After the sorry post-trade deadline performances of Barry Zito & Jonathan Sanchez, I've started reconsidering a fleeting thought that occurred to me before the deadline. Using the premise that 'you can never have too much pitching', I thought ... hmmm ... what about Ubaldo Jimenez? Would the Rockies have ever traded with us? Bad offense is something that we have patched over for a while now. An unreliable 5th starter is a bigger problem.
5 comments:
great post, just wasted 5 seconds of my day..
The Giants, I'm sure, figured a Zito/Sanchez two-headed beast would produce one reliable starter. And, the gods willing, that will still happen. You only need four starters in the post-season, of course. The funny thing is that the team's weak offense doesn't really present a problem in the post-season. Starting pitching, defense, closer, etc. is way more important in those short match-ups. The weak offense hurts the club NOW in the pennant race. I think that's why they were willing to gamble on Beltran and risk giving up such a big piece for him. They figured they had all the arms they needed (a reasonable position to take) but the the run-scoring had to have a little boost (again, a reasonable position to take). It hasn't worked so far, but we'll see. By the way, the Indians gave up two of their best pitching prospects for Jimenez (plus another minor-league pitcher and an infielder).
Well the problem is that we now have had crappy starts from three of our six pitchers recently. Hopefully Vogelsong's was a one-off, not the end of a fantastic season. And you want either Sanchez or Zito to pitch acceptably, not neither of them. Of course, if we were winning Tim's, Matt's and Madison's starts consistently, this probably wouldn't matter, but we are not, so it does. Let's not get too carried away with angst, though, I know it is just what we do, but still, let's try to keep our heads. I think we have gone through a bad stretch against some very good teams who have played (especially hit) well and made and taken advantage of opportunities, and we have not. I still think Arizona is a pretend team, much, much more so than San Diego was last season. The division is still ours to lose.
What Zo said.
I still have hope for JSanchez. In between stupid walks the other day he was throwing nasty stuff. Talent like that is worth the wait...if you can afford it. But is he getting better?
BTW I think it has been a LONG time since a trade with the rookies. Can't think of one...
Rags once again is having some trouble with his lefty starters. The giants organization has trouble having pitchers throw quality strikes, while keeping the walk rate down. The hitters are really starting to put a strain on the pitchers. If Zito and Sanchez are hurt, then maybe Rags is somewhat off the hook, but someone needs to get the full potential out of Jonathan Sanchez. I would like to see it, while he is a giant. If he can do it with Vogelsong, maybe he can figure out how to do it with a lefty
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