Jose Canseco's a Canary but it's true, es verdad

Every time I see or hear Roger Clemens I think Jose Canseco isn't that bad of a guy. Hey, I never thought Barry Bonds was as bad as the media made him out to be and after reading Juiced, I feel the same about Canseco, even if he is a bit of a canary.


I will be using excerpts from Jose's first book (Juiced) as a reference since he is largely recognized as the Godfather of Steroids, used properly, I might add.


When one thinks of William Roger Clemens "Rocket," they may reflect on the 7 Cy Young Awards or the 7 times he lead the league in ERA (six in AL, one in NL) but I remember a guy who was frightened of Oakland A's right-hander, and leader of the pitching staff, Dave Stewart. How during that time it appeared that Clemens' reign on the mound was about to descend. No longer would "Rocket" dominate the way he once had.


As referred to often in Juiced, the mind is a very powerful thing; if you convince yourself that you're a great player, and you have basic ability, you're going to be a great player. Nobody has this power of positive down pat any better than Rocket.


There are some players who are protected by the system, and other players who the system abuses and takes advantage of, hanging them out to dry and turning them into scapegoats. It's disgusting the way baseball really works sometimes. Well, Roger Clemens, who made it a point to let umpires know where the good golf clubs were and and saw to it that the umpires had only the finest conditions taken care of that you might say he was one of the good ole boys in baseball for whom the powers that be protected.


From Jose's perspective, it wasn't all bad when the subject was about Rocket. Jose did say that Roger was one of the few players who never cheated on his wife. Maybe if it wasn't so easy for ballplayers, a large percentage, say 60%, of the ballplayers wouldn't cheat at all. It's just made so easy. Men= egos and libidos and those are a couple of forces hard to combat. So for Clemens to be faithful was all the more impressive.


Even though we think we've been provided with all of the information needed on the subject we must be flexible enough in our understanding of how things seem to be to accept that some reporters make stuff up. It's sort of the Enquirer mindset, where the story lines are a mixture of familiar names tied in with several confabulations that make it all sound right.


Jose claims he was created by the media. Most of them were happy to present Jose as a caricature and a clown, partly because it was what their editors wanted. And it sold papers.


A column written by Thomas Boswell, of the Washington Post, in 1988, never explained why he was singling out Jose and saying nothing about Mark McGwire, even though Mac was bigger... It was twelve (12) years after Boswell called Jose Canseco a steroid user before anyone made any serious claims in print about McGwire and steroids.


Boswell cost Canseco a million dollar endorsement with Pepsi. Others went with it.


Jose learned too late in his career about the importance of the media, not only when it came to endorsements but also when it came to negotiating a long-term contract. When you're working on building a serious long-term commitment with a team, you've got to be extremely careful about how you treat the media.


Per Jose: More reporters need to stop for a minute and keep in mind that baseball players, are just human beings. Different individuals are always going to have different opinions from day to day, or even hour to hour. At some point, you're going to say something you shouldn't have said, and then you get jumped on. I don't think you can really judge an individual on one instance. You have to know them over the course of a few years and watch how they act under different circumstances.

Reporters are always talking about objectivity and fairness, who are they kidding? The media can portray an event however they want to, positively or negatively. They have that power, that degree of control. They can make your career, if they like you, or they can destroy you.

Truth is, too many reporters and analysts don't do the homework to know what they are talking about.
(Seeing as how Jose was a player, you could say someone on the inside looking out, how can I not believe him? It's something we all have had to come to grips with because fact is there are people who play favorites and there is no getting around that fact.)

Per Jose continued... The public may assume everything they read but half the time the reporters or journalists don't do their homework. Way too often, they're basically misquoting an athlete or relying too much on opinion and emotion.

This leads me to ask a couple of questions. (1) When was it established that those elected into the Hall of Fame would be elected by writers? and (2) Why was it decided that writers would be the ones to vote?

I looked up on Wikipedia and it really doesn't say why writers were given the privilege of voting players, umpires and broadcasters into the Hall of Fame. Only that the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), or the Veterans Committee could vote someone in. And you had to be a writer who was a member of the BBWAA for at least ten (10) years. I'll do some more digging.

Upon looking at what happened in 1936 only tells me that the BBWAA was given the authority to select 15 individuals from the 20th century and 5 from the 19th century. Voters were given free rein to decide for themselves in which group a candidate belonged, with neither group knowing the outcome of the other election.

So my two questions shall remain a mystery which is the preference of Major League Baseball.

Jose's 17 year major league career had led him to the conclusion that when a reporter/journalist uses his/her own opinion, s/he is slipping into a danger zone. (To Jose) the mark of a good reporter is not confusing one's own emotional feelings toward an athlete-or towards a race, color or creed-with the facts.

If a reporter is a racist and s/he gets free rein, they can destroy an athlete. Why doesn't someone question the ethics of writers based on their consistently prejudiced writing? Some writers don't think enough to protect themselves because that part of them that doesn't care (due to their being racist) that it leaves them exposed to blatant one-sided criticisms.

The media is notorious for misquoting individuals, especially if there's no way they think they need to get interviews because they are of the belief that their imaginations are better than the real thing. (Suppose because they are of questionable ethics they CANNOT get interviews, so they have to have an active imagination?)

Finally, per Jose...the public has to realize that the good guys in baseball aren't as perfect as the media makes them out to be - and that the bad guys aren't as bad, either.

Truth is always somewhere in between. With some writers, what they choose to write about is left to the public to make a choice about what they (the public) believe. Because the writer isn't reporting the facts accurately it's all speculation.

Some of Jose's comparisons are a bit far-fetched but you can see why he makes them.
If you're an editor at a newspaper, and you can get a souped-up computer that's faster, more reliable, and can do things the old one couldn't, of course, you're going to want that upgrade. It's the same thing for an athlete: Upgrading your physical capability is central to success in your chosen field.
The performance enhancement that can come with responsible steroid use is nothing to be dismissed. It's an opportunity, not a danger. And those who are trying to make an issue of it are speaking from ignorance.

A couple more things from the book Juiced I wanted to mention. For any other things you may have wanted to know, you can check out the book at your local library.

In the late 1980s Jose remembers a game when Drew Coble was umpiring behind the plate. On the mound for the visiting Detroit Tiger was veteran lefty, Frank Tanana. While Canseco was batting Tanana let loose with one of those big sweeping breaking balls, and it went completely around the plate. Never touched it. But Coble called it a strike. Canseco couldn't believe it.
"Drew, wasn't that pitch outside?" he asked the ump.
He paused a minute and then looked at Canseco like he should have known better than to ask.
"Son," he said. "That's a Hall of Fame pitch. A Hall of Fame pitch." In other words, he was telling Canseco that Frank Tanana was going to the Hall of Fame, and he was going to get calls like that every time, no matter how obvious it was that Canseco's questioning had validity.

So to review, in a nutshell, per Jose: Every player has been on the wrong end of an umpire's revenge. They're a tight-knit group; They demand respect, and they can make or break you on the field, the same way the media can with the public.

Finally, when I read this I put a notation on the side of my notes simply as C'mon Jose.
Jose believes the Sammy Sosa corked-bat controversy was just another instance of playing favorites. If it had been a different player, he guarantees that the umpire would have covered it up. Because umps cover that sort of thing up all the time, IF they like the player.

If Jose leaves his feelings on Sammy Sosa out of the book his book is 100% accurate and believable. But because he thinks the Sammy "I use my practice bat to hit homers for the fans in batting practice and must've forgot" incident was made into an international story because Sammy wasn't an untouchable, of Cal Ripken proportions, it makes me wonder if Jose Canseco isn't just Jose Canary and the book comes out just like the National Enquirer, with all of its confabulations.

Kevin Marquez

Baseball Cards

About the age of 5, which is kindergarten in school years, I took on the hobby of collecting baseball cards. It was intriguing how the flow of cards worked. By that I mean, where I lived seemed to spend time on the sets with the lower numbers -with numerous doubles- while the neighborhood where my grandparents lived (and we visited frequently) was about 200 numbers higher and had very few "doubles" for whatever reason. (Doubles were duplicates of cards you already had.)

I thought it would be interesting to go into the history of baseball cards because they were what got me so enamored with the statistical world of baseball.

From the late 1880s to the early 1910s, baseball cards were inserted into tobacco products to stimulate sales. By 1890, the American Tobacco Company dominated the cigarette market, so there was no reason to issue baseball cards, and the company phased them out.

In the years from 1909-1912, dozens of different sets were produced. T206 were extremely popular- 1 1/2" by 2 5/8" color lithographed and the 5" by 8" Turkey Red brand also known as the T-3 set.

Baseball cards have been issued in conjuncton with such diverse products as caramel, chocolate, cookies, Cracker Jacks, magazines, ice cream, milk, soft drinks, tea, meat products, dog food, potato chips, cereal, Jell-O, beef jerky, snack cakes and macaroni.

Bowman Gum Company, formerly known as Gum Inc., produced baseball card sets from 1948-1955. In 1951, Topps began producing cards. Over the next 5 years the two companies competed until 1956. In 1956, only Topps remained.

In 1989, Topps released a set of cards using the Bowman name.

A baseball card's value is dependent on market demand. card's condition, scarcity, age = important factors
Rookie cards, or the first cards issued for a player that depict him as a major leaguer, is the hottest segment in hobby today. (In 1990, a Nolan Ryan rookie card was valued at $1,100; Rod Carew rookie card at $350; Roberto Clemente rookie card at $1000 and Robin Yount rookie card @ $150.)

Money magazine rated baseball cards among the best investments of the 1980s.

Baseball card glossary:

Airbrushing: an artist's technique in which logos on uniforms or hats are altered or eliminated. Baseball card companies use airbrushing to depict a player with his current team if they do not have a photo showing him with that team.

Blanket: An early 20th century collectible consisting of a square piece of felt depicting a baseball player. Most popular are 5" by 5" B-18 "blankets" from 1914.

Blister pack: A blister pack is a method of card packaging in which cards are packaged in hard plastic on a cardboard backing, with 3 or 4 pockets of cards. Issued by Donruss (1987-present).

Boxed sets: These are sets produced by one of the major card companies usually in conjunction with business, such as K-Mart or Walgreens. Boxed sets usually contain fewer than 60 cards, most of which are star players. They retailed from $2 - 4 dollars.

Brick: A "brick" of cards is any grouping of cards with similar characteristics, such as a 100-card brick of 1975 Topps cards. Bricks usually contain common cards.

Cello Pack: A package of about 30 cards wrapped in a printed cellophane wrapper that allows you to see the top and bottom cards. There are usually 24 cello packs to a cello box. 16 cello boxes to a cello case. Cello packs retailed between .70 and .80 cents. Issued by Topps, Fleer and Donruss.

Coin-Topps 1988 coin set.

Common card: A card which carries no premium value in a set. "Common" is a blunt way of saying the player depicted is not a star.

Drakes: Ohio-based bakery which made baseball cards in the 1950s. And again from 1981-1988.

Error: If the error is corrected, it is called a variation card.

Fleer: Baseball card manufacturer (1959-1963, 1981 to present)

Food Issue: A set of cards or related memorabilia which was issued in conjunction with a food product, such as Post cereal or Hostess snack cakes.

Goudey: Manufactured cards from 1933-1936, 1938 and 1941.

Jell-O: Cards sold as premiums with Jell-O packages (1962-1963).

Key cards: The most important (valuable) cards in a set, such as the Mickey Mantle card, a "key" card in the 1952 Topps set.

Last card: The final regular card issued for a player, such as Hank Aaron's last card in the 1976 Topps set.

Rare: Difficult to obtain and limited in number. See SCARCE.

Reverse: Back of a card.

ROY: Rookie of the year

Skip Numbered: A set of cards not numbered in exact sequence. Some manufacturers have issued "skip-numbered" sets to trick collectors into buying more cards, looking for card numbers that didn't exist.
Other sets became skip-numbered when one or more players were dropped from the set at the last minute and were not replaced with another card.

Traded Set: An auxiliary set of cards issued toward the end of the season to reflect trades made after the printing of the regular set. Also called "update" sets, they may also include rookies not included in the regular set.

Wax Pack: A wax pack contains 15-17 cards. Usually 36 wax packs per wax box. 20 wax boxes per wax case.

Wrong backs: A card with the wrong back (player on the front of the card does not match the biography and stats on the back of the card).

Mint: A perfect card. Well-centered, with equal borders. Four sharp, square corners. No creases, edge dents, surface scratches, paper flaws, loss of luster, yellowing or fading, regardless of age.

Near Mint: A minor flaw will be discovered. A slightly off-center card would also fit this grade.

Excellent: Cards from 1981-present in excellent condition are valued from 20-40% of cards in mint condition. There is NO market for cards issued from 1981-present in less than excellent condition.

Very Good: Cards from 1948-1980 in very good condition are valued at 30% of cards near mint condition.

Good: Cards from 1948-1980 in good condition are valued at 15% of cards in near mint condition.

Fair: Shows excessive wear, along with damage or abuse, like thumbtack holes in or near margins, evidence of having been taped or pasted. Backs show minor added writing or missing small bits of paper, where the bicycle spoke was clipping it. Still, basically complete card.

Crease: A wrinkle caused by manufacturing process or by careless handling (bicycle spokes, perhaps?).
A crease greatly reduces the value of the card.

Gum Stain: The stain on a card caused by the gum inside the pack. A product known as "Ex-Wax" can remove gum stains and wax stains with little risk of damaging the card. Or gently rub a nylon stocking over the stain. A stained card is worth less than an unstained card.

Notching: Indentations along the edge of a card, sometimes caused by a rubber band. Also known as "edge dent."

Restored Card: A card which has its imperfections fixed long after the card was issued. A card restorer can fix corners, crease and restore gloss to the card's stock. Restored cards should be labeled clearly by the seller, and should be priced much less than unrestored cards in the same condition.

Zeenut Cards: Were produced by a San Francisco area candy company. They feature only players of the Pacific Coast League, from 1911-1938.

Milwaukee's Johnson Cookie Company (you could see the factory from the old County Stadium, in Milwaukee) Inserted Milwaukee Braves players' baseball cards into cookie boxes from 1953-1955.

An oddity in the baseball card world. There was a 1964 Washington Senators Rookie card that had Lou Piniella. In 1968, the Cleveland Indians had a rookie card with sweet Lou Piniella and Richie Scheinblum. In 1969, Piniella was on a rookie card for the one-year in existence Seattle Pilots. But some time during the 1969 season he was traded because he won the Rookie of the Year as a Kansas City Royal.

Kevin Marquez

The Truth Without the Bullstink

(Pretty Woman
walkin' down the street
Pretty Woman
the kind I'd like to meet
Pretty Woman
I don't believe you
you're not the truth,
no one could look as good as you...mercy. Words by Roy Orbison.)

It seems to me the majority of the people need their daily dosage of bullstink. Whether it's how they think they have to behave with their co-workers or just a way of life, in general, bullstink prevails in our lives a whole lot more than the truth. Maybe it is like the Jack Nicholson character said, in A Few Good Men, 'You (most people) cannot handle the truth.'

So here's some BS...
Did you hear or read that 60-year old Billy Crystal signed a one-day contract with the New York Yankees and will don the pinstripes in Thursday's exhibition game (3/13/08)? What kind of B.S. is that?

Now the truth, in detailed figuring and factoring...
Nowadays fans take on the fantasy leagues as a way of enjoying the upcoming season. This may be because their favorite major league team hasn't won anything since these fans participated in Little League or something they became interested in that helps with their fanatical cravings of America's pastime. Whatever, fantasy leagues are as much a part of our pastime as hot dogs, peanuts and beer.

I ran across a site on the internet, Baseball HQ. And in it was Baseball Acronyms of Ron Shandler that piqued my curiosity. (When you're as fanatical as I am about baseball you check most things out. I almost always click on things that are free that could be sent to my email mailbox.)

What it is is an analyses at Baseball HQ. A series of statistical leading indicators that tell us more about a player's performance than traditional statistics. Earned run average (ERA) is used as a measure of pitching skill, but in reality, it's a stat clouded by external noise- variables like bullpen and defense. (Sure, if your pitcher plays on a bad team his true stats won't be realized but that's what makes it fantasy. Steve Carlton's improbable 1972 season is unique. Most times when you have a pitcher who is on a below .500 team his numbers will not be that good. Especially since "wins" are how pitchers really score the points.) So Baseball HQ relies more on gauges that measure fundamental raw skills. These support gauges, what they call base performance indicators (bpi) are more accurate evaluators and predictors of future performance.

For example, the fundamental pitching BPI's are: Control (CTL), Dominance (DOM) and Command (CMD).

CTL (walks per 9-IP) 3.0 or fewer BB/9
DOM (strikeouts per 9-IP) 6.0 or more K/9
CMD (K/BB) Over 2.0 K/BB.

For Hitters, they talk about the Batting Eye, the ratio of walks to strikeouts.
Referring to Bill James' comment that the single most important offensive skill is the ability to get on base, they came up with an on base average which measures the percentage of plate appearances that result in a batter reaching base. Saying that rates of .350 or better are acceptable levels. That batters with OBA's of .300 or under are hurting their team. Ouch!

It's very extensive and not a stone is left unturned. Something that really gets you, the fan, to appreciate a player's skills between the lines of play. And in the end you just may love the game of baseball that much more.


Kevin Marquez

Finale

For our final game yesterday we returned to Scottsdale Stadium to watch the Giants take on the defending National League Champion Colorado Rockies. Last season, of course, the Rox put together an incredible late-season run (going 14-1 after September 16th) before getting swept in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox. The Rockies have what the Giants don't: young stud hitters or solid veteran power at almost every position around the diamond. Still, Sports Weekly doubts that Colorado can duplicate last year's surprising success. In their pre-Spring Training preview issue, analyst Paul White predicts that "Nothing can be as good as last September and October, and it won't be. The Rockies contend all year, but the pitching isn't good enough to get them into the playoffs."

Regardless, I don't know a single Giants fan that wouldn't trade the Rockies lineup for our own.

Sunday's game drove home the point that the Giants will have to get good pitching for a full 9 innings to have any chance to win games this year. The Orange and Black simply does not have the ability to score runs in bunches. On Sunday, they got good pitching for about 5.5 innings, and that allowed the Rockies to cruise to a 10-2 drubbing of the Giants.

Starter Pat Misch did his part, facing just the minimum number of hitters through three strong innings of work. He faltered a bit after getting the leadoff batter in the 4th. Misch walked Scott Podsednik who stole 2nd, and then scored on 3rd baseman Jeff Baker's single. Misch's line was 3 1/3 innings, two walks, one hit.

The not-so-good pitching began when Keiichi Yabu relieved Misch. Yabu immediately allowed two back-to-back singles, which hung another earned run on Misch. Yabu lucked out when he walked the next batter on a wild pitch, which then bounced off the backstop right to Yabu covering the plate. Yabu grabbed the ball, reached down and tagged out Yorvit Torrealba sliding into home for the second out of the inning. Torrealba lay on the ground for a moment after getting tagged out grinning in disbelief -- a feeling shared by all of us who watched the play unfold. Yabu got out of the inning when he got Clint Barmes to pop out to shortstop.

Yabu went back in to pitch the 5th and promptly plunked the first batter, Jayson Nix. Pitcher Franklin Morales moved Nix to second on perfect bunt and Willy Tavares drove him in with a single. Catcher Eliezer Alfonzo gunned down Tavares trying to steal second, and then Yabu closed out his day by getting Scott Podsednik to fly out to center. 3-1 Rockies.

The Giants pitching went from bad to much worse when AA pitcher Victor Santos came in and gave up 4 runs on 3 hits (1 double), two walks and a wild pitch. Ecccch. Osiris Matos came in to clean up Santos' mess, balked in another run but then struck out Scott Podsednik to stop the madness.

The Good Pitching returned with closer Brian Wilson going 1-2-3 in the 7th. Steve Kline followed him and wasn't too sharp, allowing 2 runs on 2 hits. His cause wasn't helped by an error from shortstop Emmanuel Burriss. Flamethrowing Lefty Erick Threets was much better in the 9th, striking out the side in order.

Kline is being well paid as a Giants Lefty reliever, but Misch and Threets (and possibly Jonathan Sanchez) all look like they could -- and perhaps ought to -- take Kline's roster spot away.

As for the Giants offense -- there just wasn't much "there" there. Though they scored the first run of the game on Kevin Frandsen's triple + Aaron Rowand's base hit in the first inning to take the lead 1-0, the Giants would get just two more hits for the rest of the game -- one a solo home run by Clay Timpner in the 9th. That ain't gonna get it done.

The Giants are going to have to hit more than that... and pitch much better if they're going to win ballgames this year.

Speaking of wins, our poll question this year was: how many wins will the 2008 Giants get? The general consensus among Giants fans is that the 2008 model Giants won't win too many. Here's what our Spring Training crew predicts:

Giants Wins in 2008:

David: 60

Craig: 70

Denny: 72

Bill: 75

Rich: 81

Kevin: 81

In other words, David thinks the Giants will lose over 100 games. Craig, Denny and Bill say they'll be well under .500. Kevin and I are the cockeyed optimists of the bunch, saying that if things break right for the Giants, the Giants will break even.

Regardless of the team's prospects, we had another great Spring Training trip. The weather and the ballparks were gorgeous (temperatures averaged in the mid to high 70s). We played some ball and generally had a great long weekend.

At our final game we even had a scout up in our row behind home plate:

This guy (with a Coach bag!) tracked every pitch thrown by Giants starter Pat Misch. This led to speculation among our crew that perhaps he was a White Sox scout looking at Misch as part of a possible deal for White Sox 3rd baseman Joe Crede. There's no question that Crede would probably add some much needed pop to the light hitting Giants lineup. However, most in the Giants Blogosphere feel that getting Crede is really just, er, spitting into the wind and that it doesn't make sense to give up anything of value to get him, as getting him won't significantly change the Giants fortunes this year.

Another truth about Spring Training is that Arizona -- even in early March -- is just really super warm and dry for a bunch of Bay Area visitors to take for extended periods. After the game on Sunday, we were all really hot and parched. Even hydrating like crazy only helps a little bit. I mean, it's great to visit (especially in March for baseball), but I don't know how people live down there year round, especially in summer. On our way back to the hotel to head for the airport, we found this weird little piece of public art: a "misting fountain" that casts cooling spray up from a horseshoe-shaped stone pit. It was a nice find, and we hung out there and cooled down after a long hot Spring Training day. Pictured below are Denny, Craig and Bill cooling off:

Our crew's final Spring record was an even 1-1-1 (.500). Which is much better than the Giants current Spring record of 3-9 (.250 - worst in the NL). Bottom line, the Giants have not played well so far this spring. However, if the Giants record were the reverse at 9-3 I can just hear the remarks of "well, it's only Spring Training" and whatnot. What does it all mean? Exactly nothing, at this point. I could make a big deal of pointing out that last year the Arizona Diamondbacks made the playoffs with just the 14th best offense in the majors and by winning 32 one-run games. But then, I am a bona fide cockeyed optimist.

What is certain is this -- we will be back next year. And the Dodgers still suck.

Giants 6 Angels 6

Our second game was against the Angels over at Tempe Diablo Stadium -- a nice lil' ballpark a couple of miles south of our hotel. The weather was again bright and sunny, probably a couple of degrees warmer than yesterday (my unofficial guess is about 76 degrees at game time.) The weird score is due to the fact that they rarely play extra innings in Spring Training.

Plenty of action at the game today -- both on the field and off. The Giants played their new brand of baseball almost to perfection: scoring in the first on a single by leadoff hitter Rajai Davis. An error on Angels 3rd baseman Chone Figgins (who threw the ball past 1st baseman Casey Kotchman) allowed Davis to scoot over to 3rd. He came home on a sac fly by the next batter Euginio Velez. Velez hit the ball to medium deep right field and as Vlad Guerrero gloved the ball I said "this ought to be interesting" as Davis tagged up at 3rd and got ready to challenge Guerrero's legendary cannon arm. True to form, Guerrero threw an absolute bullet on target to home, but the speedy Davis beat the throw by plenty and scored standing up. Wow.

With the Angels batting in the bottom of the first, Gary Matthews Jr. launched a fly ball foul down the left field line towards our section of lawn seats. A guy got up from the lawn and camped under the fly ball, with his arms extended directly over his head. Bad move. The ball plummeted to earth, glanced through his outstretched hands and thwacked right off his face. Ouch. The medical staff came rushing down to him and he held a towel over his bloody nose a minute or two later and left the lawn up towards the concession area. He seemed ok and waved to our section who gave him polite standing applause as he walked out. Quite a sound that ball made as it went k-thwackk off of his cabeza. The crowd let out a collective "Ooohhhh" as he went down to the ground. Fortunately, as I said, he seemed to be OK, and that's one dude that's unlikely to line up his FACE right underneath the path of a fly ball ever again.

As for the rest of the game, it again featured very good pitching by the Giants. Starter Brad Hennessey worked 3 good innings giving up two runs and getting lots of ground ball outs to the infield. Rule 5 pitcher Jose Capellan gave up one run in the 4th and Osiris Matos, Jack Taschner and Vinnie Chulk all worked scoreless innings after that. Overall, the Giants pitchers gave up 3 runs on 5 hits with 4 strikeouts and no walks through 7 innings -- all against the powerful Angels starting lineup composed of all of their front-line players.

Things went wrong in a hurry in the 7th when Giants youngster Kelvin Pichardo came in to pitch and promptly walked the leadoff hitter, then gave up a single and a double which plated 2 runs to make the score 6-5 Giants. He then made things even worse by hitting the next batter and walking the batter after that to load the bases with nobody out. Bruce Bochy finally yanked Pichardo and replaced him with his countryman Bartolome Fortunado. Fortunado got a 4-6-3 Double Play which plated the tying run. He then got a groundout to second to end the madness but the lead was blown. Billy Sadler pitched a 1-2-3 9th inninng to preserve the tie. But the Giants deserved better.

The "meek" (scrappy) Giants offense looked lively, getting 3 runs in the 5th by translating a hit and two walks into a bases loaded chance for Ray Durham who smacked a 3-run double into the Right Center gap that plated Giants speedsters Davis, Velez and Fred Lewis who scored all the way from first. Chalk up another one for team speed. The Giants added another run in the 6th by translating a hit batsman, an error and a single into another run. That should have been enough. That it wasn't underscores the fact that the Giants will need shutdown pitching from their bullpen to make whatever runs the offense manages to scratch out hold up. The consolation may be that Pichardo will likely start the year in AA or AAA, where it is hoped he can learn how to translate his awesome AA numbers (4.17 K/BB ratio at AA last year) into success at the major league level.

Today's Picture is of Eliezer Alfonzo batting in the 6th inning against the Angel's Steve Marek. Marek would hit Alfonzo with a pitch and Alfonzo would eventually come around to score the Giants' sixth and final run of the afternoon.

Giants 3 A's 2

Whatever success the Giants will have in 2008 will probably come in games like today's. The Giants got good pitching for 9 innings and scored just enough runs to eke out the win. Kevin Correia looked solid through 4 innings of work (3K, 3BBm HR, 1 earned run allowed.) Dan Johnson's solo homer wth one out in the 2nd inning seemed to rattle young Kevin (he walked the next two batters), but then Correia righted himself and struck out the next two Elephant batters to end the inning. After that, Correia faced just one batter over the minimum (a 3rd inning walk to Jack Cust.) He left the game with the score tied thanks to Dan Ortmeier's solo blast in the bottom of the 2nd.

Billy Sadler set down the side in order (2 Ks) in the 5th, and in the 6th Bartolome Fortunato got three quick outs after giving up a leadoff double to Emil Brown. Merkin Valdez was greeted by a leadoff home run off the bat of erstwhile Giants farmhand Justin Knoedler in the 7th, but then Merkin dispatched the Oaklands with a fly ball out, a strikeout and a groundout to Brian Bocock at short. (And yes, Bocock certainly is smooooth in the field. The guy just glides to the ball and gets it over to first in a hurry.)

Tyler Walker got two quick outs in the 8th, then gave up a single to Todd Linden (another former Giant in camp with the A's) but then Tyler got the Giants back in the dugout by inducing a lazy fly to center. Closer Brian Wilson looked real sharp in the 9th, getting two strikeouts and a groundout to close things down and give the G-men the W.

The Giants margin of victory was provided in the 7th by Eugenio Velez who led off with a single, stole second (and he would have stolen third if Nate Schierholtz had not fouled off the pitch on which Velez was running.) Schierholtz then blasted a 2 run homer into the "Salty Pavillion" in right. The Giants first run in the 2nd inning came on a Dan Ortmeier single, followed by a stolen base and an RBI double to right by Rajai Davis. Yep, it's the runnin' Giants now -- get used to it.

The victory was possible because the Giants' pitchers sins were few and venial and the Giants were able to cash in a few of their baserunners today (and they did so without the help of the heart of their order -- Aaron Rowand and Benji Molina.)

UPDATE: Pictures from Friday's Game:

One of the many great things about Spring Training is getting to interact with the game all up close and personal. Before Friday's game, Former Giants and A's great Vida Blue was milling around in the stands. Here are some adoring fans getting up close and personal with Vida (who looks to be in better shape than he was during his final seasons in uniform.)

This is the view from our awesome seats behind home plate. This is Aaron Rowand batting in the 3rd inning with Randy Winn on 2nd and Benjie Molina on 1st. Unfortunately, Rowand would strike out. Rowand came to the plate with 5 runners on base during three at bats in the game and failed to advance a single one of them. Rowand hit into a rally-killing double play in the first inning with the bases loaded, struck out here and then flew out in the 6th with a runner at first. Overall, a forgettable day at the plate for the newest Giant. The guys you see in the lower right of the picture (with the hat and the fellow in orange) are scouts who raised radar guns as every pitch came to the plate. From our seats we could look over their shoulders to see the readouts from the gun, which told us, among other things, that Giants pitcher Merkin Valdez was humming the ball in at between 94-96 MPH consistenly during his excellent inning of work.

Arrival

Well, the crew pulled into Scottsdale this evening and got situated in our new digs, which this season are walking distance from Scottsdale Stadium. Immediately upon arriving we learned that Kevin Fransden has been removed as the Opening Day replacement at shortstop for the rehabbing Omar Vizquel. Seems young Kevin has been having a rougher time than expected making the transition from 2B (three errors so far.) We'll see if Brian Bocock is as good with the glove as reported. Fransden goes back to the competition with Ray Durham at 2nd (and possibly will audition for the 3B job.) Question mark about Bocock right now is his hitting.

Other news: Noah Lowry will have surgery on his left arm. It's expected he'll be sidelined just 2-3 weeks but they won't really know until after the procedure is completed.

Kevin Correia will start for the Giants tomorrow. The news about Lowry means that Correia probably has a rotation slot locked up to start the season.