Cincinnati Reds Sign Dontrelle Willis

The Dontrelle Willis expirement is over for the San Francisco Giants.  According to Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com, Dontrelle Willis has signed a minor league contract with the Cincinnati Reds.

Willis pitched in eight games while in the Giants minor league farm system and had an ERA of 6.14 with a 0-1 record.  He gave up 5 earned runs in just 7.1 innings.  The plan for the Giants was to try and have pitching guru Dick Tidrow work with Willis and try to get him back to the player he was.  In fact, Willis signed with the Giants over other teams to work with Tidrow. 

According to Andrew Baggarly, the Giants were interested in resigning Dontrelle Willis but I would speculate that Willis figured he had a better chance to start with the Reds.

Buster Posey wins NL Rookie of the Year

First, he helped bring home the first World Series in 56 years and now he's your 2010 Rookie of the Year.  Enter Buster Posey. 

Posey was able to take the award from Braves outfielder Jason Heyward, who was the favorite to win the award, while playing in only 108 games.  During that time he hit 18 home runs (same as Heyward), and had 67 RBIs.  He also finished with a .305 batting average, best among rookies, and a .505 slugging percentage. 

Oh, and he was the starting catcher on the World Series Champions.  Although, that last part has nothing to do with him winning the award as the votes are sent in prior to the postseason.

Jason Heyward finished second in the voting, with Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia finishing third.

Posey will join quite an elite club as he is only the sixth Giant to ever win the award.  The other five were Willie Mays (1951), Orlando Cepeda (1958), Willie McCovey (1959), Gary Matthews (1973), and John Montefusco (1975).

Texas Rangers closer, Neftali Perez, was named the Rookie of the Year for the American League. 

Quick Note: Umpire Crew for NLCS has been annouced

The umpiring crew for the NLCS has been announced and there is no sign of Cowboy Joe West, Angel Hernandez, or Phil Cuzzi.  The ALCS was "lucky" enough to get Angel Hernandez.

Derryl Cousins will be the crew chief for the series and in the crew will be Tom Hallion, Wally Bell, Ted Barrett, Jeff Nelson, and Dan Iassogna.

Vote for Brandon Belt for Best Hitter

Giants minor leaguer, and current Fresno Grizzlies' star, Brandon Belt is up the award of Best Class A Advanced Hitter.  This is an award that is voted on by the fans and so you can vote for Brandon Belt.

Belt was only in San Jose for 77 games but during that time he hit .383 with 10 home-runs.  He then was promoted to Double A where he hit .337 with 9 home-runs in 46 games.  Belt ended his first minor league season by at Fresno where he hit .229 with four home-runs.

Giants-Braves lineups for Game 1

Lineups after the jump.

About 15 minutes until the first game starts.  Breaking news from CSNBayArea's Jaymee Sire about an injury in batting practice to tomorrow's Atlanta Braves starting pitcher, Tommy Hanson.

ARod leaves Scott Boras

Pretty interesting news to come out of New York today.  It has been reported by Bob Nightengale from USA Today that Alex Rodriguez has sent a letter to Scott Boras to advise him that he will be leaving him and looking for a new agent.

The whole move makes sense to me.  Why would Alex Rodriguez need an agent anyway?  His current contract will take him through the age of 43 and I doubt that he will continue to play past that.

Especially, since he is no longer taking steroids.

It is possible the ARod is looking to get involved in the entertainment business and Scott Boras is not really known for his contacts in the entertainment industry. 

Just imagine, ARod on the next episode of Desperate Housewives.

Good teams win those games, Giants are clearly not a good team

By now we all have seen/heard about last night's loss.  That loss pretty much sums up the season.  I know it is cliche to say it but those are the games that good teams win and well the Giants are not a good team.

What makes the whole thing worse is that we have been waiting all season for the Padres to falter and for the Giants to then take advantage of their losing streak.  Well, the Padres are faltering and the Giants are failing to take advantage.  The Padres have lost five games in a row while the Giants have gone 1-4 in their last five games.

It is unlikely the Padres will continue this downturn as they are in the middle of a series with the Diamondbacks and then go back home for a 10-game home-stand where they face the Rockies, Dodgers, and Giants.

The Giants on the other hand seem to be collapsing more and more and I am not sure how we can expect them to make a push into the playoffs when they can't beat an awful team like the Diamondbacks and are playing their worst baseball, maybe all season.

With all that said, even during this horrendous streak they are still just 1.5 games back in the Wild Card and 5 games back of the Padres.  If they have a hope of going to the playoffs they will need to come back alive real soon.  They have an important road series against L.A., Arizona, and San Diego where they must win all three series.

Lineups coming shortly....

Giants finally beat the Padres!!!!

Who knew it.  The Giants can actually beat the Padres, they are now 2-8 against the Friars this year.  

The good news is that the Giants managed to hang in there against Mat Latos, despite the home plate umpire doing his best to screw the Giants.  

Latos, who by the way may be a jerk, but no doubt is legit.  He is going to be a big pain in the ass for the Giants in the years to come.  This season, against the Giants, he has a 0.96 ERA.  in four starts and that includes today's game.

Back to the home plate umpire.  I'm not sure if he is from San Diego but he may of called the worst game I've seen all season.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, he called out Andres Torres on a third strike that was so far off the plate.  It had to be at least a foot outside.  If Torres would have been hitting left-handed it would of hit him.  As you can see from the screenshot of my MLB app from my iPhone that actually none of the strikes were actually strikes.

Either way, the Giants overcame the questionable calls and won the game with his legs.  After catching eleven innings, Buster Posey got a lead off double in the bottom of the 11th and then Pablo Sandoval got his second intentional walk of the game.  Then Juan Uribe came up and hit a single that allowed the hustling Posey to score from second.  GAME OVER!!

Saturday Giants lineup

Jose Guillen is in the ballpark and been added to the 25 man roster. That means that IF Emmanuel Burriss has been sent back down to Fresno.


Torres CF
Fontenot 2B
Huff RF
Burrell LF
Posey C
Sandoval 3B
Uribe SS
Ishikawa 1B
Bumgarner P

A look at Brandon Belt by ESPN

Now that Buster Posey has been called up, Giants fans have attached themselves to the next top offensive prospect, Brandon Belt.  I thought that with September callups and the fact that most people don’t have insider this would be as good as time of any to relay the info.

Jason Grey of ESPN has broken down Brandon Belt and suggests that he is the next real star first baseman.  So much for Buster Posey moving to first.

Belt has quick hands and good bat speed. A more upright, open stance helps keep him from getting his long levers jammed on the inner half of the plate and lets him get his arms extended more often, and he has incorporated a little more loft in his swing to turn more of his good raw power into game power, yet still allowing his zone to stay in the bat a long time. (Too much of an uppercut stroke makes your bat get out of the zone too quickly for consistent, hard contact.) He’s still mostly a line-drive hitter who squares balls up to the gaps, but he now gets better hip turn and doesn’t cut himself off as much, which gets him more carry on the ball. Belt also references being able to see the ball a bit better, and thus far he has demonstrated an ability to handle the strike zone well, walking almost as many times as he has struck out. He also has solid pitch recognition. Scouting reports say he stays back on offspeed stuff well.

Giants close to getting Jose Guillen

According to ESPN, the Giants are close to acquiring Kansas City Royals’ outfielder Jose Guillen. There is no word who the Giants are giving up in exchange but it is expected that the Royals will be taking on some of the salary. If the trade gets finalized today, Guillen will be in uniform tonight for the Giants.

This is a curious move by Brian Sabean because they already have a group of outfielders fighting for three spots.


The only way this move makes sense is if the Giants plan on putting Aubrey Huff back at first. That could move Ishikawa back to the bench where he was very successful as a pinch-hitter off the bench.

Guillen’s numbers are not overly impressive this year but neither was Pat Burrell and as most Giants’ fans will tell you that move was definitely worth it.

If nothing else, Guillen gives the Giants a right-handed bat with pop off the bench which they will need for their playoff run.

Now if we can get Panda back to normal then that would be the trade the Giants needed to make.

Wednesday Giants lineup

RF Torres
2B F. Sanchez
1B Huff
C Posey
LF Burrell
SS Uribe
3B Sandoval
CF Rowand
P Zito

Giants acquire Mike Fontenot

The Giants have acquired Cubs IF Mike Fontenot in exchange for minor leaguer Evan Crawford.
Fontenot, who is currently batting .284 and has 20 RBIs, will not have to travel far because the Cubs are in town playing the Giants.

The Giants are short-handed for infielders with Edgar Renteria hurt and Freddie Sanchez in a serious slump. Fontenot will give the Giants a IF off the bench and could allow Bochy to spell Uribe a bit. This likely will cause Emmanuel Burriss to be sent back down to AAA.

Emmanuel Burriss gets called up, Giants lineup tonight

Giants fans finally got what they wanted.  After not being able to record an out in yesterday’s game Todd Wellemeyer has been designated for assignment and Emmanuel Burriss has been called up from AAA-Fresno.  This is a move that clearly needed to be made.  With 13 pitchers and only 4 players on the bench, Bochy had to use Matt Cain to pinch-hit in what could have been an important spot in the game.

I doubt that Burriss will play tonight but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him at some point this series with the struggles of both Freddy Sanchez and Edgar Renteria.

July is over, Giants back with no offense

Here we go again. After fooling everyone into thinking they actually had an offense in the month of July, the Giants roll out the month of August by basically get swept.

If it wasn’t for the fact that Billy Wagner is still a piece of crap they would have went 1-5 on this road trip.  The Giants offense was completely awful in the series against the Braves and subpar against the Rockies. They were 1 for 32 with runners in scoring position.

What makes it worse is that this series was suppose to tell Giants fans if the Giants were actually playoff contenders. If the season ended today the Giants would win the wild card and would be facing the Braves in the first round.  Not good for the Giants about what they just did there in the past four days.

After watching that series I have very little faith the Giants could get past the first round if they have to face the Braves.

Let’s be positive and think about if the Giants did actually make the playoffs and face the Braves.  How does Bochy set up the pitching rotation?  Personally I would consider a rotation of Cain, Zito, and Lincecum in that order if the weather is hot like it has been in Atlanta. That would give Timmy the first game at home in more conducive weather for his success.

Pablo Sandoval on the trade block or not

Giants game just finished up with a walk-off hit by “the great one”, Andres Torres.  But hard to get excited when the bullpen blew a huge lead.

I did not watch the game so I do not have much to comment on but I do know that Sanchez imploded again.  Remind me why we are so against trading him….

Let’s move on to more interesting news items.

Apparently, the Giants are looking to reacquire former first-round pick David Aardsma.  Not sure why Sabean would go after this guy because his stats are very unimpressive.  In fact they are so unimpressive that this could only be a fat joke by the Mariners.  The dude is sporting a 0-6 record with a 4.73 ERA.

I have not been able to find out what the Giants offered for him but according to MLBTR, the Mariners counter-offered with a trade of Jose Lopez & David Aardsma for Pablo Sandoval.

Tuesday's Giants lineup

Big time pitching matchup tonight with Cain and Josh Johnson on the hill.  I would not expect much offense from either team.

RF Torres
2B Sanchez
LF Huff
C Posey
3B Uribe
1B Ishikawa
CF Rowand
SS Renteria
RHP Cain

Trade Deadline approaching

The trade market is heating up as Thursday’s trade deadline approaches.  The big names among position players appear to be Adam Dunn, Jayson Werth, Prince Fielder, and Corey Hart.  The likelihood that Fielder gets traded is very low since the Brewers’ asking price is very high and he is a Scott Boras client.  The rumors are that he will be looking to test free agency and will want a contract that would exceed that of Ryan Howard.  So in essence, the team who trades for him will be renting him for a year and half and has little hopes of extending him beyond that point.

Now that Dan Haren has been traded to the Angels the only starting pitcher left available appears to be Roy Oswalt who holds a no trade clause.  He has a rather large contract of which the Astros have said they will not help cover.  This would reduce the value that the Astros can get in return and limit the possibilities of him getting traded.

Locally, the Giants are in every conversation whether they know it or not.  Anytime a hitter is brought up so is the Giants.  The problem, if it is a problem, is that the Giants and more specifically Sabean are unwilling to part with any of their starting pitching which would likely be non-starter in any trade conversations.  Sabean also has said that he is unwilling to trade for a player that would become a free agent at seasons end.

Monday’s Giants lineup

Zito takes the mound against the Marlins. Buster will look to continue his hitting streak and make tonight 19 games in a row.

Torres CF
Renteria SS
Huff RF
Posey C
Uribe 3B
Burrell LF
Ishikawa 1B
Sanchez 2B
Zito P

Hottest team in the Majors

Heating up in July
Is there a hotter team is baseball than the San Francisco Giants right now?
If you answered no, then you are correct.  In their last 20 games the Giants are 16-4 and since July 3^rd are posting a .789 winning percentage since that date.

The reason?  Well the Giants offense has brought their bats and used them.  As we all said if the Giants could score 4 or more runs a game then they could make it to the playoffs.  Well they have done one better.
The Giants lead the Majors with 119 runs in July, which is about 5.7 per game.



Trivia of the day
When was the last time the Giants led the Majors in run scored for a single month? (Answer after the jump)


Road warriors
Now a pessimist could argue they have played the likes of Arizona, Milwaukee, and Washington but they also beat the Mets and the hated Dodgers.  But all the other teams in the National League play them on the road and yet there are only three teams with a winning record on the road.  One of those three is the Giants and the other two are the Reds and Padres.
The Giants road record is 28-25.