From Scott Ostler:
We're breaking the story here first, and possibly inaccurately (what courage!): Brandon Belt will be the Giants ' Opening Day first baseman. The Giants haven't made it official, because it's their M.O. to play it coy...
Hmm. Still not buying it. Nor can I read the rest of the story because it's exclusive to the print edition of the paper today, so I can't tell if this was a tongue-in-cheek opening to the article, but it would really, really surprise me if the Giants opened the season with Belt on the roster. I don't think the Giants are overly concerned with service-time issues, but when there's a decent baseball argument behind keeping Belt in AAA, I think service time is a good tiebreaker.
If the Giants start Opening Day with Belt at first, we'd sure be a long ways from re-signing Molina to block Posey, or from starting Randy Winn (who was leading all MLB right fielders in being not good) in order to bury John Bowker (who at the same time was leading all AAA right fielders in being good.)