Sources: Giants Re-sign Pat Burrell to One-Year Deal

The San Francisco Giants have re-signed the other half of Miami Hurricane connection.  According to multiple sources, Pat Burrell has agreed to a one-year, incentive-laden deal with the Giants for the 2011 season.  The exact terms of the deal are not known but we do know it will be for less than he was making in 2010 while collecting paychecks from both the Tampa Bay Rays and San Francisco Giants.  This deal will allow Burrell to rejoin his former University of Miami teammate Aubrey Huff who re-signed with the Giants last week.

After being released by the Tampa Bay Rays, Pat Burrell signed with the San Francisco Giants and played in 96 games.  During that time he batted .266/.364/.589 with 18 homeruns and 51 RBIs.  Burrell was an important part of the Giants run into the playoffs with his clutch at-bats at the end of many crucial games.  All indications are that he will not be a starter in 2011 and will likely be a fourth outfielder with power off of the bench--the role the Giants actually meant for him when he signed midseason.

World Series Game 3: Giants 2, Rangers 4 - Moreland's Homer Leads the Rangers

The San Francisco Giants could not keep the Texas Rangers bats quiet for long but they did not expect the damage to come from Mitch Moreland, the number 9 hitter.  Moreland hit a three-run shot of Jonathan Sanchez in the second inning that gave the Texas Rangers a 3-0 lead and lead them to a 4-2 victory in Game 3 of the World Series and cut the Giants series lead to 2-1.  Ranger outfielder Josh Hamilton hit a solo homerun in fifth inning for his first World Series homerun and gave the Rangers their fourth run of the game.

The Rangers starting pitcher, Colby Lewis shut down a Giants offense that had scored 20 runs in two games.  Lewis went 7 2/3 innings while giving up only two runs and striking out 6.  The two runs came of solo homeruns from NLCS MVP Cody Ross and Giants leadoff hitter Andres Torres. 

In the eigth inning, the Giants had a chance to tie the game after Aubrey Huff was hit by Colby Lewis and Buster Posey was up to bat with two outs.  Posey grounded out to shortstop Elvis Andrus and that ended the threat.  That was the last offensive threat by the Giants because in the ninth innings Ron Washington brought in Neftali Perez to save the game and he did so in an emphatic way.  He struck out both Pat Burrell and Juan Uribe and got Cody Ross to fly out to deep right field.

Speaking of Pat Burrell, who is slowly becoming this World Series' version of Reggie Sanders.  I'm sure we all remember Sanders in the 2002 postseason when he hit a whopping .182 with 18 strikeouts.  Well Burrell is hitting .176 in this postseason with 15 strikeouts.  Like I said, well on his way.  Look, its hard to forget what Burrell has been to this team this year and no doubt the Giants would not still be here without him but he cannot continue to kill rally's like he is doing.  Today, he was 0 for 4 with four strikeouts and two of the four at-bats he was in an RBI situation and could not even make contact with the ball.  He is swinging at balls out of the strike zone and making it easy for the pitchers to get out of jams.

I don't expect to see Bruce Bochy sit him tomorrow but I do expect him to be moved down in the lineup.  It wouldn't be the worse thing to move up Cody Ross to the fifth spot and put Burrell in the sixth hole. 

Bruce Bochy's full post-game transcript is after the jump:

Torres out 10-14 days

Going into Sunday’s game the Giants were ready to take three out of four from the Padres and leave San Diego in a tie with the Padres for the NL West division lead. What they didn’t plan was to find out that their leadoff hitter and possible Gold Glove recipient, Andres Torres would be put on the DL and out possibly for the rest of the regular season.


Torres had to have emergency appendectomy surgery on Sunday and will miss at least 10 days.


This leaves a huge whole for the Giants. Torres was their leadoff hitter and only speed guy on a team of slow aging veterans. The only other option they have to use as a leadoff hitter, besides Aaron Rowand, is speedster Darren Ford but he was not brought up to do anything but serve as a pinch runner.


Torres also allowed manager Bruce Bochy to play both Jose Guillen in right field and Pat Burrell in left field as he could cover some serious ground.


Rowand does not give that same opportunity.


So far Bruce Bochy hasn’t decided what he is going to do to replace Torres’ offense and defense but their options at outfielder definitely do not offer what they had in Torres. Bochy could go with Cody Ross who is a very good defensive outfielder that could play all three positions but his hitting has not been impressive. Another option is September callup Darren Ford but it is likely that Bochy does not trust him. Aaron Rowand is another option but his numbers have been awful since he was hit in the head by Dodger pitcher Vincente Padilla and is not an improvement over Ford or Ross so it’s hard to see how he becomes the starter.