The right fielder should be backing that up, from the looks of it he committed no action to do so. But yes, basics like can hurt a struggling team.
Well, here in the Bay Area there has been a lot of early Wild Card race chatter; While I am still skeptical whether we have a chance or not, as of lately we have been playing great. Lincecum just got his third complete game in his last 4 starts, we scored 17 runs in two games against two NL Central leading teams and gave up 0. Pablo Sandoval has figured out how to start hitting home runs ALL the time now; and has quickly turned into a threat as he continues to smoke the ball. Schierholtz is now getting playing time and brought his AVG. up to .322 and is continuing to get multiple hits per game while being a great defensive right fielder with a cannon of an arm. Torress continues to come in as a 4th fielder with amazing defensive capabilities, good at bats takes his pitches and waits for something good to hit and then steal a bag relatively easily.
Rowand has been hot at lead off which is good because we really need someone who can get on base or even lead the game off with a home run which he has done 3 times this year. Renteria continues to be terrible at times and great at times not sold yet on him, but as of the last few games hes looked just as good as a few years ago minus the power. Uribe has proved me wrong and shown that he can play any infield position with little flaw and have some much needed pop. Molina has sucked, and is being the opposite of what he was at the beginning of the year. Winn continues to be exactly like Renteria but will likely turn around in August/September like every year and go back to .300. Downs and Whiteside have both shown some great upside but they are still learning the league so I'm going to give them another year or so.
And with out starting rotation now looking a little different, Ryan Sadowski is now pitching for Sanchez in the five whole and Sanchez has moved to the pen and looked great. I saw Ryan Sadowski in Fresno earlier this year and he was un-hittable in the first 6 innings before giving up a solo home run. He did the same thing against the Brewers and pitched 6 scoreless innings. Time Lincecum and Matt Cain are both pitching like all-stars and are both likely to be in the game. The starter I think should be Haren as he has been slightly more shut out. But I'm not complaining with 2 sub 3 era pitchers. Lincecum 2.37 and Cain with 2.57
Johnson has turned around and looked better then ever his last few starts after landing #300, and he pitches against Carpenter tonight so it should be a good duel. And Zito has had a few bad outings this year but is pitching great 2 out of 3 times which is great for a #4 starter.
If our Bullpen continues to be lights out, and we continue to hit like this or acquire a big clean up hitter, I see us giving the Wild Card a ride.
I really think they should bring up Bowker though, last year he came up without taking an at bat in AAA and he is tearing it up there so if we can bring him up and use him as a #3 hitter in front of Panda where he should be at clean up.
The Giants are a lot of fun to watch now that they are playing way above expectations.
We'll see........
