Start the Season Already
Our challenge this year is obvious, you don’t lose your #1 and #2ish starting pitchers a week before the season and have a lot of optimism going into the season. Our pitching staff was on thin ice before they got hurt. But we have better hitters and I’m hoping that the damaged goods we got in Melancon is going to create an opportunity for someone at the end of the game.
Baggs tweeted out the 2010 opening day line up and it’s worth noting that team looked, on paper, to have a lot of holes.
Rowand, Renteria, Sandoval, Huff, DeRosa, Big Titty, Bowker, Uribe, Lincecum
Tomorrow’s line up might look like:
Panik, Belt, McCutchen, Posey, Longoria, A-Jax, Pence, Crawford, Blach
With the obvious upgrade at P in 2010 I don’t see a single hitter I’d rather have than the 8 we are trotting out there tomorrow….
Do you?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
for what it’s worth:
pretty funny to listen to highlight of Vlad Jr. belting walkoff bomb for Toronto in exhibition game at Montreal Olympic Stadium vs. Cards. Like announcers said you can’t make it up.
cbs site shows fans in Dad’s jerseys and Expos hats, plus a pic of senior and junior in pinstripe uni as a little kid.
He’s pretty big guy now and had great season High A.
Dusty’s son Darrell, he of the 2002 World Series fun, hit a walk off bomb for Cal the other day.
I might go Huff over Belt only cause Huff was on fire most of the year,even might of got a few MVP votes before he faded.
Read where Yanks G Bird is gonna need ankle surgery and be out a while. Always thought Yanks yard and that whole division full of hitter friendly parks (except for Tampa) would be good fit for Belt and maybe give SF shot at one of their prized OF/pitching prospects.
This could easily be it for Pence and Cutch in contract year could be elsewhere soon. If Shaw can hit SF has to find spot for him.
Funny too but for all the talk about next season FA market why would Yanks need B Harper or Machado? They have younger cheaper quality players and big commitment to Stanton and are dang good right now.
Trayce Thompson can be had on waivers. Why wouldn’t the Giants want him over Gorkys? Unless it puts them past the luxury tax line, I guess.
Trayce in the Bay Area. That would be a cool story.
Who remembers the Tracy Jones experiment?
I remember the Casey Jones experiment. Living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine.
I’m not remembering Tracy Jones. It must not have gone well?
Shit, AJ Puk of the A’s went from unknown entity to spring phenom to possible rotation guy to demoted to TJ surgery. All in the matter of 3 weeks.
Get Thompson! Get anyone. Barry’s barcalounger. Gorkys is kaput.
This weekend we’ll see Gorkys pinch-hit in late innings. It will likely not go well.
2010 squad developed some real mojo the last half after Cody and Pat the Bat came on. We’ll see if these hitters get that. Last season the team was sleepwalking…
The 2010 team also had a stellar bullpen, and Posey and Bum joined the team mid-season.
And Freddie Sanchez had his moments of glory.
I hope Duggar is up after the FA clock date is past and maybe 100 ABs in Sac. Gorkys or Blanco can get released and they’ll end up back in Sac. Duggar needs to be tested to see if he can stick. His D is not an issue..,
The Tracy Jones Experiment could be a pretty good band name.
Workers will be trying to fix Dodger Stadium’s plumbing today.
http://www.latimes.com/resizer/fBfNG7vyydLEjyRcwgwrtUxNeas=/1200×900/www.trbimg.com/img-5abbb437/turbine/la-sp-dodgers-angels-20180327
Watching games against the A’s I was thinking the same thing. The opening day LU is solid 1-8. Pence has quietly put together a decent spring and was moving well the times that I saw him in the field. Maybe he has a nice bounce back year. I think the BP is going to be good whether Melancon makes it back or not. Hopefully Smith shows up sooner rather than later. The SP is what it is. A quick check on Matt Moore’s spring = 9IP, 2.25WIP, 9.00 ERA.
I like the mix of the club and am excited for the season to start.Out slug the other teams and stay around .500 until Bumgarner comes back and the club can be right in it. Can’t wait for my first Cha-Cha bowl!
excellent take.
Eric Stephen:
“38 of Clayton Kershaw’s 40 career starts against the Giants are quality starts. He has allowed zero or one run vs. SF more times (21) than allowing two or more runs (19)”
He doesn’t mention Kershaw’s record against the Giants. The Giants have defeated him a few times.
W/L record, I meant.
That 2010 Opening Day lineup got a 5-2 win at Houston, including a bomb by DeRosa.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/HOU/HOU201004050.shtml
I was there.
Pence has looked good this spring, but I’ll believe it when it’s for real.
Kershaw is 22-9, 1.70 era vs the Giants
21-7, 3.22 vs the Rockpile
14-8 2.55 vs the Dbags
17-6, 1.94 vs the Pads
A whopping 74-30 vs the west.
11-2, 1.97 vs the Nats, BTW
Was DeRosa the first hologram? He was here for 2+ years and played about 8 games IIRC.
The Giants signed him coming off wrist surgery. It never made sense.
I think the first hologram was Ryan Lollis (AKA “The Lollogram”)
that’s epic Flap knowledge.
Your creation, boss…
176 AB’s for Mark DeRosa as a Giant 1 HR!!!
But hey they felt sorry for him and they gave him W/S ring..
I’m delighted to see new guys in the pen. The LU looks fine. I decided to buy a ticket to opening day. My son found a couple of reasonably priced seats way up by the splash cam. Wtf.
Pences arm looks weak, imo. I noticed it earlier in ST and last night. One of the beat writers commented on it too. I think we’ll see a lot of Jackson in lf and Duggar in cf before the seasons over
We also added Affeldt and Javier Lopez in 2010….our pen was magnificent….
What is a Pierce Johnson and how did he make the team???
After the Bum news, I wanted to be able to watch Duggar. But with the reality of the number of lefties they will face in the first couple of weeks…let him hopefully get ripping right away and force the Giants hand…
Why is Derek Law in the outhouse????
He ain’t exactly shutting folks down with his 5 runs given up in 10 innings.
Maybe you didn’t hear that MadBum and Smarg are injured? Johnson was in the first round of cuts this spring, but he did pitch well while in camp. Don’t laugh – he might be the long man in the bullpen. By the by, they also kept Roberto Gomez too.
Gomez looked good in the one outing I remember seeing him.
It seems like it’s been downhill for Law ever since the 9th inning of that playoff game vs. the Cubs.
Pierce Johnson wears specs but their not as cool as Specs Tomlinson’s.
Did Specs make the team?
Just saw that he did.
Rutledge probably played a little better than Specs, but it was close enough for them to go with the known quantity of Specs.
The bench is not awesome. Pablo, Specs, Blanco, Gorkys, and Hundley.
Imagine these guys PHing late in games vs. quality relievers.
Maybe Pablo will run into a few. Maybe.
Gomez is the Julian Hernandez replacement.
Sure Cueto and all the other DR rallied for him.
Hey he’s a switch hitter if that means anything..
When you need that bunt laid down . . .
Had to look up Ryan Lollis. 13 ABs, 2 base hits and a walk.
I’m always amazed when Loo or someone else remembers somebody like that. I’m almost never remember those type of guys. The classic cup-of-coffee players.
I know what you mean. In the box score I posted earlier, a reliever named Brandon Medders almost blew the game in the 9th before Wilson saved the game. Who the hell was this guy?
The name vaguely rings a bell.
Salvador Perez slipped while carrying luggage and injured his knee.
Does anyone recall if we were excited about Gorkys Hernandez when in his first game of the season against the Snakes (started in place of regular centerfielder Denard Span) he had a career high four RBIs?
Anyone? Anyone? .
And after that the league discovered all the holes in his swing. 🙂
I think he had just as many holes in his bat then he does with his swing..
Denard Span’s first game as a Giant:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL201604040.shtml
I’ve mentioned before I was at Bowker’s first game. He hit an HR, and 3 or 4 total his first week. Then teams stopped throwing him fastballs, and he was done.
Yeah same thing happened to Serranto in Major League.,
The Bowker Gang is some of the best gloss to ever come out of the Flap imo.
Completely agree. Often wonder who it’s charter members were…
Jesse James, Cole Younger . . . Oh wait, that’s another gang.
oh boy…
Flavor said, on March 24, 2014 at 7:47 pm (Edit)
Finding founding members of The Bowker Gang on the internet is harder than finding a piece of #370 in the Indian Ocean. Too soon?
Just with position players some of my Bowker gang off the top of my head would be…Ryan Rohlinger,Matt Downs,Ryan Garko,Emanuel Burris,Fred Lewis,Kevin Frandsen..
Good job, Kat!
I always thought you had to be considered an underwhelming power hitting prospect, ideally a corner OF or 1B to be defined as part of The Bowker gang.
Flav opened a 2014 thread with this:
Everyone remembers The Bowker Gang. There was, of course, John Bowker himself. Brian Bocock. Dan Ortmeier. Manny Burriss. Todd Linden. There were others. They were bad asses who couldn’t hit an mlb breaking ball. The Bowker Gang. They’d ruin you in a dark ally.
man I was on fire back then….
Is Rajai D the only survivor?
A name from the past who believe it are not is still a Giant,the big bonus baby bust who has ballooned as big as another former bust Raiders QB Jamarcus Russell (well atleast he played in the NFL) not are guy who has never played above AA are one and only Angel Villalona best known as “The payoff Baby”
I saw that fat boy play 1B for the San Jose Giants during his last gasp in the USA, before his pay-off six-year stint on the 40-man expired. He’s not still playing, is he?
maybe it was only 3 years–seemed like an eternity
Miscellanea:
1. If gyros survive April around .500, anything is possible.
2. I dunno who this Gomez guy is. Remember years ago when he got traded in I called Lopez, Gomez? I think Oracle was pissed or something? He’ll, I was just a few years early…
Didn’t Joe Buck also call Lopez “Gomez” in the 2010 playoffs? Pretty funny. Buck didn’t seem to know anybody’s name on that Giants team. “And there’s a fly ball to … the right fielder…” ….
I do remember you mistakenly calling him Gomez. Twin was in rare form that day. He really let you have it. Good times!
there are a lot of jokes in waiting on this Pence *pledge* but can someone explain to me how $1000 turns into 10,000 meals? Am I reading this wrong?
He’d be donating 10x more if it was dribblers to 3rd . . .
SHit, I heard Damon Bruce for 20 seconds regaling the airwaves with all the failed outfielders since Barry Bonds was traded for. Ort-Rod was one of them. Linden, JR Phillips, The list was long . . .
I saw Ort-Rod’s first ML homer. Twin loved that nickname. He hit it in the infamous Benitez double balk game back in 2007…
I have a baseball that Angel Villalona tossed me! I was at a San Jose Giants/Modesto Nuts game, sitting behind a dugout and he was the on-deck hitter nearby. A foul ball was dribbled over to him and he decided to toss it into the crowd. I was wearing a glove and held the glove up high and it got his attention and he tossed the ball right to me. I still have it.
This was during his pre-murder charge era.
He’s still only 27. Feels like he should be 39 by now…
that may be worth nearly as much as the Sandoval signed ball my younger kid got
I have a few balls I’ve gotten at minor league games. I’ve never gotten one at a major league game. Never even come all that close to getting one,
I can barely remember Rajai Davis as a Giant.
His second year he was essentially a pinch runner before he got traded
or more likely dfa’d and claimed
He was so close to winning a World Series with Cleveland. He was almost a legend with his Game 7 HR. Now he’s more of an interesting footnote in that series.
Yeah, I’m not getting the Hunter Pence math either.
The Giants aren’t taking my advice on Trayce Thompson so far.
Lincecum is out the first month of the season with a blister.
It’s really coming to be an epidemic in Baseball with blisters especially the last few years.Defintely something going on with these baseballs wound too tight which of course MLB is denying..