Los Gigantes definitely played over their heads in STL. Good pitching (for the most part) coincided with good hitting for once, and the Giants picked up a couple of wins against a pretty good team (altho I don’t think they’re as good as their record would indicate).

There will be more 1-0 losses hung on Matt Cain, and a couple of Correia outings where he gives up 5 and still gets the win. Lewis and Bowker will regress to the mean, but that doesn’t mean they’re not better than we thought they were.

So, IMO, this team probably won’t go 8-21, but they won’t go 15-14 either. Probably more like 12-17.

I like what I’m seeing right now. The kids look good, and the non washed up veterans like Rowand, Molina and Winn will chip in and contribute some clutch hits. Add this to a rotation that will often dominate (except when Zito’s turn comes up) and this team will wind up being a pleasant surprise. Not good, but good enough to keep us from putting paper bags over our heads, which was the spring training prediction.

only because I am a pessimist and think it could only get worse like Lincecum straining something or Bowker getting caught juicing or something like that.

Overall, I have liked what I have seen so far since the season began. Yes, Sabean is an idiot and should have had a back-up plan with a 41 year old shortstop, but since then we knew Bocock was going to be horrible with the bat and he is, but his steady glove is a good thing to have. The move of designating Davis for assignment stresses accountability. He has looked lost so far at the plate. If Aurilia continues to do what he’s been doing, he will hopefully get DFA’d as well. Bochy has stayed with Lewis in left field and recently has chosen to play Bowker over Winn in right field a majority of the time during the last week.

On top of that, these savvy vets are starting to hit again. I don’t want to jinx Ray Ray, but he decided not to flex his suck muscle during a couple games this weekend. Also Bochy has been pretty good at getting Velez some starts. Molina scored from second base on a single yesterday and Rowand looks good. Overall I guess I’m happy. I love lowered expectations.

my brain says this type of success (ha ha) can’t continue over the long run. I’m will to be pleasantly surprised, though.

Kruk’s comment on KNBR this morning (paraphrasing here): “This team is still a ways away from being good, but they’re very close to being entertaining.”

They’re not always going to be entertaining, obviously. We still have many painful stretches of “5 runs in 4 games” ahead of us, but as long as the “unwatchable” moments are less frequent, I’ll keep my number of whiny posts to < 10 per day.

You guys can come over to my bomb shelter and we can share rations during the cold, bitter, sarcastic months.

I think they’ve earned their record thus far with a combination of good playing + bad playing + good luck + bad luck. It’s been pretty balanced and, with the exception of Bowker, the team doesn’t seem to be playing over their heads, statistically.

but “Logical Positivism” and so-called “Emotional Pessimism” aren’t two sides of a coin, or the two ends of a continuum. “Idealism” is the on other end of the spectrum of “Logical Positivism” (also called empiricism).

There, see? Philosophy degrees aren’t totally useless.

Giants 8. 11. 61 94 6.0 13.0 67 102 5.9 13.1 73 93 7.4 11.6 2.0 2.1 0.6

Giants have scored 61 runs in 19 games, worst in MLB (by 1… pods scored 62).
They have allowed 94 runs – 13th in the NL, which is… not good.

Component wise, they should have both scored and allowed about 10% more runs (so lucky on defense, unlucky on offense – probably this is just all GIDPs). If you correct for opponents strength, then we add about 10 runs.

I think they are pretty much right where “realistic” expectations had them – finishing about 70-92. (note that they are currently “on pace” for a mere 68 wins…)

But mostly I want to believe that they will continue in the fashion that they have started.