Skip to main content

Vizquel Returns

The Giants got Omar Vizquel back over the weekend, and as expected, it showed immediately. Vizquel had three hits on his first day back, then was walked three times the following game and provided his signature defense all weekend. The Giants are 2-1 since his return and look like they have definitely gotten a boast. Now all the sudden the team has some depth at the shortstop position. Vizquel looks like he's close to %100 and Emmanuel Burris is looking like a playable option at short the more he plays. Burris is actually slowly starting to take some at-bats away from Eugenio Velez who just hasn't had the same success in the regular season as he did in Spring training. Bruce Bochy started last week that even with Vizquel's return and Burris outplaying Velez, sending him down to Fresno is not an option at this point. Velez is out of options so would be placed on waivers and available to the other teams before he could be sent down to the minors. With Velez struggling in the two hole, I think it could make some sense to give Vizquel another shot there early on to see if he reverts back to '06 form. Velez has struggled there and asking Burris' to become a number two hitter on a nightly basis is asking too much at this point.

Barry Zito had his second start in which he was not too good, but not too bad either. Zito went 6 innings, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits but really only made 1 crucial mistake that hurt him. That mistake was giving up a two out, 2-run homer to Lance Berkman that tied the game. No, he's still nowhere close to a 126 million dollar pitcher, but the Giants are stuck with him so it's good to at least see him moving in the right direction, hopefully. The team could use it as their pitching staff has been roughed up a bit lately. The rotation is ridiculously young and green right now with Misch and Sanchez each in there (they both have a combined 22 big league starts between them. Kevin Corriea is looking like he's starting to make some progress in returning from his injury, but Noah Lowry is still a ways off, so the Giants are going to need Zito now more than ever to start eating up innings.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great to hear regarding Vizquel. Also, great coverage of the story! In my opinion, you're own of the best SF Giants' blogs on the Net!

Rafael Furcal, the shortstop on your division rivals, just got placed on the 15-day DL.

Be sure to check out http://dodgersblog.mlblogs.com/ to see what's brewing with probably your most hated-team, the Dodgers.
4:03 PM
Anonymous said…
enjoy him while you got him
10:56 PM
Anonymous said…
These Giants sure are fun to watch, even if they aren't going to be a winning team, they're always in games. Better than I thaught.
11:59 AM
Anonymous said…
zito may be heading in the right direction but come on 0-8 !!
will he be a pitcher how dosent win all season ............?
2:43 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
201 comments
Read more

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...
87 comments
Read more

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 ...
119 comments
Read more