Juan Uribe - Frederic Larson - SF Chronicle

Did you hear the big news last week? The Giants signed Mark DeRosa and Juan Uribe!!!! Thrilling, right?

Yeah – well it’s not like the Dodgers signed any one during that time, so at least the Giants have something to talk about.

I talked to a Giants fan and the verdict is out among fans regarding Mark DeRosa. He’s a solid player, no doubt. The issue is that he definitely isn’t the bat that they need. It doesn’t seem like he would hurt them…how much he will help isn’t clear.

Then yesterday the Giants announced that they “re-hired” Juan Uribe. This is a pickup Dodger fans should note. He’s not an everyday player, but a great player off the bench who can definitely hit home runs.  He hit .340 against the Dodgers last year and generally won the hearts of fans up here because of his clutch hitting.

Early in the year the talk shows wondered if they could really chant “URRRRIIIBBBBEEE” because of his second cousin, Jose Uribe back in the late 80’s. He truly changed that by being clutch and now people love him. It was a good pickup for the Giants and he’ll be a big help to them.

Now as one fan put it…the Giants have all their positions filled…they just still need a bat and a catcher. Here’s hoping they have another Pablo Sandoval in the minors who can hit. Apparently Angel Villalona can hit…he just has to get out of jail and the Dominican Republic first. I guess he is out of jail now…but he doesn’t have a Visa yet. Yeah – issues.

A moment of silence as Randy Johnson retired this week.  He was fun to watch going after the record this last year, even though all the talk shows often talk of his prickly personality.  I’ll still never forget him getting lit up at Dodger Stadium on opening day last year.  Same day Orlando Hudson hit for the cycle.

Good article here on all the Giants moves this off-season.  Apparently they’ve spent most of their money, and now hope for a bat.  Here’s hoping they can’t really find one.

What do you think?  Good moves to pick up DeRosa and Uribe? 

Bengie Molina - Frederic Larson - SF Chronicle

It’s never fun to read the annual winners and losers columns from the winter meetings and see the Dodgers in the losing column. John Heyman with Sports Illustrated put them there (Link Here), and I do have to agree with him. This divorce has put a cloud over the Dodgers and they now have even more pitching needs.

After thinking about it more though, the Dodgers didn’t do that bad.  Actually they did quite well from the perspective of the Dodgers/Giants rivalry.  This week it was confirmed that Bengie Molina, Brad Penny and Juan Uribe would not be returning to the Giants.  Although none of them are high all-stars, they were very important to the Giants. 

Bengie Molina was their second big bat with Pablo Sandoval.  Brad Penny gave them a late surge of pitching and Juan Uribe won the hearts of the fans by having numerous late game heroics.  Losing Bengie will hurt them the most.  He was solid behind the plate and always clutch with the bat.  The fans felt he was too slow, the but the real issue is that he was expected to be the #4 hitter on a team when he should have been the #7 hitter.  He also didn’t like it when they started using a different catcher with Barry Zito, and wanted a long term contract, so I guess he didn’t feel truly wanted back.

Bottom line though, those three guys were Dodger Killers and losing them will definitely help the Dodgers.  Bengie didn’t have a great average against the Dodgers, but he had clutch RBI’s to beat them multiple times.  Juan Uribe hit  .340 against the Dodgers last year, so he definitely had their number.  Brad Penny got beat up by the Dodgers in a key game down the stretch last year, but otherwise he pitched pretty good against them and definitely had the motiviation to beat them.

Now, on the flip side Randy Wolf was a stud against the Giants last year with a 1.35 ERA, so that will definitely hurt the Dodgers.  He ate up a lot of innings, so the Dodgers definitely have a big hole to fill.

Now if only the Giants get rid of Randy Winn, then the Dodgers will really be in good shape.    All in all, not a great week, but against the Giants it wasn’t that bad.

By the way, special welcome to all of you who have visited the site through Twitter.  You can catch out my tweets through this site, or by looking up SFDodgerfan.  Go Blue.

Scott Work Cube Day 2

Well, the sweep didn’t quite happen. Tim Lincecum did his thing and the Dodgers bullpen just couldn’t hold out long enough.

I was checking in on the game since it was during work and knew it would come down to the end. It was tied when I left work and I told my Giant fan co-worker, “You better hope they put Broxton in so you have a chance…” It ended up that they didn’t need Broxton, Mota did just fine. I knew he was in trouble with that first walk.

No sweep, but the Dodgers still showed why they are in 1st place.

What was interesting tonight was in listening to the talk shows after the game. Let’s just say the fans and talk show host were livid. I mean livid. Livid first at the umpires, livid second at the Giants for having no offense, and livid third at Brian Sabean for getting them into this mess.

I’ll be the first to say the umpires had a bad series. Literally one fan called in and thought the Giants probably would have gotten better calls down in LA. Those calls did affect the game, so I can see their disdain.

The offense though of the Giants is weak. As the talk show host said it, “when you have to depend on Juan Uribe to be your walk off homerun guy…you’re in trouble.”   Enough said.

Even more, as much as I think Brian Sabean has done a pretty good job this year with what the Giants have, this talk show host felt he should be fired now. He found real fault that the Giants went into the year planning on Bengie Molina being an acceptable clean up hitter. He felt that all the veterans (including Molina) should be canned and the young guys should take the team where it needs to go.

I see where he was going, but it was a bit extreme. The Giants are way better than expected already, so the comments are pretty harsh. I think the real problem is that the plan was never to win the World Series, just to compete this year. I think the fans have gotten a taste of the wildcard and now have expected that this was the potential all along. It never was.   They still have a chance at the wild card and that should be the goal to be realistic.

Anyway – the highlight of the day was this morning listening to the talk shows. They played the sound clip of Manny Ramirez hitting his homerun last night and in the background they also played someone throwing up. It was the most realistic throw up sound clip I’ve ever heard and it was hilarious to hear it next to Manny’s homerun. High points to the Murph and Mac show (click here) on KNBR for really funny radio.  I’m totally biased because I love Giants fans wanting to barf at Manny’s success, but it was great.  If anyone can find the sound bite, send it to me and I’ll post it to the next post.

Special thanks again to all the extra hits over this series.  Keep the comments coming. 

Coming up next – a response to a few of the comments from the last few days.  The biggest one being – how far is too far in terms of rivalry gloating?  More specifically when is the rivalry fun, versus mean?  Most Giants fans up here actually wish the rivalry were meaner like it was in the old days at Candlestick Park.  What do you think – is the Dodgers/Giants rivalry too soft, or too hard?  Let me know and I’ll compose the comments in the next post.