Extra Baggs
Back in 2003, I covered a Los Angeles Dodgers team that might have had the worst offense of any club in the post-expansion era.
They averaged 3.54 runs per game. Their total of 574 runs was the lowest by a major league team since 1996. Their pitching staff was the best in the NL by a half-run, which represented the biggest differential since the 1907 Cubs. A puffed-up Eric Gagne was 55-for-55 in save situations. And still, they missed the playoffs.
The pitchers operated under tremendous pressure every night. In games when the Dodgers allowed two runs, they were just 16-13. When they allowed three runs, they were 15-16. And when the pitchers allowed more than three, they weren’t bailed out very often; the Dodgers lost 48 of 60.
When pressure builds, it always leads to the same result. That’s why I can’t agree with Aaron Rowand when he said the other day that a 1-0 victory is the same as an 11-3 victory. You’ve got to have some nights when you let out steam, pull the starters early and rest the frontline relievers.
That 2003 season was long and frustrating for Dodgers fans, and to be honest, it wasn’t much fun to cover, either. It’s hard to keep game stories fresh when you’re writing a 2-1 loss for the 30th time.
(Though it got exciting when the club finally fired hitting coach Jack Clark. He and GM Dan Evans weren’t exactly drinking buddies. Clark was under orders to stop complaining about the hitters to the media. After one game at Philly, Clark was approached by the LA Times’ Jason Reid and responded, “It is what it is.” The next day, he got the ax. I think that’s the least inflammatory thing a coach has ever said that resulted in a firing.)
Somewhere along the way during that season, a longtime baseball executive told me that offensively challenged teams just look worse than pitching-starved teams. They seem more lethargic, more uncaring, more dead. Yet I knew those things weren’t true. I saw how hard the players were taking the losses.
I’m seeing the same thing now. To a man, the Giants care about what’s happening. But the longer we go, the more it appears there’s little they can do about it.
Call me Captain Obvious, but I’ll write it anyway: Giants are a bad offensive team. They aren’t getting enough baserunners, they don’t have neeeearly enough power and while Bengie Molina is on an amazing kick driving in runs (on pace for 149 RBIs, entering Wednesday), it’s so difficult to sustain big innings because of his lack of speed or on-base percentage. (As an astute commenter pointed out here, Molina has a .295 average and a .293 OBP, which is hard to do.)
Manager Bruce Bochy plans to throw out a new lineup combination Thursday afternoon. We know Edgar Renteria will be off; I’m guessing he’ll rest Aaron Rowand as well. Heck, maybe this is the day he bats Matt Cain eighth, with Emmanuel Burriss or Eugenio Velez ninth.
However Bochy shuffles the deck, it’s pretty clear the Giants need a middle-of-the-order power threat to get any kind of consistent production. Until that happens, expect more of the same.
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The lethargy of an offensively challenged team also could affect attendance. I prefer a good pitching duel, but I know I’m in the minority on that one.
Speaking of attendance, the Rockies have to be just delighted with the San Diego Padres. The Pads insisted on a night game Tuesday in the hopes of selling more tickets. The teams played extra innings and the Rockies had to fly home (losing an hour in the process). They arrived at 3 a.m., though it didn’t seem to affect them in Wednesday’s 11-1 whipping of the Giants.
Oh, and by the way, the Padres drew fewer than 14,000 fans for Tuesday’s game. It was the lowest for a game at Petco Park, breaking the record that had been established the previous night.
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If you love great at-bats, and who doesn’t, you had to appreciate Todd Helton’s 14-pitch effort against Osiris Matos. Helton capped it with a home run over the right field scoreboard.
Some guys just have an innate skill for fouling off pitches, working long at-bats and wearing down a pitcher into submission. It’s like putting on the sleeper hold. Helton is tops on my list. Others are unexpected. Alex Cora, for example, always seemed able to work a dozen-pitch at-bat every month or so. His usually ended with a ground out to second base, though.
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Travis Ishikawa has an 0-for-13 going now. He’s got one foot on either side of the Mendoza Line.
Ishikawa had good at-bats against Ubaldo Jimenez last week, hitting a double off the top of the wall at AT&T Park that would’ve been a homer in any other yard. But Wednesday, Ishikawa said Jimenez made a concerted effort to throw inside and was hitting his spots.
“He was getting inside my barrel,” Ishikawa said. “The velocity was the same. He had two strikes on me all night.”
Hitting coach Carney Lansford mentioned to me last week that opposing pitchers are attacking the Giants inside. Obviously, they have no fear of throwing strikes. It’s up to Ishikawa and the rest of the hitters to adjust.
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Where is Brian Sabean? We haven’t seen him in weeks. I’m told he is intensively scouting the top draft picks, making sure he personally checks off all the possibilities the team could take with the sixth overall choice. I’d love to give you an informed guess as to who’s atop their list, but I really don’t have one yet. I have the sense they’ll prioritize a high-ceiling pitcher, though.
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You probably don’t want any happy-fun Giants notes right now, but I’ll give you one anyway.
The All-Star ballots are out. I asked Emmanuel Burriss if he’d seen one yet. He had, and he got a huge kick out of seeing his name listed among the second basemen.
“I used to go to Orioles games, grab six or eight of them and punch out Roberto Alomar,” Burriss said. “To be on the ballot is totally cool.”
In 1994, while in college, I was walking out of Wrigley Field one day and noticed that ushers left a whole box of ballots a few feet from the gate. I did what anyone in my situation would do: I smuggled them out, with the intention of writing in Tuffy Rhodes on every one. I got through about 200 before I gave up. (I think there were a couple thousand ballots in that box. It weighed a ton.)
It wasn’t enough to get Tuffy in the game, or even listed in small agate type on the newspaper scoreboard page. But it was my contribution. I’m not sure if they have an All-Star home run derby in Japan, but Tuffy vs. Scott McClain would be a matchup I’d pay to see.
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Happy birthday to PR man Matt Chisholm, who turns out the best game notes in the business, home and away. Also, happy 78th to some guy named Willie Mays.
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