Just wanted to get a quick post out there for you HARDCORE Giants fans. The San Francisco Giants start a 10 game road trip tomorrow against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The San Diego Padres will be home for 10 games starting tomorrow, so we should see where the Giants stand after this road trip..
Scoreboard Watch
Giants are 3 GB of the Padres in the NL West
Giants are 1.5 GB of the Phillies right now in the NL Wildcard
Side Notes
Tim Lincecum went 0-for-August, and got his first win last night since July 30th.
Darren Ford made his major league debut as a pinch runner. He scored the winning run, and it was also his first time ever in a major league park. Oh and did I forget to mention he also didn’t arrive to the game till the 2nd inning. Talk about a crazy day for Ford.
Ford was acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008 in the Ray Durham trade.
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Darren Ford, Giants, Giants Trade Rumors, King of Cali, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Ray Durham, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, SF Giants Baseball, SF Giants Rumors, Tim Lincecum
The San Francisco Giants need to find a way to start winning some ball games. They should be picking up games right now while the San Diego Padres are on a 5 game losing streak. The Giants are 4-6 in their last 10 games.
Ace Tim Lincecum is in a tailspin in the month of August. He’s had 5 starts and is 0-5 with a 7.82 ERA. We all knew going into this year that our pitching was going to be our strong point, and this 2nd half has been the complete opposite. We need these guys to try to step it up for the remainder of the season for the Giants to have a shot at the playoffs.
Chris Haft the Giants beat writer tells me (via email) that he thinks the team still definitely has a shot!
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Giants Baseball, Giants Trade Rumors, King of Cali, NL West, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, SF Giants, SF Giants Rumors, Tim Lincecum
The folks at GrimyInk.com have done it again! They first gave us a cool one of a kind Tim Lincecum shirt, and now they give us a pretty sweet Buster Posey shirt. The Posey shirt has a Ghost Buster theme. It’s a very cool shirt that is a must have for Posey fans.
GrimyInk.com also has some other cool shirts that I’m sure you will love, but don’t forget to get your Lincecum and Posey shirts. I know I have mine!
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Buster Posey, Giants Baseball, Giants Gear, King of Cali, Lincecum Shirt, Posey Shirt, San Francisco Giants, SF Giants Rumors, Tim Lincecum
Brian Helfrich & Erik Swanson of Sports Business Daily give us the results of their survey on the Top 10 Marketable Players in the MLB. It’s an exclusive survey of sports business execs and media personalities conducted by Sports Business Daily.
Top 10 Marketable Players
1. Derek Jeter, New York Yankees
2. Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals
3. Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins
4. Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals
5. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies
6. Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
7. Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants
8. David Wright, New York Mets
9. Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
t10. Dustin Pedroia, Boston Red Sox
t10. Torii Hunter, Los Angeles Angels
The San Francisco Giants have one guy that made the list. It’s none other than “The Freak” Tim Lincecum. It’s funny that this came out today, because I’m wearing my new Lincecum shirt that I got from GrimyInk.com. You can click the on the Lincecum shirt logo on the right sidebar to go directly to the page where you can purchase it. It’s on sale for $14.99, and only takes a few days before you see it in your mailbox.
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Giants Trade Rumors, King of Cali, San Francisco Giants, San Francisco Giants Baseball, SF Gians Gear, SF Giants Baseball, SF Giants Rumors, Tim Lincecum
Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Pittsburgh Pirates have demoted pitching prospect Tim Alderson from Class AA Altoona to Class A Bradenton. In AA Altoona, Alderson was 7-5 with a 5.62 ERA. The San Francisco Giants sent Alderson to the Pirates for Freddy Sanchez. At the time of the trade a lot of fans were skeptic. Alderson was one of the top prospects in the Giants organization behind Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. I thought it was a great move by Giants GM Brian Sabean. He got an All Star second baseman who’s proven for a prospect that has potential. Alderson is still only 21 years old, so he has plenty of time to show in the long run the trade may have been worth it for both clubs.
~King of Cali
Get Your Tim (The Freak) Lincecum Shirt Here!
Technorati Tags: Brian Sabean, Buster Posey, Freddy Sanchez, Giants, Giants Baseball, King of Cali, Madison Bumgarner, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, SF Giants, SF Giants Rumors, SF Giants Trade Rumors, Tim Alderson, Tim Lincecum
I’m going to have a little fun with this blog post today. =) I attended the San Francisco Giants vs. Boston Red Sox game on Friday night with my girlfriend. We went with a group, so we sat in the upper deck and I was thinking we might have a better view of the A’s game than the Giants. We weren’t too excited to be sitting up there, cause we love being in the bleachers, however it wasn’t as bad as we had anticipated. We were surrounded by Red Sox fans which made it a unique experience and the view wasn’t bad at all. It was like having a birds-eye view of the game, and it was very cool to see the fog roll in. The only bad thing was we couldn’t see the scoreboard very well.
The Red Sox fans were very friendly and just loved talking baseball. It was just really cool to hear them talk with their Boston accents. We did however have one thing in common, we both didn’t like the New York Yankees. I met some Red Sox fans that moved to the Bay Area a while back, and there were others that flew here from Boston to follow their team and vacation in San Francisco. The energy out there was very electric! It felt like a playoff game and the Giants haven’t made the playoffs since 2003. The game was super exciting and had both Giants and Red Sox fans on the edge of their seats.
I have been to a ton of games, but this one will definitely stand out when I look back at games I have attended. The Red Sox jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning. I knew if I didn’t do something fast this game would get out of hand. My girlfriend and I knew we had to pull out the big guns if we were going to get luck back on our side. No lucky penny was going to work. We went straight to the Garlic Fries! Once we started munching on them we knew it would be a matter of time before the Giants would make it a game again. The Giants did come back and then took the lead on a Juan Uribe homer. I don’t think the Garlic Fries are really lucky at all, we just love them, so we had to have them right away.
It was a scary ending as the Red Sox loaded the bases, but closer Brian Wilson was able to prevail! I do have a video that I recorded at the game. I will upload it to the site in the next few days. It’s the Red Sox fans doing their chant (Lets Go Red Sox). The Giants took game one of the three game series. I had high hopes with Madison Bumgarner and Tim Lincecum pitching games two and three, but the evil Red Sox showed their lineup was far superior.
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Boston Red Sox, Brian Wilson, Giants Baseball Rumors, Giants vs. Red Sox, Juan Uribe, King of Cali, Madison Bumgarner, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, SF Giants, SF Giants Rumors, sfgiants, sfgiantsbaseball.net, Tim Lincecum
It’s nice to read some Giants articles today and see that fellow writers are saying Eric Hacker and Madison Bumgarner are ready to take the 5th spot in the rotation from Todd Wellemeyer. Maybe they read yesterdays post “SF Giants Rumors – Not So Wellemeyer, Two Prospects Ready For The Call”, and they are stealing our story? No they are not stealing anything. SF Giants Rumors was just able to do some due diligence, and let fans know about the replacement options first!
If Nostradamus would have told me that the Giants would put up 7 runs in last nights game. I would have chalked that up as a win! Well they got the 7 runs, but Tim Lincecum was struggling with his command. He gave up 5 runs in the fifth inning. Definitely not the Lincecum that Giants fans have come accustom to seeing pitch every fifth day.
The loss was very frustrating, but don’t be worried about the pitching. That was a fluke kind of inning for Lincecum to give up 5 runs. Then the bullpen giving up the other 3 runs. Majority of our games have been low scoring, so in my mind having all those runs scored against our pitching wasn’t anything to write home about. Let’s just hope these guys can step up this weekend in Oakland. Were now sitting in 3rd place, and looking up at the Dodgers and Padres.
Side Notes
Mark DeRosa is eligible to come off the disabled list on Tuesday at home against the Washington Nationals. Larry Baer said on a radio interview with Ralph and Tom (KNBR) that DeRosa may play some rehab games prior to that. He also mention that Edgar Renteria may be in the lineup this weekend against the Oakland A’s. It’s possible that the Giants may finally have all their projected starters (Renteria, DeRosa and Sanchez) in the lineup for the first time on Tuesday against the Nationals.
Pat Burrell is available and the Padres have shown some interest. Any team that signs him will only owe him the pro-rated portion of the minimum salary. He obviously hasn’t been playing good ball, but do you think the Giants should take a stab at him? His defense is a liability and his bat hasn’t been great, but he does still have that right-handed power. I say we pass on signing him but what’s your thoughts on this possible signing?
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: Edgar Renteria, Eric Hacker, Giants Rumors, King of Cali, Larry Baer, Madison Bumgarner, Mark DeRosa, Oakland A’s, Pat Burrell, San Francisco Giants Baseball, SF Giants Rumors, sfgiants, sfgiantsbaseball.net, Tim Lincecum, Todd Wellemeyer, Washington Nationals
Last night didn’t start that way I had hoped it would. Barry Zito just didn’t look like he did in his previous 6 starts. Zito went 5 innings allowing 6 hits, 3 runs and 7 walks. The San Diego Padres had runners all over the place. I’m just shocked that the score was only 3-2 Padres. It’s nice to know there is another team out there that has trouble hitting with runers on base.
Aubrey Huff had a 2-4 night driving in a run and scoring a run. He did however show his frustration in the 7th inning after fouling out. He snapped his bat in half over his leg. Bringing back a memory of when Bo Jackson would break a bat over his knee (Bo Knows Baseball).
Shotgun Cain (Matt Cain) takes the hill tonight to try to even the series. Cain is 2-1 with a 2.79 ERA. He’s looking to end this winless streak against the Padres so far this season. The Padres are 4-0 against the Giants thus far in 2010.
Side Notes
Mark DeRosa received some bad news on Tuesday. DeRosa said his wrist is completely ruptured again. He’s currently pondering playing with bum wrist and having surgery during the offseason, or having it now. He’s going to have a few days off before having to make that decision.
Freddy Sanchez looked good in his first rehab game with the San Jose Giants. He went 2-4 with 2 doubles and 3 RBI’s at Visalia. I’m really excited to see Sanchez join the San Francisco Giants soon. Giants fans still don’t know what a healthy Sanchez can do for this lineup.
Bruce Bochy said “It is encouraging, it looks like he’s on his way. Hopefully we’ll have him up here pretty soon.”
Todd Wellemeyer may get his next start pushed back a day. He’s listed to star Friday night against the Houston Astros, but the Giants are considering moving Tim Lincecum up a day. Lincecum would still have his usual 4 days rest. Wellemeyer isn’t holding down the fifth spot in the rotation. He’s currently 1-3 with a 5.97 ERA, but would pitch Saturday so the remaining starters can still get their 4 days rest between starts.
If Wellemeyer doesn’t get things turned around fast. We may see the Wellemeyer project end soon. Which means we can possibly be getting closer to seeing Madison Bumgarner sooner rather than later.
~King of Cali
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The Giants had a great home-stand against some very “Built Ford Tough” (hope Ford send me a check for that plug) teams. It was a 6-3 record against the ST. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies. The Giants had a chance to sweep each team, but dropped the finale in each series.
Now it’s back on the road for the hot Giants. It’s a mystery to see which Giants team will make the trip. Will it be the hot team coming straight from San Francisco, or the cold team that went 1-5 on the Los Angeles/San Diego road trip. It’s like night and day…
Tim Lincecum gets the start tonight against the Florida Marlins. Let’s hope he can get this road trip started off on the right foot. Timmy has been taking a lot of heat for not being able to pitch in the heat. I’m not sure how hot it will be in Florida at game time, but I’m sure it will be very humid. Timmy has been labeled as a cold weather pitcher. Let’s hope he can show he’s dominate in any type of weather.
This is a two city stop for the Giants on this road trip. They will be in Florida for 3 games, and then New York for 3 more. The Giants need to prove to themselves and their fans that they can win on the road. The Giants have proven that they can hang with anyone at AT&T Park. Let’s just hope Bruce Bochy figures out a way to jump start this offense in other places than San Francisco.
Tonight’s Giants Lineup
CF Aaron Rowand AVG .300 – Home AVG .344 – Away AVG .222
LF Mark DeRosa AVG .214 – Home AVG .160 – Away AVG .350
3B Pablo Sandoval AVG .337 – Home AVG .361 – Away AVG .294
C Bengie Molina AVG .343 – Home AVG .439 – Away AVG .192
1B Aubrey Huff AVG .271 – Home AVG .271 – Away AVG .270
SS Juan Uribe AVG .292 – Home AVG .256 – Away AVG .333
RF Nate Schierholtz AVG .345 – Home AVG .351 – Away AVG .333
2B Matt Downs AVG .375 – Home AVG .333 – Away AVG 1.000
P Tim Lincecum
~King of Cali
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Have you ever wondered which players the Giants could have had in a draft but passed up on? This is something that always intrigues me. I have just been doing a little research (due diligence) and decided to share some thoughts with you.
In the 2006 MLB Draft. The Giants had the 10th overall pick. With the pick they selected two time Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. Now that was some good due diligence by Brian Sabean and his staff.
Now here’s the teams that passed up on Timmy… Kansas City Royals, Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles. The Rays did draft Evan Longoria so that’s understandable. The Dodgers also drafted Clayton Kershaw, so that wasn’t a bad draft pick either. Do you think the Dodgers wish they would have drafted little skinny Timmy? I’m sure they do!
In the 2007 MLB Draft. The Giants also had the 10th overall pick. They selected Madison Bumgarner. Now we don’t know how he will do in San Francisco, but we do know how he can dominate the minor leagues. He’s expected to be a front line starter in the Giants future rotation.
When the Giants selected Bumgarner. They did leave another young phenom on the board who was then drafted by the Atlanta Braves. Yes, I’m talking about Jason Heyward. This guy has been projected as the number 1 prospect in baseball, and also projected to be the 2010 Rookie Of The Year. Now do you think Sabean is thinking maybe they should have went for a bat in that draft?
Now the 2008 and 2009 MLB Draft still isn’t anything to fully judge yet. We don’t know who’s going to be the steal or the bust yet. With that said, the Giants did select Buster Posey with the fifth overall pick in the 2008 MLB Draft. Posey was considered the best catcher available. ESPN’s Keith Law had Posey as the number two player in the draft.
In the 2009 MLB Draft. The Giants selected RHP Zach Wheeler with the sixth overall pick in the draft. Sabean has been going after pitching as a top priority in these drafts. I would say the next draft he should probably start looking for a solid position player, but you know what they say. You can never have too much pitching!
~King of Cali
Technorati Tags: 2006 MLB Draft, 2007 MLB Draft, 2008 MLB Draft, 2009 MLB Draft, Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Brian Sabean, Buster Posey, Cincinnati Reds, Clayton Kershaw, Colorado Rockies, Cy Young Award, Detroit Tigers, Evan Longoria, Giants Baseball, Jason Heyward, Kansas City Royals, Keith Law, King of Cali, Los Angeles Dodgers, Madison Bumgarner, MLB Draft, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, SF Giants, SF Giants Rumors, sfgiants, sfgiantsbaseball.net, Tampa Bay Rays, Tim Lincecum, Zach Wheeler
