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.

Wednesday Giants Lineup

#75 on the hill today and going for the sweep of the Doyers.

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

Umps were wrong last night

According to Henry Schulman, who spoke with a league official, the umpires made a mistake in the way that they removed Jonathan Broxton from the game.

The official said that the rule requiring a pitcher to be removed after two mound visits should have been superseded by a comment underneath Rule 8.06 that says if two mound visits occur while the same batter is up, the umpires must eject the manager and require the pitcher to face that batter. Only then, should the pitcher be removed.

Lucky for the Giants that the Dodgers didn’t protest the game otherwise it would have to be replayed.

In related news, Torre is serving his 1 game suspension tonight but Clayton Kershaw was given a 5 game suspension and is appealing it.

David Lee gets “Cohaned”

It it wasn’t for bad luck the Warriors wouldn’t have any luck at all.

David Lee, is the latest Warrior to get Cohaned.  Even though, Cohan has sold the team his curse still lives on.  Hopefully, once he sells he can take his curse with him.

Yesterday, in a practice for Team USA, new forward David Lee dislocated his middle finger.  He immediately flew back to the Bay Area on Tuesday to have it examined by Dr. Bill Green.

It is believed to not be too serious and he should be able to rejoin the U.S. team in Las Vegas.

Giants-Dodgers rivalry is back

Great game last night.  Probably one of the best games I have seen all year.  What is also great about last night’s game is it probably will build the rivalry back up to where it belongs.  Hatred between fans and hatred between players.

Prior to this game it didn’t seem like the “new” Giants really had much of an understanding what the rivalry meant.  Well, they were introduced last night when the beanball war began.

It began in the 5th inning when Lincecum threw high and tight to Kemp and then on the following pitch hit him.  Kemp to exception to that and appeared to walk towards the mound in which Lincecum responded by walking toward Kemp.  Since Kemp is a real wussy anyway nothing happened.  He was probably worried that if he got beat up by a 5′ 9″ pitcher that Rihanna would have broke up with him.

Monday's Giants lineup

I’m leaving work so I will make this quick.  Giants have made a move and sent down Joe Martinez in exchange for Eugenio Velez.  A little too late in my opinion.

There is no way that this team should have 13 pitchers when you have a rotation of these guys and they are dealing.  The fact that they even refused to send one of those guys downs shows both Sabean’s and Bochy’s inability to run a franchise.

It’s hard to find anything to get worked up over when you are on a streak like they were but they were able to piss me off yesterday.

Now for the lineup (after the jump)–a really good lineup if I say so myself.

Thursday Giants lineup, Willis signed, DeJesus?

Today’s lineup and some other tidbits so let’s get started on the first day of the rest of the season.

Rowand CF
Sanchez 2B
Huff LF
Posey C
Ishikawa 1B
Uribe SS
Sandoval 3B
Schierholtz RF
Lincecum RHP

According to both San Francisco Chronicle’s Henry Schulman and Mercury News’ Andrew Baggarly the Giants have signed local kid Dontrelle Willis to a AAA contract.

This move is reportedly not related to any trade that may come up anytime soon. It is just to be for depth in the minor leagues.

***

Henry Schulman is also stated on his Twitter account that the Royals top player evaluator is at the park tonight.  Looks like Giants may be having conversations with the Royals about David DeJesus.

Warriors are sold & Cohan screws fans one final time

It’s official!!!

The Warriors were sold and not to Larry Ellison.  More on this below.

The new owners are a group that is led by Joe Lacob, a minority owner of the Celtics of which he will have to sell.  The other leader of the group will be Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber.

The price they paid was $450 million, which is a new record.  The previous highest price was $401 million which was back in 2004 when the Phoenix Suns were sold.

This is all speculation at this point but according to Larry Ellison’s statement he was the highest bidder.  Cohan was able to get one final ”f— you” to the Warrior fans even after he praised them for being the best fans in the NBA.