Skip to main content

Giants Work Not Done Yet

The Giants completed phase one of their goal Saturday night at AT&T Park, but it's hardly time to start celebrating just yet.

San Francisco clinched the NL West with their win over San Diego Saturday, and have reserved their spot in the postseason with 10 days still left in the season. Their wins over the last few weeks have been almost identical as they've been getting their vintage starting efforts, and have the offense locked into a pretty good groove. After the outing Ryan Vogelsong had Friday, his first solid outing in 6 weeks, you kind of got the feeling the Giants were going to seal it up this weekend. Madison Bumgarner followed up Vogey's gem with a solid, yet unspectacular outing, but did more than enough on the mound and at the plate to help lead the Giants. Once again, Angel Pagan and Marco Scutaro set the table beautifully at the top of the lineup, and Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt had the hot bats in the middle of the order. Speaking of Belt and Pence, those two are going to be huge entering October as Buster Posey's walk rate is due to sky rocket, and it looks like they're up for the task. This lineup has come a long way over the last few months, and has the ability to put crooked numbers up on the board now. They don't necessarily have to be getting A+ starts every night from their starters, cause that lineup is really carrying their weight.

Now the Giants should have two main goals between now and when games start counting again. First of all, I expect to see Bochy give every regular a few days off before getting them back out there. Although it was a pretty low key celebration, their were still a lot of guys in that clubhouse who will be making their first postseason trip, and the champagne was flowing and some guys may need a day or two to get their feet back under them. However, I'd expect that by the team is back out on the road, they'll shift their focus back to winning, and trying their best to improve their status for home field advantage in October. It looks like the Reds will hold home field throughout for whoever they face, but the Giants still have a shot at overtaking Washington with a strong finish. Either way, I don't want to see Boch start mixing things up too much. Keep guys fresh, but try and keep that same lineup rolling out there together to keep building off what they've done. Sometimes you see teams who clinch early like this take the last few weeks off mentally, and never really recover. It's up to Boch to make sure that doesn't happen, and with his track record, I assume he'll do a pretty good job.  

There's still a long way to go before this team and city can really start to celebrate though, and they know it. This has been a fun, unique team to watch come together, and as I've said throughout the second half, it's reminding me more of the 2010 bunch each day. I expect them to be ready for whatever team they wind up facing in the NLDS.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I almost wish they would have clinched later this week so they wouldn't be rusty. That's why they did so good in 2010 because they played until the final day to determine the NL West.
Henry415 said…
Do Buster and Tim Lincecum not like each other? I want to see them work together in the playoffs. Don't trust the rookie Sanchez.
Anonymous said…
The slide called by KMOX http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6klLH4uRMo
Anonymous said…
Your ѕtуle is really unіque in compаriѕon to otheг реοple І've read stuff from. I appreciate you for posting when you've got the opрoгtunity, Guess Ӏ will juѕt bookmark this web sіte.
Here is my blog ; http://earnonlinesite.net/
Anonymous said…
fahrenheit 451 ebook http://audiobookscollection.co.uk/es/Ubiquitous-Computing-Systems-Third-International-Symposium-UCS-2006-Seoul-Korea-October-11-13-2006-Proceedings-Lecture-Notes-in-Computer-Applications-incl-Internet-Web-and-HCI/p209876/ magazine ebook australia [url=http://audiobookscollection.co.uk/it/Legge/c1039/]free 360 degree leader ebook[/url] free ebook human resource development
Anonymous said…
bible software for the internet http://buysoftwareonline.co.uk/product-36202/Serial-Port-Tool-PTZ-Controller-2-8 best data recovery review software [url=http://buysoftwareonline.co.uk/it/category-100-102/Affari]gm gps software update[/url] website copy software free downloads
[url=http://buysoftwareonline.co.uk/fr/category-100-109/Antivirus-et-S-curit-]Antivirus et Securite - Software Store[/url] parrott software upgrade
[url=http://buysoftwareonline.co.uk/es/product-36961/FileMaker-Server-Advanced-11-0][img]http://buyoem.co.uk/image/5.gif[/img][/url]
Anonymous said…
[url=http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/norvasc.htm][img]http://onlinemedistore.com/8.jpg[/img][/url]
rx us pharmacy http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/tentex-royal.htm movie the peoples pharmacy [url=http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/paroxetine.htm]how much do pharmacy technicians make[/url]
pharmacy schools http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/paxil.htm rite aide pharmacy [url=http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/zovirax.htm]zovirax[/url]
pharmacy adjudicators http://redbrickstore.co.uk/categories/stop-smoking.htm goodhealth pharmacy [url=http://redbrickstore.co.uk/refer-a-friend.htm]pharmacy technician salary rate new jersey[/url]
propac long term care pharmacy http://redbrickstore.co.uk/catalogue/v.htm pharmacy technician education in washington [url=http://redbrickstore.co.uk/products/sublingual-cialis.htm]sublingual cialis[/url]

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 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

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