Save Us, Bad Reporter

Well, that just sucked.  Hope you all have good Saturday night plans to drown out that abomination of a loss.  Not sure how this team continues to bounce back.

Luckily, Don Asmussen at the Chronicle has a little diddy to cheer you fans up.  And then depress you:

Baseball Resumes, As Does Ineptitude

It's true what they say: absence does make the heart grow fonder. "They" often neglect to mention, however, that absence also makes the brain forget. Forget, for example, how much the Giants suck.

And so it goes: Matt Cain continues his underwhelming season, the offense still is horrific, and No Period Sabathia and the Brew Crew dominate the G-Men in the second half opener.

Those rumblings of buying at the deadline seem sillier with each passing day.  Considering the A's got a legitimate package for Joe Blanton, the notion of trading Cainer to a team like the Rangers, who have an absolutely stocked minor league system and a chance of making the playoffs, also seems less silly with each passing day.

Thanks to the recent stocking of the Giants minor league cupboard, losing Cain wouldn't be as painful as it might have once seemed.  Check out who makes #2 and #12 on the Baseball America Prospect Hot Sheet from yesterday (with compliments to EJ):

No. 2 MADISON BUMGARNER, LHP GIANTS
Team: low Class A Augusta (South Atlantic)
Age: 18
Why He's Here: 1-0, 0.00, 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 11 SO
The Scoop: Sheer domination. There's no other way to characterize Bumgarner's last three months. Over his last 16 starts, he's allowed more than two runs only twice, and the loss he took on July 10 was his first since April 18, a span of 12 starts with out a defeat. Bumgarner, now 9-3, 1.79 for the year, has few rivals for title of best arm in the Sally League, especially since the Rockies promoted Jhoulys Chacin to high Class A Modesto. The flame-throwing Bumgarner turned in what, for him, was a pretty standard outing on Wednesday against Hagerstown, dominating the Suns for seven innings. Bumgarner had a stretch in that game in which he fanned eight hitters out of 10, and no baserunner got further than second against him. And of the four baserunners he did allow, he picked off two of them.

(Snip.)

No. 12 TIM ALDERSON, RHP GIANTS
Team: high Class A San Jose (California)
Age: 19
Why He's Here: 1-0, 1.50, 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 HB, 6 SO, 1 BB
The Scoop: This is all just routine for Alderson. Week to week, it's becoming a matter of where—not if—he'll make the Hot Sheet. He's won his last three starts and hasn't been tagged with a loss since June 10 when he gave up a run in 5 2/3 innings and received zilch in run support. He's 9-3, 3.24 now and has bounced back from a slight bump a couple months ago. His ERA was 4.02 for the month of May, but he went 1-1, 2.57 in June and is 2-0, 4.09 in 11 innings in July so far.

Comment! Are you getting sick of me advocating trading Matt Cain?  I challenge you to tell me why I shouldn't.  I dare you.

Posey Wins Golden Spikes, Wants Money To Buy Golden Spikes

First, the good news: Buster Posey, the Giants first-round pick in last month's MLB Draft, won the Golden Spikes Award as the nation's top college player, finishing a sweep of pretty much every major award he could win.

Now the bad news: Posey and his representation seem to be dead set on parlaying his trophy case into major cash, and negotiations appear to be slow-going.  The article references comments Brian Sabean made to the Press-Democrat on July 4th regarding the Giants' policy awarding contracts to draftees:

General manager Brian Sabean said Thursday that, per organizational policy, if the Giants first-round pick isn’t signed by the All-Star break, he’ll get a 2009 contract. He does not expect Posey to sign until close to the Aug. 15 major league baseball deadline.

“It would probably be a post-dated contract if he waits that long,” Sabean said. “If you’ve laid off and don’t get out till that time, really the rest of the minor league season is an exercise in futility, to waste that protection year.”

Last time I checked, the All-Star Break is over today, and Posey isn't signed.

Stay tuned.

Yes We Cain? More speculation, this time from the Philly scribes, that Matt Cain is available for a package of young studs.  (However, given the fact that the Phillies' top prospects seem to be pitching-heavy, that may not be the team Sabean should be dealing with.)

Despite repeated denials from the Giants brass, I would hazard a guess that if the Cain could fetch a CC Sabathia like package, management's statements may prove to be doublespeak come July 31.

Comment! What is a package you would consider for Matt Cain? Those with serious prospectal knowledge very much encouraged to chime in.

When In Rome

Daddy says The Franchise is fine:

The pitcher's father filled in some of the details of his son's illness, saying, "He had major-league dehydration. It was a combination of flying in from the Chicago game, a delayed flight. He didn't land until 1 in the morning." 

Translation:

The pitcher's father filled in some of the details of his son's illness, saying, "Brian Wilson closed in on my Timmy and lured him to the New York nightclubs.  After a long night of unspeakable acts, Timmy realized that he's about a foot shorter and 200 pounds lighter than Brian, at which point those last seven limoncellos did him in."

I'm almost proud of our Freak for showing some reckless youthful behavior in what clearly was a nod to the imbibing prowess of Ruth, DiMaggio and Mantle.

Kudos, Tim.

HOLY HELL

Pray.

It's Darkest Just Before Dawn (Weather Permitting)

I eschewed posting this weekend for a little pre-All Star Break break.  The result?  Lower blood pressure and a certain Gatsby-esque blasé affect.

(Whispers, followed by murmuring.)

I guess I should have finished that book in high school.

On the baseball side, The Freak continues to be the only good thing about this team, singlehandedly deciding to stop the 6 game losing streak and ruining Ryan Dempster's perfect Wrigley season.  Now I just hope the little All-Star parlays his ambivalent attitude into sitting out the actual game.  Though it would be cool to see Timmy represent the Giants (the start's gone to Ben Sheets, presumably so Brandon Webb and Lincecum, who both pitched yesterday, can be gameday decisions) I have absolutely no interest in seeing the crown jewel of this turd crown get scuffed in an absolutely meaningless exhibition, pomp and circumstance be damned.

I would like to see fellow All-Star Brian Wilson get a chance to throw some darts at some of the anonymously evil ALers, however.

Other news of note:

~ Is Omar Vizquel going to retire during the break?  So speculates Troy Renck of the Denver Post.  Omar (currently sitting at .159), predictably, vehemently denies the report:

After the game, Vizquel categorically denied a Denver Post article that said he might retire during the All-Star break because he was embarrassed with his hitting.

"It's false," he said. "If I ever think about that, the Giants are going to be the first to know."

~ The Giants officially signed Dominican wunderkind Rafael Rodriguez on his 16th birthday this weekend.  You can find my take and some additional info on the kid known as "mini-Vlad" here.

With the All-Star break officially upon us, it will be interesting if Brian Sabean uses the time off to start working towards adding to his improving farm system by trading off his vets in the coming days.

Ivan Ochoa, Come On Down!

Travis Denker has been a fairly head-scratching call-up.  He's an intriguing young player who should be playing every day as we move towards an all-out competition for the second base job next year, one that would include Denker, Manny Burriss, a presumably healthy Kevin Frandsen and, depending on off-season moves, a host of other potential candidates.

So instead of getting regular at-bats in Norwich or Fresno, Denker's been toiling on the bench, hardly playing at all in the big leagues, not to mention the fact that Brian Sabean, in all his perverse management glory, started Denker's service time clock way earlier than he needed to.

Bringing us to today: an obviously trigger-happy Sabean has sent Denker to Fresno in exchange for infielder Ivan Ochoa, who perhaps should have been the utility infielder the Giants should have called up in the first place.  Up until this season, Ochoa has had a lackluster career in the minors.  Now, entering his ninth season, the 25 year old is putting together a nice little campaign down in Fresno, going .318/.395/445 (with 20 steals) as the team's regular shortstop.

In my completely uninformed opinion, this may be a signal that a deal to swing Ray Durham to a contender may be coming into focus.  The callup of Ochoa would allow Manny Burriss to take over duties at second in the event of a Durham trade, while Ochoa could slide into Burriss's current role as the utility man. 

I'm not entirely sure where this leaves recent returnee Eugenio Velez, but my hope is that his inferior instincts spend less time in the infield and more in the outfield, where his speed and arm are much better served.