just that damn jack taschner.

As for the G-men...soooooo not interested in anything with this team.  I feel bad for Cain that he has a dominating kind of night, and gets zero support for the W.  I'm trying to give up this drinking habit of mine...ok...well maybe I'm just wanting to slow down a bit.  If the boys keep playing 5-6 inning games then being a bunch o' deadbeats for the remaining 3-4 innings, I'll fall off that wagon real quick like.  

Most of my enjoyment came from screaming at Mike Cameron from the fourth row of the bleachers. One crazy mofo kept it up all night. Mob mentality, sure, but it was fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

But c'mon. Feliz? Molina looks like Notgardo2 or Feliz-Heavy against righties. Aurelia is I guess a little better than the Niekro/Hindenburg. Roberts in place of Alou?  We are looking at a third consecutive season of Kansas City by the Bay.

From what it looks like through ST and the first couple of games is that the position player side of the equation is about as unchanged as the NY Yankees over the last 3 years. The Giants have stayed with  Feliz Vizquel Durham  Snow/Niekroburg in the infield and Bonds Winn/Roberts Alou/Finley in the outfield and AJ/Matheny/Notgardo behind the dish during the last 3 years.  Not a lot of turnover here. The kind of non-turnover one expects from a good team doing a good job of retaining key players with hefty contracts.

The Yankees have stayed with Posada, Giambi, Cano, Jeter, A-Rod, Matsui, Williams/Damon Sheffield in the outfield. Again, the kind of non-turnover one expects from a good team doing a good job of retaining key players with hefty contracts. And like the Giants with Bonds and Alou, the Yankees lost major playing time with Sheffield and Matsui. But that is where the similarity ends.

Heres the simplest kind of offensive comparison--Runs Scored

         Giants     Yankees
2006     746         930
2005     649         886
2004     850         897

The Yankees won the division in each of those three years. Now the Giants actually went 91 and 71 in 2004, then finished near the bottom with sub .500 seasons in a weak division. Barry was actually  himself in the second half of 2006 as evidenced by the bump in Run Production.  So, you can imagine what this looks like without Barry in the equation.  Both of these teams have locked up their starters with long term contracts. If you are the Yankees, I can understand why. They produce a hell of a lot a runs and play pretty good defense, and have won their division in each of those 3 years.  

If you are the Giants, I have not a clue as to why anybody other than Bonds would have a contract longer than 10 minutes. And people are bitching about his ONE YEAR CONTRACT?  He's the only fucking legitimate Major League Starter on this team. This team scores no runs. Last night and the day before were just a continuation of the anemia that is the Giants offense. I like Omar and all that. He's a nice number 8 hitter, and still plays legit defense. Durham is a nice 6 hitter. Other than that, only Bonds is a legit run producer in the 3 or 4 hole.  Not counting the pitcher, the Giants have essentially plugged the other 5 lineup spots with bench players.  Other than Bonds, Nobody on the Giants starts for the Yankees. Only Durham even earns a bench spot probably.

Now of course the Yankees spend a lot more.  But that is not the point. The point is the Giants have spent a ton of money on bench players and tried to make starters out of them. Its not an age thing, its a talent thing.  Whether its homegrown (Niekro, Linden, Torcatto, Frandsen, Ellison, Feliz, etc)  or acquired (AJ, Matheny, Alou, Edgardo, Durham, Hindenburg, Winn, Finley, Sweeny, Roberts, Green, etc.) these guys are basically bench players on any team that the Giants would ever hope to meet in the playoffs.

This is clearly on management and ownership equally. Five million dollars per year to Pedro Feliz. Unbelievable. Multi-year no trade contract for millions to Winn, Matheny. Unbelievable.

I don't even want to start in on the insanity of the pitching staff composition.  And I think the Giants realize this.  

I think that they are going to ride this thing out until at least the end of May...about a 1/4 to 1/3 of the season. And then try and do something. Too little too late.

As for the pitching staff. Again, we have young guys who are going backwards, or are not progressing. Munter came up, looked okay, then has backslid ever since. Same with Taschner, Hennessey, Wilson, Sanchez, Correia, Accardo. Its like the organization keeps changing its mind on what and how to utilize these guys' talents to give them the best opportunity to succeed. They fucked up with Nathan, Aardsma, Jerome Williams, Liriano, Bonser, all in the last couple of years.

If there is an organization that is about as clueless as Kansas City and Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh right now, its this one. The tragic difference is that the Giants have tons of money and unbelievable fan support, and the best player to ever play the game. As Chester Riley used to say: "What a revolting development this is."

I still think they're good for almost 80 wins this year though.

Bonds rules btw. At least watching him will be fun.

If you subscribe to the theory that you'll win a third of your games no matter what and lose a third no matter what and it's what you do in the other third that really counts, last night's game was not a good thing.

Opening Day and Mr Peavy's performance were probably an inevitable loss, but last night's game was one of those other, close game that the team needs to win a majority of.

But he still didn't get the save.

Why not give Todd Linden a shot? This Winn hitting 8th thing is crippling the line-up, as is Pedro Feliz, as is no productivity out of first base, as is...