30 Team In Under 30 Days: #14 San Francisco Giants

By Trevor Utley

When the Giants were winning World Series championships, they rode an A+ rotation to glory.  Last year proved that when they are a B-, they could not compensate offensively.  The starting rotation was beat up from ace Matt Cain all the way down to Ryan Vogelsong.  Cain sported a 4.00 ERA last year, his worst output since his first full season in the Majors.  This was mostly due to his awful start to the season, by the time he turned it around his season as well as the Giants' were unsalvageable.  Former Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum continued his slide into back of the rotation mediocrity.  Ryan Vogelsong followed up two stellar seasons with an injury plagued turd of one.  The lone bright spot was Madison Bumgarner who made his first All-Star team.  It is quite possible for all of the first three to return to form and for Bumgarner to keep his going and I expect it to happen.  They have a new rotation mate in Tim Hudson who takes the spot of the ghost of horrid contract's past, Barry Zito.  The pen is stacked with power right handed arms, including closer Sergio Romo, mixed with savvy lefties who all can pitch situationally or full innings.  The cliché is that pitching wins championships but as is with most of these teams of the cusp of the playoff grid, you can't pitch runs onto the scoreboard.  The Giants hit the second fewest home runs in the Majors but that is a product of their pitcher-friendly AT&T Park.  However if you aren't hitting the ball out of the park you need to be able to manufacture runs.  Hunter Pence led the team in both home runs and stolen bases.  That is good if he is on your fantasy team but not so good if he is your fifth place hitter.  Leadoff man Angel Pagan spent half the season on the DL with lower body injuries and two hole hitter Marco Scutaro is no more than a station to station guy at this stage of his career.  Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey are the others ahead of Pence, both made big strides working their way back from injuries.  They added Michael Morse to help in their power outage hoping he is more the 2011 edition (31 home runs in Washington) and less like the 2013 version (.226 BA in Seattle, .103 BA in Baltimore).  I think the pitching will be back to at least an A- this year, but no pop and no speed equals no playoffs in my opinion.

PREDICTED LINEUP: 84-78
PREDICTED ALL-STAR REPS: Hunter Pence, outfielder; Matt Cain, starting pitcher; Madison Bumgarner, starting pitcher; Sergio Romo, relief pitcher


Image Credit: Giants logo (sportslogos.net)

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