The Giants Baseball Blog

It's been no secret this month that the Giants offense needs some help, and apparently they are going to be bringing Pat Burrell on board for the rest of the 2010 season. It's been reported all over the Bay Area over the last few days that the Giants were in talks with Burrell , and now it appears to be pretty much wrapped up. According to Henry Schulman , the Giants should announce the s igning of Burrell by Saturday evening. Burrell won't be immediately added to the roster upon signing though, as he'll likely go through a small stint in Fresno before the Giants figure out what capacity they're planning to use him in. As far as my reaction to this move? I don't really see any harm in it, but I'm really not expecting Burrell to come in and be any kind of savior for this lineup. That said, there's always that chance he comes up, gets hot and puts together a couple of streaky months and works his way into the lineup. This situation almost reminds me ...

I know we're not even to June yet, and the year is still very young, but the way the Giants have played over the last 7-10 days has raised some red flags. They've lost 6 of their last 7 games and have lost some ground on the rest of the division. The tail-spin strangely coincided with the return of Freddy Sanchez, which is a surprise because so many people were hoping he would give the offense a shot in the arm. The Giants have lost all five games that they've played with Sanchez in the lineup, and have scored just 9 runs in that span (7 of those came in 1 game though). Not placing the blame on Sanchez at all, but he hasn't really done his part since his return, and, as I mentioned in the last post, he doesn't have a bunch of room for error. The Giants' second basemen collected just 1 hit over the weekend series in Oakland and has been a big part of the black hole that is the top of the Giants batting order. Aaron Rowand has been hideous since returning from the...

Ever since the Giants traded for him in late July last summer, second basemen Freddy Sanchez has spent more time on the DL than on the field. Sanchez showed up in the Giants lineup for the first time in 2010 Wednesday, and hopefully he's here to stay. Sanchez took an 0-4 in his first game back, but got his bat going in Thursday's game with a 2-3 night with a run scored and an RBI. The spotlight is really going to be on Sanchez now and he's going to have to stay healthy from here on out if he wants to remain in the good graces of Giants' fans. He showed the kind of value he can provide for this lineup on Thursday, and with the to p of the Giants lineup performing inconsistently he's going to have to do his part in trying to solidify it. In order to make room for Sanchez, the Giants sent Eugenio Velez down to Fresno, choosing to keep Matt Downs and Ryan Rohlinger on the 25-man roster instead, and there may be another move here on the horrizon. The prospect of bringin...

The Giants were hoping to get back at the Padres for taking 2 of 3 from them earlier in April down in San Diego, but instead, the Giants struggles vs. their Southern California foes continued this week at AT&T Park. The Giants suffered a 3-game sweep at the hands of San Diego, and it was due largely in part to some wild starting pitching and some missed opportunities at the plate. Matt Cain was wild in his start on Wednesday and gave up 5 runs in 6.2 innings, and that game probably was the one that the Giants really didn't deserve to win, but the other two games were there for the taking. Zito walked 7 guys in the series opener on Tuesday night, but did a pretty good job getting himself out of the trouble he got into and allowed just 3 runs. Unfortunately, the Giants offense could only muster up 2 runs in support of him. They didn't even score in game 3 on Thursday though, and only managed 4 runs in the full 3-game set. The discouraging part about that is that they didn...

Although they did suffer a few heartbreakers in New York, and really could have had a 6-0 road-trip had a few things gone a bit differently, Bruce Bochy has to be pleased with the way his club is playing right now. The teams only 2 losses on the trip were due to late game heroics by the New York Mets, so they playing well even in the games they aren't winning right now. It's a bit surprising too because they're doing it with two of their most important offensive pieces under-performing. Both Mark DeRosa and Pablo Sandoval had forgettable road-trips, and have really had a terrible few weeks here in May so far. So far in May, Sandoval is hitting just .081 with 1 RBI and just 3 hits in 37 at-bats. DeRosa isn't much better, sitting at .148 with 3 RBI and 4 hits in his 27 at-bats this month. The reason why the Giants have been able to weather the storm without those guys hitting has been the stand-out play of youngsters Nate Schierholtz and Matt Downs. Schierholtz has finall...

With so much going on with the Giants in April, we haven't had much of a chance to touch on the Giants Minor League system so far. Last year, we'd post at least one minor league write-up per month, and I wanted to get back on that schedule. Most of the minor league attention surrounding the Giants early on has been on their AAA Fresno team where they have their top-2 prospects awaiting their opportunity to be moved up to the big league level. Bumgarner, who was favored to win the 5th spot in the Giants' rotation coming into spring training, didn't pitch like he was supposed to during the Cactus League, and that carried over into the regular season. In his first two starts in Fresno, Bumgarner allowed 21 hits and 11 earned runs in just 7 innings of work. However, since those first two outings, Madison has seemed to get back on track. Over his last 3 starts, he's gone 17 innings while allowing just 9 hits and 3 earned runs. His strikeout numbers have been a little bit...

Although the Giants didn't finish off their 9-game homestand with a victory Sunday, they have to feel pretty good about what they were able to accomplish throughout the last 3 series vs. arguably the leagues best teams. Any time you take 2 of 3 from a division favorite, that's a good series, and the Giants did that to 3 different division favorites(St. Louis, Philadelphia and Colorado). Jonathan Sanchez got roughed up a little by the Rockies on Sunday, which cost the Giants a 3-game sweep of the pre-season NL West favorites, but they still won 2 of 3 from them to keep that series winning streak alive. Sanchez started out strong, but his wildness got him into trouble in the 4th and 5th innings and knocked him out of the game. His line for the day was 4 2/3 innings, 3 hits, 3 earned runs, 5 walks and strikeouts. He didn't give up too many hard hit balls, but all those walks allowed too many baserunners and the Rockies cashed in on their opportunities. Offensively, the Giants ...