Every season it gets worse. I mean my desire to watch interleague baseball. Do you really give a rat's behind about the Marlins-White Sox? A's-Reds? Pirates-Mariners? OK, that last one is kinda funny.
Watching the Giants in Fenway was interesting, at least until the games actually started. The Giants looked like they shouldn't even have been on the same field as the Sox. Aside from Matt Cain's habitual 1-0 loss, there was nothing positive to take from the series. I take that back. The Giants are now 30-40, but it could be worse. They could be in the American League and closer to 20-50.
The Giants crawled into Milwaukee and the beatings have continued. Morale has not improved. Tuesday night in the 1st, the Brewers scored three runs on one hit. They walked a lot, and cashed in with two sacrifice flies. "What a concept," said a bitter Mike Krukow.
Item: Barry Bonds could be traded.
If the Giants can get any value for him, it will happen. Somebody could use a bat. Only it won't be done until Bonds hits 756. There is no way in hell that Magowan & Co. won't cash in on that after all the years of putting up with the circus around Barry. Realistically, this team is going nowhere in 2007, so if any of the vets can be dealt for even a hope of value, they should be gone. Morris, Feliz, Durham, Winn, Roberts, Molina, Vizquel, or whoever. Plan on a good team in 2009 and put Cain, Lowry, Lincecum, and Sanchez on the untouchables list. (Just four? Ouch.)
I don't necessarily want to see Bonds traded, but once he is off the team, maybe, just maybe, the Giants can try to piece together a roster that isn't warped by his presence, offensively or financially.
Item: Rich Aurilia placed on DL.
The team has been reluctant to use the DL, even though guys like Aurilia, Klesko and Durham have been spending a lot of time being useless on the bench. Looking at the 40-man roster, you can see why. When Aurilia finally was disabled, the Giants replaced him with Luis Figueroa, a fresh-faced 33-year-old from Triple-A. Yeah, 33.
Item: Matt Cain gives up one run, loses. Again.
Same old garbage. Offense sucks. (Giants are 15th in runs scored in the NL, ahead of the Nationals.) Can't even get a bat on the ball with a runner on third. The front office keeps making noises about how these proven veterans will hit, eventually. OK. It's June 20. It's not early in the season any more. Durham at least looks to be maybe waking up a little bit, but I'm not falling for that one just yet.
Item: Tim Lincecum out of control.
It's tough to watch the kid struggle like this, but he is just a pup when it comes to baseball. Four straight shellackings now. He's got some things to learn still. It's looking like the Giants will skip his next turn in the rotation, but not ship him out. As long as Lincecum can handle the mental stress of losing for the first time in his life, I'm OK with it. Plus I can watch his games in the bigs, as opposed to the black hole that is Triple-A.
Actually, watching Lincecum's last start and putting it together with what I read in the paper, it wasn't as bad as the results would indicate. He said he'd been working, in between starts, at getting the ball down. And that was exactly his problem, he threw 20 pitches that were 4 inches below the strike zone. Once he figured out what adjustment to make, he pitched well for two consecutive innings. I do worry about his kind of immature behavior on the mound and in the dug out. I may be wrong, but I don't remember that babyishness from Cain last year when he was getting shelled. On the other hand, they had a dugout shot of Zito after he was pulled and he looked, literally, shell shocked.
Posted by: Frank | June 20, 2007 at 07:02 PM