Skip to main content

Finley Practicing at First Base

Steve Finley has been taking a lot of ground balls at first base lately and Felipe Alou says he is starting to feel more and more comfortable with the thought of Finley at first. I have been asking for this since the Finley acquisition and I knew the Giants weren't going to add a legit starting first basemen. Lance Niekro can handle lefties pretty well, but looks overmatched against right-handers' with any kind of hard breaking balls. I would not mind Finley getting a start or two a week at first base, it would get his bat in the lineup along with Barry Bonds and Moises Alou to give the Giants a decent 3-4-5 hitters. Finley is a solid center fielder, and I think he will make the adaptation relatively well. There isn't a better 41 year-old athlete in pro sports.

The Giants' rotation continues to have their roller coaster season, it seems they all can't get on track at the same time. Right now, Jason Schmidt is throwing at Cy Young award pace, but Jamey Wright and Matt Cain have been pretty inconsistent as of late. Noah Lowry had a good start Saturday and fell victim to a hideous offensive performance by the Giants. I think it's pretty safe to say that at this point, the only sure things in the rotation look like Schmidt and Lowry. Wright had done more than expected up untill his last few starts. He's allowed 6 earned runs in 2 of his last 3 starts and his control has been a huge issue. It's not really the high walk totals, but Wright gets himself into too many 2-1, 3-1 counts to hitters where he has to grove one, and thats when he gets beat up. When he's on, he's always ahead of the hitters or getting ground outs early in the count. I think Wright will stay in the rotation for the rest of the year, but I think the Wright we've seen over his last few weeks is more of what we'll see. Not a bad pitcher, but not quite the guy we saw the first month and half of the season. If Cain cannot gain some consistency, and Morris continues his struggles (although his latest start gives me some more hope) the Giants will be saddled with 3 number 5 starters and teams don't win divisions with 3/5 of their rotation are a gamble night in and night out.

Comments

Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said…
Unfortunately, Finley's stats don't indicate he's a better option than Niekro.

They need a real first baseman.
Trevor Cole said…
I'm not saying Finley would be a savior, but he would be better than Niekro vs. righties, and until they do have a legit first baseman, they have to play the best they have.

Popular posts from this blog

WORLD SERIES: Giants Move Up 2-0 on Texas

PreGame After taking game one in a surprising slug-fest , the Giants look to go up 2-0 on the Rangers in the World Series on Thursday night. The Giants are sending out Matt Cain, a guy who I'm sure every Giants' fan is pretty confident in. He'll be a opposed by C.J. Wilson, who's in his first year as a full-time starter, but has been brilliant in the role. He did struggle his last time out though, so hopefully the Giants can get to him early and get into his head a bit. I'm going to do something I've never done here on this unique occasion, and sort of do an in-game post. updating this post every time I feel I have something to add. So go Giants, and be sure to check back throughout the game, and after, to vent or whatever! As long as Matt Cain keeps rolling, and the Giants keep coming up with those clutch 2-out hits, we should be OK. Texas has that high-powered offense that can score in a hurry, as we saw last night, so the Giants cannot let down and have to t

Giants Notes: Lincecum Signs, Ross to Boston

Well, even though I touched on it a little bit in our last post, I haven't really had a chance to get my thoughts out on the new Lincecum deal since he and the Giants agreed earlier in the week. Also, on the other end of things, the Giants missed out on shoring up their outfield by letting Cody Ross sign in Boston for only $3 million in 2012. First off, obviously, wanted to talk a bit about Lincecum. I've already said here that I didn't expect him to sign a long-term deal that takes him through free agency, but it doesn't mean he wants to leave San Francisco like everyone is suspecting. I mean, if I were Lincecum, I'd probably do the same thing, even if I planned on eventually signing with the Giants long-term. Why take a chance at mitigating your value to just sign a deal? Granted, a 5 year, $100 million deal isn't anything to sneeze at, in this market, if he were a free agent, Lincecum could probably easily command a 8 year, $200 million deal. If he could get

Giants Still Need Infield Help

On Saturday, the Giants finalized a 2 year contract extension with Freddy Sanchez, who they acquired in July for Tim Alderson. The new deal for Sanchez will pay him 12 million over the next 2 seasons instead of 8.5 million for just 2010, which was his option for 2010. I've voiced my disappointment in Sanchez a few times here since the Giants dealt for him over the summer. He wasn't able to stay on the field full time to help this club with their run at the NL Wild Card, and even when he was in there, he didn't seem to make much of an impact in th e lineup. Now, I wasn't necessarily hoping the Giants would cut ties with Sanchez (they probably would have had to pay 4 million or so to buy him out), just didn't think he was worth upwards of 10 million dollars, and would have liked to see the Giants pursue someone like Orlando Hudson with that money. The Giants already have an infielder who's being paid about 3-4 times what his play over the last 2 seasons would indi