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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.
1:28 AM
Anonymous said…
Unfortunately, Finley's stats don't indicate he's a better option than Niekro.

They need a real first baseman.
11:58 AM
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.
12:09 PM
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