Skip to main content

Home Sweet Home

The difference between the Giants at home and the Giants on the road so far in 2009 has been night and day. After going win-less on their first 6-game trip of the season, the Giants returned home and shut down the D-Backs, taking 2 of 3 games and pitching terrifically in the process.

As a matter of fact, the three pitching performances the Giants got over the weekend showed people why their rotation was so highly thought of coming into the year. Jonathon Sanchez, the newly dubbed stopper of the Giants (not really, but he did end the 6 game skid right) got it started by throwing 6 2/3 innings of shutout baseball and beat the 'snakes 2-0 Friday night. Unfortunately, the Giants offense couldn't do anything against Doug Davis on Saturday to support Tim Lincecum's masterpiece. Lincecum righted himself after a rough couple of starts, going 8 strong, matching a career-high with 13 strikeouts while not allowing a walk or a run. Lincecum was hit with the no-decision, but gave Giants fans who were worrying about the youngster a sigh of relief. Not even Lincecum's 13-strikeout performance could top what the Big Unit did on Sunday though. After a rough couple starts in his first starts as Giant, Randy Johnson looked like Randy Johnson on Sunday, holding his former ball-club hit-less into the 7th inning while leading the Giants to a much needed series victory. I know we aren't going to keep getting these shutout starts from these pitchers, as good as they may be, but it's great to see them get the monkey of their backs and start throwing the ball the way they're capable of. They need to be the straw that stirs the Giants' drink, and hopefully, the offense will come around.

Pablo Sandoval, along with Lincecum and Johnson, had high expectations of his own coming in and hadn't lived up to them in that first week. The third-basemen had his first 3-hit game of the season on Sunday and now has his average up to .244 after looking way out of sync on the road trip. The Giants need Sandoval to be a steady offensive contributor in order to score consistently and I hate to put all this burden on the youngster's shoulders so soon, but he was a big reason why the Giants went 0-6 on that opening road trip. Sandy' went 3-22 with only 1 RBI and no extra-base hits while squandering numerous opportunities with runners on base. Not to mention, he looked just as out of sync at third base at times, than he did at the plate. Hopefully this 3-hit game will instill some confidence back into the Big Panda, cause I can't stress enough how important that guys bat is to this lineup.

The one unit on this team that has clearly done it's job has been the relievers. Only Alex Hinshaw is having trouble finding the strike zone, but that's not anything new around here. Bob Howry and Jeremy Affeldt have looked great so far and every bit worth the money they got this winter. Brian Wilson has only had 2 save opportunities and although he couldn't find the zone when the Giants needed him to on Saturday, he's been on top of his game here early on as well. I had begun to worry about the bullpen a bit because of all the work they've gotten here early on, but the starting pitchers gave them a nice break this weekend.

Comments

Crazy Eddy said…
The Giants should trade for another hitter... Like a first basemen. I don't want to give up on Ishi yet, but he has only 4 real hits in the first 2 weeks of the year. He has some RBI's but he's not hitting that good.

Wonder if they could trade Ishikawa and Velez for maybe someone like Mike Jacobs from Kansas City. He has some good pop, he hit 32 home runs last year for Florida.
Anonymous said…
Time for some Revenge on the Padres...If they can somehow score on Peavy and Young. But like you say, they're a much different team at home, these Giants are.

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 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

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