Andy Rooney as Rhonda Mexico....

There was a fist-pumping moment in yesterday's game. Driving down I-5 ₁ there was a perfectly appropriate time to bellow out a loud cheer, scaring the heck out of any unfortunate passengers. It had nothing to do with the game. Rather, it had to do with Dave Fleming relaying an article about Brian Sabean. The MLB.com article quoted Sabean as saying any upcoming trades or personnel moves would be more about the future, and less about righting the ship at the bottom of the ocean.

No one said Sabean's position was easy. He has to gauge the half-life of Barry Bonds, and wonder if he should be trying to sign players like Brett Tomko and Scott Eyre. It still remains to be seen if he is going to try and trade players like that away, but it became very clear to everyone he needed to stop trading prospects away. The confirmation he was on the same page was a huge relief. For all of the grief given for the LaTroy Hawkins trade, no one feels worse about that one than does Sabean. It's the night after a barhopping frenzy, and Sabean just woke up to find he was sharing a bed with something that looks like Andy Rooney in culottes.

The first of the moves has passed. The stathead in us worries that the sample size of pitching exhibited by Jim Brower was too small to make any definitive judgments. The fan knows Brower's clubhouse nickname was "Melba", and he wasn't helping anyone at this point. He was the player to be thanked later in the Livan Hernandez trade -- before Livan gave us the middle finger en route to 890 innings of outstanding bi-national baseball-- and he was a good Giant, but he was just awful this year. There are no guarantees Jesse Foppert is going to outpitch anyone on the Giants staff, but there's certainly no harm in finding out.

The second move is coming, and the only thing making sense is something to do with Edgardo Alfonzo. Marquis Grissom is an easy target, and stashing him somewhere far from the team would tack years on to our collective lives, but it doesn't help much. The ostensible call-up, Todd Linden, isn't going to play center, so discarding Grissom doesn't do much for the roster shuffling. With Alfonzo gone, however, Pedro Feliz goes back to third, Moises Alou takes his place in left, and Linden starts in right. We'll find out tomorrow if Alfonzo goes on the disabled list, or if he is playing second base (snicker) for the Mets. Whatever the case, Linden is absolutely destroying AAA, and needs to get a chance to do the same in the majors on a bad team.

Giants. Rebuilding. Those are two tastes not quite expected to go together. Time will tell if this combination is in the spirit of Ray Charles cutting an album of country & western favorites, or more akin to a box of venison-flavored Altoids.

¹Note: only Dodger fans would call it "The Five".