The 2011 offense made a guest appearance today. Let's hope it has good manners and leaves without stinking the place up. Ex-Giant Kevin Correia mesmerized his old team with sinkers, sinkers, and sinkers. It made for a lot of ground balls to the right side. Ex-Giant Jason Grilli also made an appearance. Ex-Pirate Ryan Vogelsong looked good today, and coupled with the nice start by Barry Zito yesterday, that mitigates--a little--the sobering news about Brian Wilson. With him out for the season, everyone in the bullpen just got promoted. It will be interesting to see who thrives and who dives. Dan Otero did not help his cause with two hits leading to two runs. It seems logical to say Sergio Romo is the closer, but he might need a little tender handling early in the season. He had a touchy elbow last season and spent some time on the DL in August. Santiago Casilla and his 96-mph smoke might be alternative in the short term.
Grilli (with Nate Bump for Livan Hernandez in 1999) and Vogelsong (with Armando Rios for Jason Schmidt in 2001) are pieces of two excellent trades by Brian Sabean. Both Hernandez (2000 and 2002) and Schmidt (2002 and 2003) were big stars on two Barry Bonds-led playoff teams. Correia was drafted in 2002 by the Giants (4th round, 127th pick), the same year as Matt Cain. Correia and Vogelsong (1998, 5th round, 158th pick) were both All-Stars in 2011. The Giants first-round picks in 1998 were Tony Torcato and the aforementioned Nate Bump. Jason Grilli was the Giants first pick in 1997, the 4th player taken overall. I love all the connections!
Big matchup tomorrow with The Freak and Roy Halladay. Let's hope Tim finds his A-game.
GO GIANTS!
--M.C.
6 comments:
On the plus side, Madison, then Matt, then Barry, then Ryan all gave us seven innings. If we are to do it without our closer, then we need our starters to get us deep into games. So far, so good. Tim?
Another comment. If Brian Wilson is to be out for the year, it makes Sabean look good for spending all the money he did on middle relief. We do have a bunch of guys that can fill the gap, with a little luck. Romo, Lopez, Castilla.
Hmm, well, this seems like a good thing: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120416&content_id=28830242&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf.
If Sabean was so smart he would not have gotten rid of Ramon Martinez in the Angel Pagan trade. Giants cannot rely on other teams errors for the giants to score the winning run. 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position. Pirates seemed to cash in on their only chances. Giants can't seem to hit when opposition pitcher in the stretch. As of the end of Sunday, 4 of our 5 starters have tossed quality starts. Team has 5 quality starts. I think it is time for Hembre instead of Otero. Today Ross K'd to end the game for Boston. There were two men on, and two out and a 2-1 count. The next two pitches were called strikes. I don't think either pitch was a strike according to K-Zone. Ross was peeved. I think the upside of the story is that at least the giants are not the only team to get screwed by the umps!
Ramon Ramirez? Right handed bullpen arms are the easiest thing to replace in the majors. The Giants are swimming in them currently, and have plenty in the pipeline.
It was a little flat out there. So Sabey Sabes just locked up MadBum for our excitement. Boom goes the dynamite.
GREAT NEWS ABOUT MADBUM!!!
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