At 15 games under .500 and an inability to win at home, I have no delusions about this team going to the postseason or World Series, but I am optimistic about the future; I think Brian Sabean is on the right track and there are a number of things I’m interested in seeing as this [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

You know what I’m talkin’ about.(10 points to whomever gets the movie reference)

Action returns to major league baseball today but the Giants are still off until Friday when the G’s take on the Brewers. The opening game of the series should be a good one, Matt Cain meet CC — no longer C.C. — Sabathia. The second half of the season will also reveal the Giants new revamped rotation, which looks like this: Cain, Sanchez, Lincecum, Zito, and Correia. That’s some hot RLRLR action for you.

Listening to KNBR and they’ve just reported that Lincecum was taken out of his hotel room earlier in the day on a stretcher with flu-like symptoms. The radio doesn’t really have much information right now, but reportedly, Lincecum is having some sort of illness that’s related to dehydration.I’ll be sure to post more as I hear it, but information is a little scarce right now. Lincecum may or may not have participated in the red carpet walk that all the players partake in during All-Star festivities.—Update

The All Star break is here and that means that a little more than half the season has been played. It also means that the trading deadline of July 31st is getting closer and closer. At the break, the Giants find themselves in 3rd place in the worst division in baseball with a record of 40-55. Despite sitting in 3rd place and only being 7 games out, this team has major problems. The offense is weak, the infield defense is porous, and the bullpen has been unstable. The Giants have been a bad team, don’t mistake it, but not as bad as some predicted. Thanks, lowered expectations.

In my lifetime as a baseball fan, the greatest season I’ve ever witnessed by a pitcher was Steve Carlton in 1972. He was 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA; 30 complete games and 310 K’s against only 87 BB’s in an astonishing 346 innings pitched. Now while you might argue that Juan Marichal... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

After my post on WPA Plots — which you can find here — I had some interest in plotting Game Scores. Because I love visual aids, I decided to plot them for the Giants’ starters of Barry Zito, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Jonathan Sanchez. I didn’t include Correia or Pat Misch because they’ve both shared 5th starter duties this year and with Correia’s injury issues, I just excluded that rotation spot.

In the middle of the 1948 season then New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham fired Manager Mel Ott and replaced him with Leo Durocher. Stoneham asked Durocher to evaluate the team and give him a written report at the end of the season. Durocher’s report was 4 WORDS long and is just as [...] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Apologies to anyone who tried to access the site earlier this morning. Our host was having some hiccups that caused us to go down for a little bit. I use Dreamhost to host BCB and overall, I’ve had pretty good results with them. They tend to have small patches of downtime which can be frustrating but I’ve been with them for over 2-years and the results seem to be agreeable.

Tip of the cap to Giants beatwriter Andrew Baggarly for the news on Velez’s return. He’ll be replacing Brian Horwitz’s spot on the roster. Velez experienced a brief run of 121 AB’s earlier in the season before the Giants sent him packing to AAA Fresno in order to work some kinks out of his game. After a pretty good spring* Velez looked completely out of place at the major league level.

Let me get this out of the way immediately: The Giants are not a contender!!!! If anything has been learned from the way Danny Ainge built the Celtics championship team it is this: the idea is not to just make the playoffs, it’s to win the whole damn thing! When Ainge took over the Celtics... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

This reminds me of one of those “What did you do last summer” assignments that you used to get at the start of a new school year.

Tim Lincecum, the Sports Illustrated cover boy, further improved his chances of becoming an All-Star as he earned his tenth victory of the year Thursday night. And with the win, the Giants’ management and players are sounding optimistic (and seemingly delusional) about their chances to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

At the half-way point of their season the Giants were 35-46, on pace for a 70-92 finish, which is 10 games better than I where thought they’d end up, but not exactly the kind of record where you’d say, “Wow, this team is really over-achieving.” However, I’ve seen... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

I saw maybe my 4th game last night at the Coliseum. Not to be a ballpark snob, but it really makes you appreciate the greatness of Mays Field when you go to other parks. Each park is unique and interesting but the Coliseum doesn’t have much going for it. Between wire fences and massive amounts of concrete, the park looks old and grey with dashes of Athletic Green. I hope the A’s finally get the new park they’ve been after.