Found Money...Lost Money

Well, whaddya do when you have a promising young starter that doesn't perform up to the hype?

You bring in another young starter to come in and do what you had hoped the first young starter would do.

Brad Hennessey is taking full advantage of his time with the club, being exactly the type of pitcher I thought Lowry could be. He is, also, the only real reason the Giants ship isn't sinking right now -- I mean, who of us thought that Hennessey would open up his first three starts with a 2-0 record with a 3.66 ERA?

Unfortunately, the Giants can't take advantage of the Rockies. There were some factors against them, such as...uh, gimme a minute.

Nevermind.

Stuff happens, but if the Giants want to stay in touch, they've got to win series against teams like the Astros and Rockies, and they've got to score more than one run in Coors Field.

• Ray Durham is...hitting some, but still without pop. He's got plenty of doubles, but no triples and no longballs. With his problems with his groin earlier, I wonder if some small compensation to keep from re-injuring something could be robbing Durham of his full swing. I also wonder how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.
• Jason Ellison is...coming back down to Earth. Had to happen, but I'm looking at the timing of his recent mini-slump coinciding with my keeping track of his and Marquis Grissom's at-bats and OPS. Elly, couldn't you have waited for another week or two?
• Deivi Cruz is...clutch. Can't really find a better word for it. He seems to find ways to get important hits -- at least, when I get the chance to see a game. Cruz has been nothing but a good find off the scrap heap for Brian Sabean.
• Moises Alou is...drawing walks, but not much else. He's getting on base at a .400 clip, but needs to hit like a middle-of-the-order hitter, not a leadoff guy.
• Scott Eyre is...becoming nails. The only number he needs to cut down on is walks, but when you look at his 1.15 WHIP, it's really not a big deal at all -- he's only allowed 8 hits in his 17+ innings pitched for a .143 BAA (batting average against).
• Tyler Walker is...doing fine, thanks for asking. If we ignore his nasty implosion against the Pirates about a week ago, we can see that Tyler is doin' some thangs. In 15.1 of his 17.2 innings pitched, he's allowed no runs, and only 11 hits. All of his ERA is wrapped up in two horrible outings: his first appearance of the season against the Dodgers, where he gave up four runs without recording an out, and the aforementioned Pirates game where he allowed 3 runs in only one inning of work. Those two outings account for seven of the eight runs Walker's given up this year, or, to put it another way, he's only allowed runs in three of his 17 outings thus far. He, too, has a problem with base on balls that hopefully will be addressed, and I'd like to see him record strikeouts at a higher rate, but other than that he's been pretty good. He's a bit like Tomko -- after seeing some of his pitches you'd expect him to strike out a ton of hitters, but he doesn't. Oh, well.

Finally, I'll say a bit about the news of Barry Bonds' recent setback with his recovery from his knee injury: so what? I've said it before, but perhaps Michael Tucker said it better -- when any news of Bonds comes out, everyone forgets the team and focuses on the news. The oddest thing to me is that the news isn't news, and there hasn't been any news for a while.

What has changed? We've known for a while that Bonds would be out for months, with a return by the All-Star Break possible, but not necessarily likely. So, how does this news of I.V.'s and infections change that?

It doesn't change anything, and it certainly doesn't affect the reality for the Giants putting on the uniform and playing everyday. They have their own job to do, and as professionals getting paid six and seven figure salaries, it behooves them to act and play as if Bonds isn't a factor either in their on or off the field activities.

As Giants fans, I think we ought to do the same. Forget Barry. He's not here, and won't be for a while (if ever). Your 2005 San Fransisco Giants are on the field in front of you, and they're struggling. We should focus our time and attention on them, because they need support more than Bonds does.

The Giants task now will be the struggling Oakland Athletics. Not to beat a dead horse, but although I don't think the A's are as bad as their recent record would indicate, the Giants need to beat up on these guys. Unfortunately, they're going to be coming off a series win against a good Boston Red Sox ballclub, so they'll be looking to build off of that at the Giants expense. Still, a series win is a must, because then it'll be six games vs. the Dodgers and Padres, six games that can either get the Giants back in the race, or put them out of contention.