The Giants are 9-11 since their rather improbable six-game winning streak to start the season. Granted, you might be thinking evil thoughts about me regarding sample size (in lieu of, or in addition to, whatever evil thoughts you normally think about me), but I'm not looking at "pace," or anything like that. Rather, I'm dividing April into two sections, the second of which reflects the team more accurately than the first.

Well, of course it does; what team would go 162-and-0? Not this year's Giants, certainly, nor anybody else. But what I mean is that the all-thrusters- thrusting Giants of the season's first week bear little resemblance to the Whack-A-Mole group we've seen since: as soon as you've bopped one problem into submission, another rears its furry, bucktoothed little melon. In that sense, the Giants look like all major league teams, which is a shame because, as is the case annually, there's nothing to distinguish them from the rest of the pack. At least not yet.

Barry Bonds went off early, pounding home runs at an exaggerated Bondsian rate. Livan Hernandez pitched like the guy they believed he was when they named him the 1997 World Series MVP despite an ERA near six, and, indeed, each pitcher in the rotation pitched like he meant it, especially rookie Ryan Jensen. With timely hits from David Bell, Reggie Sanders, and Benito Santiago, we hardly noticed Jeff Kent's absence. And the bullpen sliced through opposing hitters like the Three Musketeers through those evil French guys. This team looked like a bunch of world-beaters, which is how you knew it couldn't possibly last. Not that they're any slouch now, though; they're just springing leaks here and there.

The most important one might be Bonds, who has a nasty (or at least nagging) hamstring injury. Where that's most obvious is in left field, where he can't catch up to line drives he used to grab almost effortlessly. He even looks tentative out there, albeit still generally good at positioning himself and getting throws off quickly. He's not going to be picking up his 500th steal any time soon, however. Indeed, he has to hope that when he gets on base, Jeff Kent helps him out by bombing home runs. Not that that's too much pressure to put on Kent or anything.

Bonds hit five home runs before the season even started, practically, and has hit three since the early days -- and none lately. His stroke is off, and he looks a little desperate at the plate. He's being walked constantly, and finally it seems to be getting into his head. He's even commented that baseball isn't "fun" when he gets walked all the time. Not only that, it looks almost as if he's finally taken the rather shortsighted advice of Brian Sabean and swinging at pitches outside of his zone. That's leading to some lunging and lots of popups. It's not pretty. He doesn't look comfortable up there, and I have no doubt that his injury has a lot to do with it. He's just not getting the push from his legs that we're used to seeing.

Jeff Kent, as you know, missed the first few games of the season with that broken wrist -- I don't care how it happened, so let's not get into that -- during which time David Bell played second base and did okay, with Pedro Feliz getting most of the innings at third. Rich Aurilia wound up aching from a pulled groin muscle, so Ramon Martinez tried, with modest success, to pick up the slack.

Jason Christensen's health had suffered in the spring, and he looked miserable on the mound until the Giants stuck him on the disabled list, and Jason Schmidt was nowhere to be found due to his injury. Christensen's still out of the loop, and Schmidt is pitching a whole lot like the rest of us expected Hernandez to pitch.

Let's take a cursory look at the numbers, shall we?

• Offensively, this team looks just dandy through the first month. The Giants are fourth in the league in OPS at .756. League average is .726. The league right now is hitting .253/.328/.399, which probably tells you that the pitchers are still ahead of the hitters. (The prevailing theory among Giants broadcasters seems to be that this effect may well last all season, but I don't believe it.) The Giants' .417 SP (fifth in the league) and .339 OBP second are remarkable in such an extreme pitcher's park as Pacific Bell. Along those lines, the Giants have scored 123 runs, good for third place; their 223 hits puts them right in the middle, but their 106 walks are second best. A whole lot of that output is Bonds.
  
  
• With Bonds' eight home runs, the Giants are tied for second with 30, behind the Diamondbacks' 34. They're midpack in doubles (45) and next to last in triples (3).
  
  
• The Expos, Cardinals, and Marlins have stolen 24 bases. The Giants have stolen six. Make of that what you will; I mean, steals aren't all that important, but I'll still tell you that they can be a valuable psychological weapon, both on an in-game level and in terms of the opposition merely looking at a team, judging that team's overall speed, and, in the Giants' case, probably knowing pretty well that they won't have to knock themselves out on defense to keep baserunners from taking more than one base on a single or two on a double. The Giants' 14 sacrifice flies, though, lead the league, and they've grounded into only 15 double plays, third least in the league.
  
  
• It's hard to complain too much about the pitching, but I'm sure I'll manage to do so at some point. The Giants' 3.45 ERA is fifth in the league (where the average is 3.88). They've given up 90 runs, which is third best. We can account for the discrepancy in rank by noting that the Giants have given up only three unearned runs (3%), best in the league. In contrast, 20 of the 88 runs the Mets have surrendered are unearned (an astounding 23%, compared to a league average of 11%).
  
  
• Opposing hitters have managed a .686 OPS (.305 OBP, .381 SP), third-best in the league. The Giants' opposing OBP is fourth-best; the opposing SP is fifth-best.
  
  
• The Giants have coughed up a fourth-best 79 walks, but 128 whiffs are worst in the league by a mile, way below the average of 173: coincidentally, that's 1.73 below average per nine innings, which is a serious concern inasmuch as each strikeout means that a batter didn't hit the ball, let alone reach base (well, mostly).
  
  
• The Giants have given up 37 doubles, 6 triples, and 22 home runs: third-best, best, and sixth-best in the league, respectively. They've turned 23 double plays, fourth-best. They've allowed 13 steals in 18 attempts, a 28% mark, tying them for 12th place in the league, which is a concern, but only if you tend to get concerned about these things.
  
  
• Pythagorean projections say that the Giants should be 17-9, not 15-11. Depending on the formula you use, the Giants, if they score and give up runs at the same pace, should win roughly 104 games; if they continue to win 15 of every 26, though, they'll win about 93. Still, it's better than a lot of people would've guessed. (Plus, we're doggedly ignoring that "sample size" thing.)
  
  
• Despite his recent home run drought, Bonds is still Bonds, with an .828 slugging percentage, a .600 OBP, and a 1.428 OPS. In 24 games, he's walked 32 times, and he may well maintain that pace.
  
  
• Rich Aurilia, still hampered a little by that throbbing groin, has an .817 OPS. David Bell's is .776. Jeff Kent, .755; J.T. Snow, .719; Benito Santiago, .746; Reggie Sanders, .667; Tsuyoshi Shinjo, .611; the team, .756; the league, .726. It's hard to worry too much, just because we're only about one-sixth of the way through the season.
  
  
• The Giants' ERA leader is Kurt Ainsworth: 1.69 in 16 innings. The Giants' active ERA leader, though, is Jay Witasick, 1.74 in 10.1 innings. (Of course, that puts him "on pace" for about 60 innings for the season -- a surprise, because he never seems to get into a game.) Among starters, the leader is Kirk Rueter, 1.89 in 33.1 innings. Russ Ortiz and Livan Hernandez are pitching just dandy, too. Killing the team right now are Aaron Fultz (11.17 in 9.2 innings) and Jason Schmidt (8.31 in 8.2 innings over two starts). After an outstanding start, Ryan Jensen's ERA is up to 4.57; Felix Rodriguez is at 5.56 after being bombed a couple of times lately. And, again, the team as a whole is at 3.45.
  
  
• I'm not sure how I feel about the defense. It's hard to evaluate first basemen, so I don't pay much attention to the fact that J.T. Snow's zone rating -- i.e., the percentage of balls he fields that are hit into his "zone" -- is way down on the list. Jeff Kent, though, is third in the league at .862, and he's showing plenty of range, with a range factor of 5.54 (that's putouts and assists per nine innings), second in the league. Rich Aurilia's RF is 4.75 (fifth), and his ZR is .885 (third). David Bell gets lots of raves for his defense, and indeed he's a whole lot easier to watch than Russ Davis, but his .756 ZR and 2.41 RF are both 10th in the league.
  
  
• Hammy pain or no, Bonds still makes 2.04 plays a game (fourth) and gets to 92.7% of balls hit into his zone (second). Shinjo, meanwhile, has been everything they've said he'd be: 3.45 RF -- best in the league by .43 plays per nine innings: by far the largest gap between two consecutively ranked center fielders. His .908 ZR is fifth in the league. In right field, Reggie Sanders' 2.17 is fourth, but his .863 ZR is seventh. Before the Giants sold Calvin Murray to the Rangers, he had a way of winding up in right field in the late innings, and I think the Giants are missing that luxury now. (Murray also put in some time in left. Before this year, I believe he'd only played center.)
  
  
• Benito Santiago has thrown out one-third of would-be base stealers, which beats the hell out of Paul LoDuca's 13 failures in 13 attempts, but it's still tied for 11th. The Giants' ERA with him in the lineup is 3.43, fifth in the league. And Santiago's been involved in a league-leading three double plays.

So I can't say I'm really worried about this team. At least not yet. They've weathered this latest sub-.500 jag pretty well, staying within a game or so of first place. All year long, though, we're going to see tender elbows, gimpy knees, and tweaked quads -- that's not unusual, and it can't be used as an excuse. What that all means is, the guys who aren't stepping up yet need to start.

You know, if you don't count the most optimistic Giants fans, there actually are some folks -- plenty of folks -- who believe that the Giants will go all the way. The April 2002 Giants haven't made a believer out of me, but that's probably because of the lack of "star" pitching. That's probably real silly, just because plenty of teams have won World Championships without, say, a Randy Johnson and a Curt Schilling in their rotations. I so want to believe that this year's Giants can be one of those teams.

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