Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle
Pitching coach Dave Righetti lives in the Bay Area year-round, so he could not be unaware of all the winter noise about the Giants' starting rotation. One of the best in the National League, people said, the rock-solid foundation for this rebuilding team, the best reason to go to the ballpark in 2008.
Righetti understands that a heavy crate of expectations are being planted on the backs of a young and inexperienced group.
Noah Lowry is 27 and has made only 100 starts, yet that makes him the second-most experienced starter in the bunch, behind Barry Zito. Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum are 23. Kevin Correia has been around since 2003, but he has ping-ponged between the rotation and bullpen so much that he has only three more big-league starts than Lincecum (27 to 24).
"Real young, you're right," Righetti said. "But they've got to go out and pitch and face it. We do what we do. We pump them up every day and keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get down, because they can get down more than an older guy would. There's no doubt.
"It could be a large pressure if they feel like they have to do everything. My job is to tell them, 'You're not carrying the team. You're still part of an equation,' but not, 'You have to do this, or we can't win without you.' You can't try to pitch that way."
But the fans in San Francisco do expect the rotation to carry the team. They believe the rotation is all that stands between the Giants and a miserable season.
Righetti has seen it back home in the Bay Area.
"We haven't had a lot to be excited about. Let's face it," he said. "When folks see a strength, something to get excited about, you don't want to put a crowbar in any of that."
Relying on a staff so young can be problematic. In 2003, the Giants opened the season with a rotation of Jason Schmidt, Kirk Rueter, Ryan Jensen, Damian Moss and Kurt Ainsworth, who also elicited high expectations. Ainsworth, like Cain and Lincecum, was a first-round draft pick. Jensen had won 13 games and Moss 12 as rookies in 2002.
Those five entered the season with 530 big-league starts, 54 more than this year's projected rotation owns. The 2003 Giants won 100 games, but the offense and bullpen were far more experienced, and the rotation was a thorny issue all year. The starters finished 51-58, and management felt the need to get Sidney Ponson at the trade deadline.
Clearly, Cain and Lincecum are different beasts, power pitchers who both could become No. 1 starters. Nobody could say that about Jensen or Moss.
Catcher Bengie Molina was asked if he believes the rotation can carry the Giants this year.
"I think they can and I think they will," he said, "just because of the way they go about their business, the way they workout between starts. That tells you everything, the way they come here. They prepare themselves for the game. That says it all. These guys are horses, man. They go day in and day out and do their thing. I think they're going to do it."
Several things bode well for this rotation.
For starters, the group will pitch this year in baseball's equivalent of Reykjavik, Iceland, now that Barry Bonds is gone. As reliever Jack Taschner said, ESPN is not going to rush camera crews to San Francisco as Steve Kline climbs the ladder on the all-time appearance list for left-handed pitchers.
And Kline said, "There's going to be less TV exposure. It sucks, but that will be good for the younger kids to get their feet wet."
All five starters should benefit from the year of National League experience Molina gained last year, as he learned the opposing hitters. Cain and Lincecum can benefit from their trials on the mound in 2007.
Also, the starters have become very close. Zito plays the older-brother role well, and they are doing the unity thing this year, all wearing stirrups over their socks when they take the mound as a show of cohesion.
Zito has pitched on young staffs. He recalled 2001, when he, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder anchored a rotation that helped the A's win 102 games. None of the three had more than two years of big-league time but combined to win 56 games. Of course, that team scored 884 runs.
Zito doubts his young grasshoppers in San Francisco will feel the weight of the Giants' fortunes on their backs.
"I don't think these are guys who put too much pressure on themselves," he said. "I think Cain is well beyond his years. He's kind of an old soul. He's younger than Tim. People forget that. Timmy just wants to come out and show his stuff. He's got electric stuff. He just wants to do it. I don't think he's going to come on and take these burdens.
"Last year was different, I guess, but it could have been perceived the same by us, where we had to pitch our tails off to win. I don't see that getting to us. I don't think it's so different than last year."
Indeed, how much worse could it be for Cain after a season in which he pitched like Don Drysdale and finished with a 7-16 record more befitting Don Knotts. Cain welcomed the challenge that he and his young comrades in arms face in 2008.
"It's got to happen sooner or later," he said. "It doesn't matter if it was a group of guys who were here with Schmidty or Rueter, and now all of a sudden it's Timmy and me. I see how it would help to have veteran guys facing off against the ones, twos and threes (on the other team). But sooner or later, we've still got to pitch and do what we've got to do."
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