Its Wild Card Week!!

[love_that_reefer]

The Giants have two big series this week against the Phillies and Cardinals. The Phillies are currently tied for first in the WC with us and the Cards are still bouncing back and forth from first in the Central and second in the WC so this is a crucial week for us. Giants are also looking up at the Padres four games back. The Giants pitching will keep them in these games but our offense has to step it up! I think this past day off did us a lot of good because our bullpen was getting overworked big time. I'm not saying the Giants need to sweep or anything but series wins would be great and I'd even be happy with a week long split. Giants have gone 5-5 in their last 10 and they need to do a lot better if they want to win the West which is the ultimate goal here.

Things I would like to see:
Posey hitting in front of Huff in either the #2 or #3 hole
Sanchez hitting 8th and no where else
Sandoval playing much better defense
Starters going deeper in ballgames
Rowand playing RF if he has to play.

Posey needs Huff's protection in the lineup as he is one of our best hitters. His approach at the plate as a rookie is just baffling. Kid looks like a five year veteran up there. Plus Posey provides more speed so why not have the faster guy in front of Huff rather than the slower guy in front of Posey.

Sanchez, when he plays, has to hit 8th and no where else. He is just becoming more and more of an automatic out. He is nothing but a singles hitter so keep him in the #8 hole and let the pitcher bunt him over every now and then.

Sandoval has been killing us at third this year, his mostly likely last year at the position. His range is just god awful and is not getting a good first step. I would say move him to first but we just have no room for him now with Guillen playing RF. Panda needs to step it up

In the last 8 games, only once has a starter gone 7 IP and that was our rookie Bumgardner. Giants have got to start going deeper in games and saving our bullpen. Our bullpen has held up admirably but the starters have not. They have to start getting ahead in counts and stop nibbling so much. Leadoff walks have been a real problem for us lately too. This isn't how a playoff staff should be pitching this time of year.

Andres Torres is our best option in CF, period! Rowand no longer has business patrolling CF if Torres is on the same field. We are simply wasting Torres defense in RF and Torres has been one of the best in all of baseball on the defensive side. Rowand, not so much. Put the best available lineup out there Bochy!! Oh wait, its Bochy.

[love_that_reefer]

Posey is hitting in the #2 hole and the Giants get two in the first. Torres hit a leadoff double, Posey singled Torres over to third, Huff had a RBI GIDP and Burrell homered off his old team. Good stuff!!

[love_that_reefer]

Giants lose game one in a late inning blowout. Giants got an early lead but then shut the bats down and allowed Oswalt to settle in and dominate. Guillen hit his first homer in the 7th to cut the lead to to one but the Chris Ray and Ramon Ramirez let the game get out of hand. Giants have got to start holding these leads and adding to them. Zito only went 5 IP so one of my wishes did not come true. Sandoval played more terrible defense so there was another one. The bright spots were Casilla pitching great in relief, Guillen going 2-4 with a RBI and Posey going 2-4. Huff has got to start taking advantage of Posey getting on base. The first could have been a huge inning but Huff GIDP to go from runners on 1st and 3rd and no out to a 1-0 lead with no on and 2 outs.

[love_that_reefer]

Jeremy Affeldt was activated today and Chris Day was put on the 15 day DL. Glad to have Affeldt back and hope we didn't rush him. We are going to need him badly.

[love_that_reefer]

Giants are down 5-1 thanks to a lack of fundamental baseball. Errors are killing us and our pitching decisions are too. Can't get the #8 hitter out or know when to pitch around him to get to the pitcher. Our offense once again gets an early lead but still fails to get that big inning. We can't nickel and dime our way into the playoffs. We had a chance to have a huge first inning two days in a row but didn't. Heard a very disturbing stat: Sandoval is hitting .198 w/RISP.

[love_that_reefer]

Giants once again get shredded by the Phillies 8-2 and it doesn't look like anything is going to change. Giants looked extremely slow in the OF allowing three triples, one to the ******* catcher Ruiz. No one is hitting the balls with RISP and Pat Burrell continues to get his solo shots but as we all know, solo shots don't hurt. Can't believe I am saying this but I am missing Renteria. Uribe's swing and misses and starting to cause weather patterns. Guillen has hit the ball hard in his limited time but something is not right with his legs. He is basically hobbling out there. I wish we had a DH but we don't. Sanchez should get the start tomorrow because Fontenot's defense has costs us the past two games. A lot is wrong with this team right now. Did I mention Affeldt allowed two runs in his first game back after getting the first two out? Yeah, a lot is wrong with this team.

[realmofotalk]

I hate to admit it, but Ruiz is legit. After the son of a ***** took Kershaw deep in last year's NLCS, it didn't surprise me he would be the one to deliver the dagger to Broxton last week.

[love_that_reefer]

Ruiz is good, he just shouldn't be getting triples against us and definitely shouldn't be pitched to with the pitcher protecting and RISP.

[GiantsFanatic]

Man I'll be honest, maybe i'm just rushing to a harsh judgment, but I'm slowly losing hope on this team, we can't beat the teams that we need to beat!

[love_that_reefer]

Its too early but we definitely are playing piss poor baseball. 2 games out of the WC is not the end of the world but our schedule isn't getting any better. Maybe Sanchez will throw a gem and get us back on track.

[GiantsFanatic]

And Sanchez is consistently inconsistent!

[love_that_reefer]

Holy shit! Sanchez threw a gem and the Giants won 5-2. Giants got another early lead but this time they had that big first inning against Hamels. Posey doubled in a run and Guillen and Uribe had RBI singles to give Sanchez a 3-0 after half an inning. Posey later doubled in another run and Sandoval hit his first homer as a righty to make it 5-0 and Sanchez cruised from there going eight strong and giving up just two hits. Giants needed a start like this from a starter to give our pen a rest. First quality start in a while. Now the Giants and Lincecum will take on the Cards and hope the Phillies and Padres go on some kind of losing streak.

[love_that_reefer]

Great win last night as the Giants won and actually gained a game in the West. Huff responded well to his day off by going 2-3 and hitting a two run bomb, his first in 17 games. Sandoval also went deep and Posey had two doubles. The kid is a beast! Bumgardner is another beast going 7 strong and getting the win. Looks like Burrell could use a day off since he hasn't been tearing it up lately, 2-22 with 2 HRs.

[love_that_reefer]

Giants get cruched in the final two games in St. Louis and go 2-4 in Wild Card week. Last night's game was awful to watch because we essentially got beat by two former Giants, Randy Winn and Pedro Feliz. Today was really terrible losing 9-0. Not a good week but we're still in the race.