Changes Could Be in Store for Giants

As the Giants get set to take on the Pirates in game 2 of their 3-game set, rumors are starting to spark around the clubhouse of some possible player movement. It's only April, but the team is simply under-performing and the front office apparently isn't happy with what it seeing.

Sitting at 11-11 and on the heels of getting swept at home over the weekend by the Braves, it's really got the front office moving to figure out ways to improve the team in the near term. A few reports are suggesting what I did in the last post, and that is that Madison Bumgarner could be on a short leash. The 21 year-old goes Wednesday night in Pittsburgh in a match-up that heavily favors him, so he's got all the odds on his side. He enters the game at 0-3 with a 7.79 era and not a single "quality start" on the 2011 campaign yet. His release point isn't staying consistent, and he's not brushing off bad starts like he should, and those are things that get young pitchers sent down to AAA. Not saying Bumgarner's on the verge of that happening, but he won't make it too far into May with the big club if that era doesn't come down. Problem here though, is that the Giants are pretty thin in the starting rotation as is, with Barry Zito out until May. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with Ryan Vogelsong in his first start in Zito's place tomorrow, but so far, he's thrown exceptionally well.

The other bit of news floating around is in regards to Mark DeRosa, who is apparently being scouted aggressively by the Florida Marlins where they have a veteran pitcher in Javier Vazquez who isn't pitching well in South Beach. Now I have no idea if and what the Giants would ask for in a trade for DeRosa, but I could see it happening since they seem to favor using Mike Fontenot over DeRosa. I was beginning to think his lack of PT may have something to do with his injury from last year, but he's apparently 100% healthy, so I do wonder why he isn't played more often. Especially when Brandon Belt had to face those tough lefties when he was up, or when Pat Burrell was going through his dry spell. The value of DeRosa is his versatility, and either he's lost it, or the Giants don't have much confidence in him anywhere else but 3rd base, and he certainly isn't unseating Pablo. I just don't see any reason why he didn't get an AB in last nights close game, or doesn't at least start 1-2 games a week somewhere. During that whole time Cody Ross was out, DeRosa was never used in right field, even though he'd played there with regularity in prior years.

Ford "Steals" Giants a Win: A couple of Giants who've been instrumental in the last couple of wins have been the guys filling in for Cody Ross and Andres Torres. Darren Ford basically single-handily won Tuesday night's game vs. the Pirates with his blazing speed. They don't have Ford on the base paths last night and they probably don't win that game, but then again, it's tough to validate a roster spot with just speed. Ford still hasn't hit enough to stay in the bigs though. Fellow reserve outfielder Nate Schierholtz has also had some big moments recently, and he's showing Bochy he wants to play more. That homer he hit in Colorado was mammoth, and had to have given him a jolt of confidence. Not only did he hit that 467-foot blast, but he had a 3-hit night to go along with it, then came up with a big double in Tuesday's game... Meanwhile, Cody Ross has gone 3-19 with 7 K's since his return (not bashing, just pointing out that he may not be quite ready).

Roster Alert! Adding even more fuel to the fire of my above post, Mark DeRosa's frustrating run in San Francisco took another bad turn Wednesday. The same wrist that's caused him 2 surgeries already is flaring up again, and DeRosa has gone on the DL. Called up in his place is the 25 year-old Emmanuel Burris, who was playing well in Fresno (.344 with 15 steals in 16 games)...BTW, our April Minor League Report is right around the corner!