Thursday, June 23, 2011

Game Recap: Giants 5, Twins 1

-- Great game from Ryan Vogelsong, who's making a strong case to have an important role with this club in 2012 (he's arbitration-eligible, for the record). He consistently hits his targets, induces weak contact, and walks few hitters. A nice recipe for success, and after watching him through ten starts now, I like his chances of sustaining this through the rest of the season.

-- Eli Whiteside also had a nice game with a couple of hits (including a triple). He now leads all NL catchers in triples, which is something I would not have expected. Anyway, the time is still running down for the Giants to make a true improvement at catcher, and there aren't a lot of options out there that make sense at this point. I'm curious to see what happens.

-- Here's an idea:

@SPGiantsBlog Completely unrelated, I want the Giants to trade for Macier Izturis.Wed Jun 22 21:35:22 via Twitter for Mac


He's owed $4MM in 2012 (not much at all), and he's a decent option at 2B, SS, and 3B. I imagine the Angels might be hesitant to trade him (as they're only three games back in the AL West), and I don't honestly see the Giants acquiring him, but he's an intriguing name. It's far from ideal, but a middle infield with Maicer Izturis, Mike Fontenot, Brandon Crawford, and Emmanuel Burriss isn't so bad. Just a thought.

-- Bruce Bochy, you're killing me with the whole Aaron Rowand leading-off thing. His OBP is .243 against RHP; he should not be leading off, let alone starting at all. He's of value against LHP. But, even with Andres Torres' recent struggles, I'd rather not see Rowand starting in games against RHP. That said, the Giants' leadoff options beyond Torres are pretty awful.

-- The Fresno Grizzlies are facing former Giants RHP Jerome Williams on Thursday. Pretty interested to see what happens.