The Giants Baseball Blog

When Brandon Belt went down with the broken thumb a few weeks back, the Giants were going to need someone to step up in his place. Now despite missing 1/4 of their projected 2014 lineup, they have managed to not only keep the team afloat, but become one of the more potent offenses in league. Through the first 6 weeks of the season, Brandon Belt was off to one of the better starts of any hitter in this lineup and was pacing the team in home runs and seemingly coming up with big hit after big hit. However, as hot as Brandon Belt was those first few weeks in April, Pablo Sandoval has been hotter since the big first basemen went down with the fractured thumb. He continued his torrid May with a 1-3 with his 8th home run of the year and 2 runs scored. The Panda was terrible in April and didn't really get it going until the 2nd week of May when he had his first 3-hit game of the year (3-5) vs. the Dodgers on May 11th. Since that game, the all-star third basemen has 25 hits in 67 at-bats...

Through the first month-plus of the regular season, every starter in the Giants rotation aside from Tim Hudson would tell you they need to be pitching better. A huge reason why the Giants are 10 games above .500 despite the hot-and-cold starting pitching has been because of their rock solid bullpen. Look no further back than Monday night's slug-fest with Pittsburgh in which Yusmiero Petit couldn't get the job done filling in for Cain, yet the bullpen came in and combined for 8 2/3 innings of 2 run ball. Juan Gutierrez had a rare hiccup in his 1.2 innings of work, allowing the two runs to score, but the other five relievers went the remaining 7 shutout innings allowing 5 hits, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts. Everybody in that bullpen is doing their job, top to bottom. Petit had a forgetful outing Monday, but was dominant upon being pressed into duty for Cain last week, and should rebound in his next start. The three guys who have really been nails in getting the ball to Romo have be...

After a hot start and a sluggish middle of April, the Giants are heating up again. The starting pitching seems to leveling out a bit after an up-and down couple of weeks to start the year and the offense keeps coming up with the big hit which has led to a 17-11 month of April. We'll talk a little about both units in this post but I wanted to start out with the offense. If you would have told me that Pablo Sandoval would be hitting sub-.200 and Pence and Posey were hovering around .250 with Marco Scutaro still shelved, I would have assumed this offense had a disastrous month. Instead, while Posey and Pence took some time to find their groove, it allowed other players to step up and shine. The offensive MVP for the month would have to be a toss-up between newcomer Michael Morse, who slashed .302/.351/.581 with 6 home runs and 20 RBI in April, and Angel Pagan, who went .340/.380/.470 with 2 HR, 14 RBI and 4 steals. The biggest surprise offensively for the first month would have to g...