April 20, 2003

The Giants have been playing extraordinarily well to start the season. Well, okay, they've been winning, even when they haven't played well. I'm not sure if that's a good sign, because I figure, being a Giants fan and all, that winning despite poor play will turn into losing because of poor play. In other words, when you don't play well but still win, you're lucky. And good luck doesn't last forever.

Not that the Giants are playing all that poorly. We see a failure to execute a sacrifice, or a guy getting thrown out at the plate, or a catch that should've been made, or a pitch away from the target that gets deposited over distant fences. We'd see that anyway. Nobody's perfect. But there's something about this team -- and I'm not going to go into the numbers; this is a "feel" piece -- that doesn't strike me as savvy enough. Maybe it's the newness of the mix; maybe it's having three young pitchers in the rotation; maybe it's Felipe Alou feeling out his personnel. Whatever it is, I sure hope that "something" goes away.

At this point in the season, you really can't pay attention to numbers, even team totals, but the Giants have gotten a predictable number of dingers from Barry Bonds (five), and an identical number from Jose Cruz. In fact, they've hit a bunch of home runs, drawing all kinds of comments about how this was supposed to be a run-and-shoot offense. Indeed, the team is running more than the Dusty Baker vintage, and they've been pretty successful on steal attempts. Cruz and Ray Durham are the main sources of stolen bases; when guys get thrown out, it tends to be on busted hit-and-runs. Still, we've seen some leg doubles and even quite a few triples, not to mention some dandy running, diving catches in left (Bonds), center (Marquis Grissom), and right (Cruz again, and Marvin Benard), so there are some good signs.

The worst sign so far, though, was Wednesday's game in which the Giants blew a 5-0 lead and let Houston win 8-5. (Sound familiar in any way?) Kirk Rueter sailed through four, then utterly gave up the ghost in the fifth, and Jim Brower and Scott Eyre didn't provide much relief help. How can this kind of thing happen? I theorized on the Giants newsgroup that it was all due to a simple phone call to the Giants dugout from Baseball's Powers That Be, in the person of Tommy Lasorda. Simple orders: "It's rainin' real hard. Tell your boy to lay it in there and get lit up. Try to give up six in the top of the fifth, then don't score in the bottom, and we'll call it a night. [Pause to dribble tomato sauce onto his shirt.] We can't have you guys just winnin' and winnin' and winnin' like that. You're killin' the sport."

Worse yet, the big blow was a game-tying double by Jeff Kent, who otherwise had been mostly silent during the series. That is, his bat had been silent. He ran his mouth a little, but now that he's no longer a Giant, who cares?

The Giants swept the Dodgers at Pacific Bell Park -- a three-game sweep; the third of a four-game series was rained out — and they've taken the first two in Los Angeles (and the results of tonight's game remain to be seen). That's encouraging given that they're 7-1 against two good teams (and 8-1 against two bad ones). In any case, let's take a quick look at the team, position by position:

• First base: I can't believe what I'm about to say, but J.T. Snow has pretty much been lights out in the early going. If he'd ever had a fast start as a Giant before, I sure don't remember it. He's not hitting home runs, but he's hitting doubles and even triples, and he's driving in runs in bunches. Last night he left the game early due to a bone bruise from a foul ball, so he might have to sit for a night or two. When Snow's not playing, Andres Galarraga is. It's a step down, but then again it's hard to tell when a guy's made only a couple starts, and he still drove in key runs in one of them. Last night, after Snow went down, Galarraga hit a big double in a five-run inning that iced the victory over the Dodgers.
  
  
• Second base: Ray Durham has had some injury trouble, but he started hot. Like Kenny Lofton before him, Durham homered in his first at-bat as a Giant. He hit one the next day, too. Nothing since, but he's stolen a few bags, drawn some walks, dropped a bunt or two. He's fun to watch, though -- and we knew this going in -- his defense is iffy. Neifi Perez has gotten some playing time because of Durham's groin tenderness, and, well, the guy can't hit. We knew that going in, too. He does play a mean second base, though -- on defense, he won't make you miss Ramon Martinez.
  
  
• Shortstop: Rich Aurilia ripped a bases-loaded double in LA last night, and he's hit in five straight, but he sure doesn't seem to be hitting lately, after a hot start. I'm wondering if he's nursing some kind of nagging injury, or if it's just a normal cool snap. He's made some fine plays on defense, though. He's been batting third, ahead of Bonds, but I'd rather see him bat second -- ahead of Bonds. His backup is Perez, who a flashy yet actually pretty damned fine shortstop.
  
  
• Third base: Edgardo Alfonzo has yet to get things going. He does have a home run, at least, but his bat seems sluggish or something. He doesn't look right at the plate, and he didn't have a particularly good exhibition season. Maybe he's not physically right, still. No complaints about him on defense, though. Pedro Feliz hasn't gotten much playing time; when he comes up as a pinch-hitter, you can pretty much pencil in a whiff, but he did have a four-hit game not long ago. Still, I'm not convinced that he's all that useful.
  
  
• Left field: That would be Barry Bonds. He clubbed a bushel of home runs during the Cactus League season, which made me fearful that he'd forget how to hit the ball when the bell rang. Indeed he did. He was popping up all over the place. And striking out. He's had a disturbingly high number of whiffs to this point -- but since I said I wasn't going to get into the numbers, I'm not gonna tell you how many (because I'd have to look it up). He looks steadier on his pins than he did in October, though, and he's definitely running a lot better, though apparently he tweaked his hamstring a couple games ago. Mainly, however, Bonds has to have been distracted, to say the least, because of his dad's health. In fact, the elder Bonds had a brain tumor removed yesterday. How anybody can function at all with a loved one in such danger, I don't know. Meanwhile, Marvin Benard has been Bonds' caddy, and he's provided a couple of key hits (beating the Dodgers on a big double) and hasn't been the defensive liability we've come to expect. (He's had little chance to be -- but in that same game against the Dodgers, he preceded his game-winning hit with a fantastic catch in right field.)
  
  
• Center Field: Marquis Grissom has been pretty strong out there, and he's just barely starting to hit, but mostly he's been terrible, especially against righthanders. No surprise there: his platoon splits over the last couple of years point toward some serious ineptitude against righties. This guy should not be playing every day, though I'm pretty sure I think he's an all-right guy to have. (Then again, he might miss a game or two with a mild concussion, which he sustained thanks to a collision at first base on a successful attempt to bunt for a hit.) Behind Grissom is Ruben Rivera, who -- tell me this couldn't be predicted -- tore it up in the Cactus League but, until last night, when he homered, had been a cipher during the season. Hard to blame him, I guess: he gets hardly any playing time. Still, despite an obviously fine glove, I don't trust him.
  
  
• Right Field: He's slowing down now, but Jose Cruz has been something of a godsend. In addition to some damn fine defense, Cruz has put up doubles and home runs, drawn a bunch of walks, and stolen some bases. He's had good years in the past, and you can only hope that what we've seen early on is what we're gonna see all year. Behind him are Benard and Rivera, of course, but it's been hard to get Cruz out of the lineup. He'd started out hitting second, with Alfonzo fifth, but since Alfonzo wasn't providing even the slightest protection for Bonds, Alou flip-flopped them, which makes a lot more sense.
  
  
• Catcher: They keep saying Benito Santiago's hitting .361, or whatever, and I'm always surprised. He did hit three early home runs, but -- maybe I'm not paying close enough attention -- he seems pretty invisible out there. He's still good for a bunch of double-play balls, too. However, he seems to be handling himself fairly well on defense, though he's not the greatest ball-blocker. Also, the team ERA when he's catching, up till the 8-5 loss, was in the low threes. Yorvit Torrealba seems to make the most of his opportunities when he plays, and I like him a lot better than I did most of last year.
• Starters: It strikes me that the reason Felipe Alou set up his rotation the way he did -- Rueter, Schmidt, Moss, Jensen, Ainsworth -- was just so he wouldn't have the lefties, Rueter and Moss, pitch on consecutive days. The problem, though, is that he's not getting innings out of these guys. Lots of folks may bemoan the loss of Russ Ortiz and Livan Hernandez -- certainly I miss Ortiz -- because they could chew up innings, but Ortiz walked too many people, and Hernandez... well, it's one thing to give your team lots of innings, but it's another thing to give it lots of quality innings, and Hernandez couldn't do that. In fact, even if he goes out and wins five straight Cy Youngs, I won't be upset with the Giants for having traded him; I'll be upset with him for having been such a bozo when he was here.

  Rueter, until the fifth inning on Wednesday, had pitched pretty well, with an ERA below 1 despite something like a 7:2 walk-to-strikeout ratio. However, as is his tendency, he hasn't gone deep into games, and he really needs to. Jason Schmidt, ditto. He's throwing a boatload of pitches, and he's done after 6-1/3. Until last night, Damian Moss was walking everybody in sight, which is a poor idea; last night, though, he walked two in seven, and gave up only a two-run homer. On paper, he looked great -- but he did heave a couple of wild pitches. Ryan Jensen, now on the DL with back trouble, has simply gotten bombed after a good Cactus League, and some people on the Giants newsgroup are speculating that when he's healthy, he's going to Fresno. Kurt Ainsworth has pitched very well, for the most part. I wouldn't call him "the real deal," but he looks as though he could be steady. Maybe not yet, however. The guy I think the Giants are going to be looking to is Jesse Foppert, who's thrown in two relief outings (one good, one bad) and who, throughout the organization, is thought of as the real deal.
  
  

• Late Relievers: Robb Nen's out, and we don't know how long, but we know he won't be back soon. He landed on the DL on opening day after one fair-to-middling relief appearance in which he had trouble getting his fastball to break 90. So right now, Tim Worrell is the closer. He's gotten hit a little, but he's done the job, more or less. Back in the setup role, for now, is Felix Rodriguez, who still throws nothing but a straight fastball and still gets torched now and again.
  
  
• Righthanded Middle Relievers: They haven't scored off Joe Nathan yet, and he seems to pitch every day. Sometimes he looks like the guy we all hoped he'd be; mostly he gets away with some mildly scary pitching. Jim Brower, who came up when Nen went on the DL, has pitched a couple of very strong games, but got lit up by the Astros on Wednesday. I doubt he's much beyond a middle-innings guy who'll maybe put up a league-average ERA, but that's just my guess (since that's pretty much what he's done in the past). If Ryan Jensen stays on the big-league roster after his DL stint, I think he might wind up in this group.
  
  
• Lefthanded Middle Relievers: I have little faith in Scott Eyre. My fear has been that he'd go the way of Jim Poole. That is, when Poole came to the Giants in 1996, Dusty Baker used him in a role that suited him at the time: lefty specialist. He'd come in, get one or two batters, then leave. The only time he really got smoked was in a late-season stint of 2-2/3 innings. Well, Eyre last year pitched 11-1/3 innings in 25 games. Despite an ERA of 1.59, he still walked seven and gave up 11 hits, which should have been red flags. Righthanded batters destroyed him. These days Alou has used him on lefties a couple times, but he's also used him in long, bad relief. Given that Chad Zerbe is the other lefty in the pen, I'm not sure how good an idea it is to have a lefty specialist (a role invented, or at least popularized, by Barry Bonds) anyway. I like Zerbe: a long-time minor leaguer who somehow gets people out -- I still don't know how. But Alou left him in against the Padres to take his lumps in the Giants' other loss, and it'll take him eons of scoreless pitching to get his ERA respectable. Meanwhile, they keep saying that Jason Christiansen is on the mend. I think I want that, provided he's the same pitcher the Giants acquired in 2001, but even then he had less success against lefty batters than against righties. That said, even though Eyre is so much worse against righties, I'm not sure whether they should keep him or Zerbe.

One thing the Giants keep doing (up to last night, anyway) is leaving two or three guys on base without scoring, or managing only one run out of a bases-loaded, no-out situation. They just don't seem to get that backbreaking hit. (J.T. Snow, for instance, predictably took strike three with the bases loaded and two outs on Wednesday. I'd be interested to see his number over the years in that situation, but I'll be he wouldn't.) I think the Giants' 15-2 record to this point is due to roughly equal parts of playing well and the opposition playing poorly, but that kind of success can't last. While indeed I want the Giants to go 127-35 (thus breaking the major league record for fewest losses in a season), they're not going to come close if they keep playing the way they have. Being the Giants, they can't count on luck; they simply have to play better.

I realize how it must look to complain about 15 wins in 17 games, but on the other hand, if the Giants win 15 out of every 17 for the rest of the season by playing this way, I'll happily take a good long laugh at myself.

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