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Showing posts from August, 2014

Giants getting boost from youngsters

A little over a month ago, the Giants were in desperate search for a halfway decent second basemen as they seemingly failed with every guy they trotted out there in Marco Scutaro's absence. Then all the sudden they found themselves in the need of a catcher after concussion issues with multiple players opened a major void behind the plate and Buster Posey. Enter Joe Panik and Andrew Susac. The Giants top pick from the 2011 draft, Panik had a quiet start to his professional career before a solid season in AA Richmond last year and a torrid start at AAA Fresno this season. He's really been the story of the second half of the season and he just reached the 150 at-bat plateau making 2014 his official rookie year. It's not like his success has been a little 2-week lucky streak either, as he's shown he belongs. The 23 year-old second baseman has thrived in all aspects of the game since taking over the everyday job at second base August 4th. Since that date, he's hit .391

Giants must take advantage of schedule

With the way things are going, it's hard to imagine the Giants aren't more than five back in the West and still right near the top of the NL Wild Card race. Nevertheless, after they've failed to turnaround a miserable end to the first half, they're still very much alive in the playoff race and have plenty of baseball left. First of all, if they're going to get things back on track, they have to start taking advantage of the soft schedule they have coming up. They wound up splitting the mini two-game set with Chicago, but now is the chance to really get going. Their next 6 games are against the sinking Phillies and rebuilding Cubs, and if they cannot manage to muster up a winning record vs. those two, then maybe it'll be a tell of what's to come. To finish off the month, things are going to get harder as they have a trip to Washington on tap and then a showdown with the NL Central leading Brewers to close out August. Obviously, in order for them take adva

Giants banking on Pagan, Belt

The Major League Baseball trade deadline came and passed Thursday afternoon, and although there were a flurry of moves in what was one of the busiest deadline day's in recent years, the Giants were one of the clubs that stayed quiet. They did make the deal to bring in Jake Peavy just 5 days prior, so the sense of urgency to get something done wasn't there and apparently Brian Sabean didn't like any offers that were out there as he scoured for second basemen and outfield help. The Rays did end up dealing David Price, but there was no deal for Ben Zobrist, who was probably the most intriguing name linked to the Giants over the last week or so leading up to the deadline. The guy who I was monitoring as a plan B to Zobrist was Chicago's Emilio Bonafacio, but he was dealt to Atlanta for one of the Braves' lower level prospects instead. That being said, I'm not surprised at all the Giants ended up standing pat. I don't think they really loved any of the trade op