Quick review: the Giants went 4 and 3 this week. They actually won a series for the first time this year. And, they are 4 games out of first place (the first place Padres mind you…awesomely bad week for the Dodgers…haha).
There were a variety of positive signs: the Kevin Pillar trade looks pretty darn great so far. Don’t expect him to hit 4 bombs every week, but he can play, and really any kind of offense from him is a bonus to his defense. Speaking of that, the outfield is SO much better than the last couple of years. So much better.
Tyler Austin looks good so far and survived an injury scare, so we’ll continue to see him which is good news. The Giants are going to be creative in their usage with him. We’ve seen Belt in LF a bit and they will sub Austin out early and get Parra in there for the late innings. All of that seems smart to me.
Derek Rodriguez had a very nice bounce back start this week. Let’s chalk up his bad first inning against the Rays to opening day nerves. Jeff Samardzija has looked like an asset so far this season (no home runs given up yet!). And Madison Bumgarner is fine, everyone cool it.
But, there is context. There is always context. The Giants took 3 of 4 from the Colorado Rockies who are off to a historically, comically bad start. They also were missing two key lineup ingredients for this 4-game series. So, on the one hand, good on the Giants for taking the series from a struggling club. On the other hand, it sure wasn’t easy.
And now the Giants head out on the road, off to the east coast for over a week. In some ways this could be good for the bats. New hitting environments, better hitting environments, and the first time they’ll be away from the west coast.
However, they will be facing some teams with strong pitching (Nationals, Pirates), and then up to Toronto where they haven’t been in a while. It’s a weird trip, and this just doesn’t feel like a team that does well with weirdness.
At this early stage in the season, it’s hard to know what to make of the Giants. They can clearly pitch and their defense is improved. It feels like they should be better than 7-10.
But the the offense is offensive, and the question continues to be: is there any hope for improvement? It sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels like they should be worse than 7-10.
The only hope, for now, is to tweak with the lineup, so here we go, a couple of fixes:
- The big suggestion is to drop Steven Duggar back. At times, he’s looked like the Giants best player. And yet, there is no escaping the fact that he has struck out 23 times and only walked twice. That’s bad, and that’s especially bad at the top of the order. There’s clearly a ton of potential there, but he, and the team, would be better served stashing him lower in the order so that he can learn major league pitching.
- The other big problem, as I’ve mentioned before, is that there is no sun around which the other planets orbit. It’s so difficult to create a cohesive and dynamic lineup without an anchor.
Having said that, here’s my humble suggestion.
- Panik/Solarte
- Posey
- Belt
- Austin
- Longoria
- Crawford
- Pillar
- Duggar
There’s nothing particularly radical or amazing about this lineup, but it does two things, in my mind. It takes the pressure off Duggar, and it moves Posey out of the middle of the lineup.
[I know there’s debate around the two hitter these days. Some argue that this is the prime place to put your best power bat. Others like some speed there (not so much for stealing bases, but to not clog the base-paths, a potential problem with Posey). I like the relative balance, the OBP (such as it is) at the top of the lineup, rather than spread around, and then you have 4 guys who can run into a pitch in the 3-7 spots.]
There is no perfect solution as of right now. The fascinating thing, if you can call it that, will be watching how this team tries to squeeze 5 runs out of this lineup night in and night out.
Happy day off Giants, good luck on the east coast!
baseballmonk 