 bombs. What a joke.
To be fair, Martis isn't exactly blowing anybody away, with a mediocre 21:17 K/BB ratio in 41 innings. He's gotten more than a little lucky, shocking since he's a flyball pitcher and the Nats have a miserable oufield defense, as evidenced by Josh Willingham's bumbling around on Monday. Martis also wasn't a great prospect, but he was good enough not to be thrown away for an interchangeable left-handed reliever for the stretch run in a lost season. Whatever soured the Giants on Martis is probably lost in the history books forever, but he's 22 and doing some good things in the majors, so the trade that looked weird at the time could really come back to bite the Giants in the ass.
On the bright side, the Giants won two of three, finally showing some life at the plate. Daniel Cabrera will do that for you. I mean, is that guy awful or what? I wonder, if you're going to have a bad team, is it better to have good hitters like the Nats do but a horrible pitching staff that will give any lead back right away, or decent pitching with a horrid offense? It's a toughie, but the Giants have generally been the latter since 2005 and they've been pretty excruciating to watch much of the time.
Erstwhile offensive black hole Travis Ishikawa's bat came alive in the series, but that presents a curious chicken-and-egg question. Is the Ish just legitimately seeing the ball better, or was he just feeding on the really awful Nationals pitching? He still hasn't connected for a home run, and neither has any Giants first baseman, which is just unacceptable. Adding salt to the wound, apparently we have to tolerate this powerless attack while Brian Sabean didn't even consider signing Adam Dunn, who already has 11 bombs. What a joke.
