A Thousand Words on Cody Ross

How about we settle on a picture instead?*

It turns out I probably can't hate the guy unless he's wearing pinstripes or Dodger blue. We'll have to check back on this later in the real season.

In his lone at-bat today, he struck out looking against the 2012 postseason folk hero, Barry Zito. 

Damn, now I'm curious about his slash lines...let's see...

• His career against the Giants: .253/.301/.421.
• His career at AT&T Park: .262/.331/.417.
• And we might not want to get too used to him striking out looking against Zito. In 18 PAs, Ross has batted .333/.389/.667 with a dinger. He's also hit a home run against Matt Cain (and the video reveals that he does the home run hop/skip against the Gigantes, too), but unless we're talking about RHPs named Roy Halladay, I'm more concerned with Ross's lefty-mashing power.

*See what I did there?

On the Van Halens and Spinal Taps of Baseball

So what did we learn from the series against the Dodgers? 

That the Dodgers are the Van Halen of baseball. That's right. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier are the Van Halen brothers, and a handful of the other guys are a composite David Lee Roth, guys with marginal talent and yet an eye for opportunity. While Roth wore wears silly outfits and dances around the stage and makes silly faces, the other Dodgers take advantage of a few mistakes in the zone, and next thing you know Lincecum is behind 4-2, despite striking out Kemp three times. We hoped that the Giants could make a statement against the Dodgers--but for now we've got to wait as David Lee Roth morphs into Sammy Hagar and then that guy who was the singer for Extreme.

Now as much as I'd like to compare the Giants to Fugazi (which means something like: impeccably locked-in*), right now they're much more like Spinal Tap. Which isn't entirely accurate either, but at the moment the guys in the bullpen are the drummers: Affeldt out due to a freak accident, Mota suspended for testing positive for PEDs, Wilson for a second Tommy John surgery, and Otero back in triple AAA due to bad luck. And, whenever the Giants hit the nadir of the season, Lincecum is going to suggest that the band play "Jazz Odyssey."

The comparison stops there (probably). For every Travis Blackley, Steve Edlefsen, and Clay Hensley that lets close games start slipping away, the Giants have Romo, Lopez, and Casilla. I doubt, however, that they can play the next twenty consecutive games with a six man bullpen. But calling up another reliever opens up a whole bunch of problems concerning which position player to send down. I don't want to get too far into this, or else I'll start losing the momentum I gained with those band analogies, so let's just say that they've got some players with good OBP, and those guys shouldn't be going anywhere. I know, small sample size and all, but look (note that Sandoval is not on the list because he's on the DL):

	BA	OBP ▾	OPS+
Melky Cabrera	.315	.371	134
Gregor Blanco	.256	.365	106
Brandon Belt	.250	.357	100
Buster Posey	.304	.355	135
Joaquin Arias	.308	.341	115
Brett Pill	.270	.341	141

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 5/10/2012.

The biggest question is whether or not they can get it together against the Diamondbacks (and how do you get all of them in the lineup before interleague play?). At the start of the season, the D'backs swept the Giants, and I started to accept that they weren't the leaky ship that I wanted to believe them to be. And then they were: their record stands, after five straight losses, at 14-18, but that can change quickly. Or, maybe the Diamondbacks are a Korn cover band.

Dude.

Korn.

Fugazi footnote:

*I mean, seriously, how many bands make seven (or, technically, numerous EPs and six) flawless albums?

On a Week That Matters (For Now)

Let's face it. Ten games into the season you said: 'The Dodgers are winning because they're playing lousy teams. Seven games against the Padres. Three against the Pirates. No wonder they're 9-1.' I said it. Since then, they've gone 9-9. 

But there was something else you said. I know, because I said the same thing: 'Wait until they play the Giants. Then we'll know where they stand.' You/I/we were confident, but the first Giants/Dodgers series was still a few weeks away. Now it's here, followed with a three game encore against the Diamondbacks. We shouldn't be looking at the standings this early, but we're going to do it anyway:

Dodgers 18-10
Giants 14-14
Diamondbacks 14-15
Rockies 12-15
Padres 9-20

To say that we'll know where the Dodgers stand after they play the Giants is a double-edged sword. We might also learn a lot more about soul-crushing defeats. Lessons in how not to chip away at being four games back. Those kind of things. What we learned last August and September (though not quite in that Boston Red Sox kind of way). Of course, it's not August or September yet--though we've got a rival to defeat.

I figured that in the best-case scenario, the Giants would come away from the series with the Brewers at .500. What should we expect from the next week? I'd like to think that the Giants can win both series 2-1. It's not going to be easy, but it's not impossible. The main point is to close the gap with the Dodgers and open it up against the Diamondbacks.

One look at the probable pitchers could deflate these expectations: tonight it's Zito v. Ted Lilly (LHP), tomorrow Vogelsong v. Clayton Kershaw (LHP), and Wednesday Lincecum v. Chad Billingsley (RHP). I'd give you the stats, but all you need to know is in the LHP part. It means we'll probably have to deal with the platoon lineups, which means more Ryan Theriot (.208/.235/.229). Offensively speaking (that might be a pun), he's filling the spot that would have been taken by Eli Whiteside or Chris Stewart--although he probably won't match Chris Stewart's .556/.556/1.444 career slash line versus Kershaw. Did I mention that Blanco (.348 OBP) and Belt (.381 OBP) will more than likely be the casualties of the platoon?

The Giants may catch a break, however. Matt Kemp sat out most of yesterday's game against the Cubs (he pinch hit), and he's talking about sitting out a game or two to avoid exacerbating a hamstring injury. Kemp and Andre Ethier are pretty much the Dodgers' offense. Carl Steward writes:

The Dodgers’ offense consists of two guys: Kemp and Andre Either. They’ve combined to hit 18 of the team’s 24 home runs. They have 55 of the team’s 109 RBIs. Juan Uribe? Homerless so far in 2012. James Loney is at .202 with one homer and six RBIs in 27 games. Dee Gordon? Fast but flawed as a leadoff man and shortstop. A.J. Ellis looks like a comer, but he’s primarily a walk machine at this point. We like Mark Ellis, but he’s nothing more than steady Eddie at second.

Maybe I'm underestimating the Dodgers, but if Kemp sits, then it's up to the Giants not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.