Your 2005 Giants: Six Down, 154 156 to Go
Considering that the Giants are missing their two biggest bats and have suffered through a couple of ugly bullpen metltdowns in the last few games, they've got to be pretty pleased with their 4-2 record at the end of the first week of the season. A disappointing performance in the Dodgers series--their impressive opening day victory was swallowed whole by two monstrous losses--was followed up by a three game sweep of the Rockies. Now the Giants go on the road to do it all again: they've got two games in LA tomorrow and Wednesday and then a three game set in snowy Colorado Thursday through Sunday. (SFist, who'll be visiting the girlfriend's family just outside of Denver, will be there for one of the games; got any obnoxious Todd Helton chants for us?) A week from today, the Giants travel to San Diego, where they'll finally see a new opponent, the Padres.
2005 started in earnest for the Barry Bonds-less Giants on Tuesday afternoon with a nice victory over the Dodgers. Things took a turn for the worse Wednesday night, though, when their new slugger Moises Alou went down with a bum leg (for two weeks) and the bullpen fell apart to the tune of eight runs over two innnings, leading to a 10-4 loss. Things didn't improve the next night; the Giants lost the last game of the opening series with the Dodgers 6-0, showing the effects of the absence of Bonds and Alou in the heart of the lineup.
Ah, but the cure to all that ailed them was just arriving at SFO in the form of the Colorado Rockies. Friday night's game ended in victory with a three run homer off the bat of Marquis Grissom, the only member of the Giants' starting outfield still playing. Sure, the Giants had had a 6-0 lead and had allowed the Rockies to score eight runs in the seventh inning, but Grissom's game-ending homer made it all better. Saturday's game was marked by Michael Tuckers's eighth inning grand slam, all the offense the Giants needed behind Jerome Williams' strong seven innings. And Sunday was just a laugher; the Giants, who completed the sweep with an 11-4 victory, had scored ten runs by the time the Rockies put up their first in the sixth inning.
The Giants had a few standout performances in the first week of 2005. Omar Vizquel, whose defensive play has somehow lived up to all the hype we've heard the past few months, is hitting .304 and has stolen four (4!) bases already (Ray Durham led the team with a mere ten all of last year). Edgardo Alfonzo's defense has also shined and he's killing the ball with a.455 average, two homeruns, and five RBI. The starting pitching has been impressive. Jason Schmidt has two wins already (as well as 1.38 ERA and sixteen strikeouts), and all of the starters were effective or better. And despite a couple of ugly innings, the bullpen has been decent and Armando Benitez notched his first two saves as a Giant.