The Giants Baseball Blog

The Cactus League is well underway, as the Giants have started off 2-1 and are squaring off with the Milwaukee Brewers as I type. A lot of people feel Spring Training doesn't mean much, the games don't matter and there are tons of players fans have never heard of or likely will never see play in the big leagues filling out teams lineups. However, even though the Giants are coming off of a World Series win, they still have some things they need to determine over the next month or so. Here are the 3 big questions that surround the Giants this spring: 1.) IS BRANDON BELT READY: The young first basemen was the toast of the organization in 2010 and probably would have gotten a lot more headline and even maybe a September showing had the Giants not been on their way to the playoffs. Now they must figure out what to do with the 22 year-old who's done all he can do in the Minors, but the Giants don't quite have a spot on their roster for him to get a whole lot of at-bats. If h...

Finally, the shortest off-season the Giants have endured since their move out west has come to an end. The 2010 World Champion San Francisco Giants are officially back at work and playing games again, albeit of the exhibition variety. Things got off to a strange start in Friday's opener, as the Diamondbacks touched up Tim Lincecum pretty good, knocking him out before he could get through his scheduled 2 innings. He gave up 5 hits and 3 runs with just 1 strikeout. Lincecum had a very similar start to his Cactus League last season, so I don't really see anything to worry about here. He felt fine after the game, as the stiff neck was a non-issue. But even though Lincecum didn't due his part, the Giants still managed to battle back and take the Cactus League opener. Buster Posey, Cody Ross and Pat Burrell all came up with big RBI hits, though no Giant hitter left the yard. Posey, in-fact, led all Giants hitters, going 2-3 with a 2B and 2 RBI. Aaron Rowand and the slimmer Pablo ...

While spirits are high in Giants camp and the Cactus League set to open up Friday afternoon against the Diamondbacks, for some of these guys, a lot is at stake. There are still roster spots and orders to be determined and those, hopefully, will transpire over the next month. Bochy has decided to send ace Tim Lincecum to the hill in-light of his recent shoulder tenderness. Timmy says "what shoulder stiffness?" as he plans to pitch like any other game during his scheduled two innings (or around 25 pitches). I believe the Angels are responding with their most tenured arm, ace Jered Weaver. And outside of 2nd basemen Freddy Sanchez, the Giants should be at full force, though that doesn't necessarily mean Bochy will be trotting out the same lineup he plans to employ April 1st in Los Angeles. Boch did, however, disclose the way the Giants rotation will lineup, health impending, come opening day and there was a bit of a head-scratcher in there for me. There was no question as to...

Well baseball fans, spring is officially in the air, and the World Champion San Francisco Giants are back at work preparing for their tittle defense in 2011. We were going to use today's post as the follow up to our pitching projections with our hitting version, but there's a lot going on in Giants camp and I figured we'd put the hitting projections on hold for another day. It was the first day of live batting practice, and workouts for all players have started to intensify, yet the piece of news which gathered most of the headlines was the private trip closer Brian Wilson took to Hollywood to hang out at Charlie Sheen's mansion with various celebrities and prominent former baseball players. I don't really put a lot of time into non-baseball off field issues unless it effects on field performance, but the reason I'm touching on this subject, is because of all the fans calling into the Bay Area sports stations and commenting all over Giants fan-sites on the Inter...

It's that time of the year, with Spring Training games just around the corner and baseball's opening day just about 6 weeks out, that everybody is putting out their projections for just about everything and everyone in baseball for the upcoming season. With our annual division-by-division preview set to start in mid-March, I wanted to be sure to get out my giants team statistical projections as best as see it. This won't be taking into account any happening from exhibition play, which is another reason why I wanted to do this as early in camp as possible. In this post, we'll go through each of the projected Giants 12-man pitching staff and provide our own projections for the guys we expect to be on the opening day roster. So, without wasting any more of your guys valuable time, let's get into it: Starting Rotation: 1. Tim Lincecum RHP: 18-6, 2.86 era, 214 IP, 241 K's, 1.10 WHIP, .213 BAA 2. Matt Cain RHP: 16-11, 3.41 era, 237 IP, 199 K's, 1.18 WHIP, .228 B...

The tittle defense is officially underway for the San Francisco Giants, as Spring Training workouts started Tuesday, with the rest of the bunch reporting arriving in a few days to start full-squad workouts. Because it's just the first day of spring, workouts were very light, and nothing really newsworthy happened in the light morning session, but it certainly appears like these guys are loose and confident coming in. Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson led the laughs on the field during stretching and long-toss, as the beards were in full force. There really isn't a whole lot to determine with the pitching staff this spring, as most of the roster spots regarding the pitching staff are pretty much sealed up. Their starting rotation remains fully in-tact, so unless there's an injury, nothing has to be determined there. However, there are still a few question marks in the bullpen that need to be answered. Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo, Santiago Cassilla, Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez a...

Although a lot of guys have already arrived, Giants pitchers and catchers are all expected in Camp by Monday, with their first workout scheduled for the following afternoon. As far as the positional players are concerned, they'll be reporting Friday with the first full-squad workout scheduled for next Saturday. With the first spring training workouts scheduled for less than 1 week from now, the Giants are fine-tuning their roster for the Cactus League. They added a few more players on minor league deals over the last few days, none of which really jump out at you, but at least one guy who could play a valuable role for them in 2011, and that guy is Edgar Gonzalez. The Giant inked the former Padres infielder to a minor league deal after the 32 year-old spent the 2010 season in Japan with the Yomuri Giants. Like they did with Jeff Suppan last week, they added Gonzalez in order to provide depth to an area in which the Giants don't have a bunch of ML ready options, and that's m...

The 2011 MLB season hasn't officially started yet. Heck, we're still a 2 weeks out of spring training. However, to Giants fans in Northern California and all over San Francisco, baseball fever has begun, and the countdown to the tittle defending is on! For the most part, the Fanfest is a casual baseball gathering where fans get to meet and greet the players and coaches, bu t coming off the heels of the 2010 World Series Champion, this fanfest is more like a follow up World Series parade party. I was unable to be in attendance for this one but instead typing the post as I watch but mostly listen to the Fest. What I saw were images of a gathering that resembled more like a World Series Parade than a Fanfest. They even had to shut the gates to the stadium and stopped letting people in around 11:30, just 1/2 hour after the even started. I was there last year, and there was easily 3-4 times the amount of people at that point packed around Willie Mays Plaza and all down King St. The...

Well, we won't have to be discussing this offseason for much longer, as pitchers and catchers are set to report to sunny Scottsdale in less than 2 weeks. This time, they'll have a new member roaming the facility, as old Cubs and Mariners manager Lou Pinella officially joined the Giants front office on Monday. With a such quiet spring in which Pinella becoming an assistant makes headlines, it's almost time to lace 'em up and once again start talking actual baseball. With the Cactus League Opener just 2 weeks away, I figured we'd address some issues heading into spring. * I don't expect Pinella to appear much with the team at all, taking on a role similar to that of Felipe Alou's a few years back, but I do believe he will have his voice heard in the organization, and although those finals years in ChiTown didn't go as hoped, there are very few baseball minds as experienced as Pinella's. still has plenty to offer a major league organization. *More so, t...