When the going gets tough...

Sometimes, it just gets a lot tougher.

So, after just wondering earlier today about some underperforming players on an underperforming offense, in comes the news that one of the very few (read: two) bright spots for the Giants offense this season, Pablo Sandoval, is going to miss 4-6 weeks with a broken bone in his wrist*.

The Giants recalled Ryan Rohlinger to replace him on the roster, but there just isn't replacing Panda at the plate. This makes the Mark DeRosa injury more prevalent, too -- not much good going on nowadays with the Giants, their third basemen, and their wrists.

For that matter, the injury situation for the Giants so far this entire season has been pretty bad, hasn't it? Although there's no one on the DL for "gettin' old", this is one of the perils of carrying an older roster -- there's bound to be an extra injury or two here and there.

*varying reports on whether it's technically his hand or wrist, as first reported by that infallible source of sports news, ESPN.com. Duane Kuiper says hand, so I'm going with hand.

Any day now, Huff

It always sucks to have a black hole in your lineup.

Get it? Suck? Black hole? Ah, never mind.

In any case, for NL teams, there's pretty much always at least one of those in the #9 hole, as the pitcher must come to the plate and lay down a sacrifice bunt or flail away at 90mph fastballs.

What sucks is when you have more black holes than the one you'll already have, doing what it does best -- suck.

To this point in the season, the Giants have the obligatory one, and two more on top of that in Miguel Tejada and Aubrey Huff. For obvious reasons, we're going to be more patient with Huff than we are with Tejada -- reasons like: 1) Huff was very good last year, whereas Tejada was not, 2) Huff, while not a spring chicken, is a younger feller than Tejada, 3) we like Huff-Daddy, while we tolerate Miggy, 4) trusting Huff over Miggy can save us 15% or more on car insurance.

But the simple fact is, they're both hurting the team badly right now, and they've done it by being anemic at the plate and, at times, shaky defensively. There isn't much to be done about it -- Huff is an everyday player, and was the Giants best hitter and very useful defensively with his ability to play both 1B and corner OF spots. With Tejada, there just isn't anything behind him that would be appreciably better.

But as we're about to finish the first month of the season, these two are currently a large part of why the Giants aren't doing well right now. The offense ranks near the bottom of the NL, and that's not only much too reminiscent of the first part of last season, but it also stands to cripple the Giants chances of making the postseason this year.

While it is still early, 1/6th of the season is still a good barometer of how good teams might be. And if teams like Colorado, Philadelphia, and Florida are anywhere close to as good as their records currently are, the Giants can't afford to lose games in April if they want to sniff the division title or wildcard.

(actually, if those teams are as good as their records, the Giants can forget about 2011, because they aren't winning 67% of their games this year)

On top of this, the Giants are right in the midst of an opportunity -- while playing on the road, they are playing against beatable competition, and have to take advantage of this.

They're not out of it, or even on the brink just yet, but there definitely should be a sense of urgency about the Giants hitters, because right now they're the main reason that any run they could make at contending for a division title or wildcard will be much, much harder to pull off.

Huh, go figure

Today's game has to be a bit surreal for Ryan Vogelsong.

He's making his first start since coming back to the big leagues for the team that traded him away, against the team that traded for him.

Also, I am not a fan of afternoon baseball in the East that starts while it's still morning out West.

So far it looks like Vogelsong isn't doing too badly, although only throwing 18 strikes of 37 pitches through two innings isn't good. Luckily, the Giants are finally scoring some runs -- including one on what seems to have been a double steal.

Hey, whatever works at this point, right?

It is fun to watch Darren Ford run

And that's really all there is to it. Whether it's on the basepaths or in the outfield -- heck, it's almost fun to watch him get picked off -- it's pure excitement to be able to see him go flat-out and hit 5th gear.

I'm not going to delve into how it's possible to get him more playing time, because that would involve things like an injury to Aaron Rowand and make things scary for the Giants outfield depth. It would also mean he'd get to hit in normal situations, and we'd likely see a guy giving the old 110%, but someone who is overmatched by big league pitching.

But whenever possible, whenever there's a chance to score a tying run or take a lead late in a game, Bruce Bochy should throw Darren Ford into the game. You could just see how his presence unnerved the Pittsburgh Pirates, and that can be a valuable commodity.

I'm also not going to speculate on what moves the Giants could make later to keep Ford around, because I tend to think a couple of games of him wreaking havoc on the basepaths and making what normally would be a double look like a can of corn shouldn't change what the Giants will do when Andres Torres returns...which would be to send Ford back to Fresno.

But my goodness, it is certainly a ton of fun to watch him run...son*.

*channeling RUN-DMC*

Hello, Pirates, it's SO nice to see you

Especially after getting swept.

I'm of the mind that the Atlanta Braves are a pretty good team, and as such their 8-12 record prior to the series with the Giants showed they were a little unlucky (they were 3-6 in games decided by 2 runs or less before playing the Giants, a mark that still stands).

While it wasn't good luck that led the Braves to the sweep, I think the thought that the Giants were swept by an inferior team is definitely erroneous. The Braves are pretty good, and the Giants didn't play well.

The next 10 games will be telling for the Giants -- they're all on the road, but they are against teams that aren't good in the Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, and the New York Mets. I think the Giants will want at least a 6-4 record coming out of it; anything worse will start a lot more "What's wrong with the Giants?" talk, and given that the Colorado Rockies also play against weaker teams, going 5-5 or worse will probably see them drop another game or two behind the division lead.

Pace

Not the picante sauce, although of course I appreciate that it's made in San Antonio and not New York City.

Are the Giants about where they should be at this point? Well, I'm really not sure, so let's ask the Magic 8 Ball.

Well, there you have it. And any who would like to argue about the veracity of this can contact me directly. I won't reply, and in fact won't even acknowledge that you've dared to question this most scientific means of gleaning answers from the universe, but still....give it a shot.

Walk-off home runs

...and, sometimes, walk-off with t-shirts. Or, at least try...

CS: M Leake (1, t-shirts by Macy's/Cincinnati PD).

I don't think anyone will mistake Cincinnati Reds pitcher Mike Leake with Winona Ryder or Lindsay Lohan, but here's another case of someone arrested for theft while making a salary that most of us would run naked through a swarm of bees while covered in honey to make...

...or, is that just me? Never mind.

In any case, Leake pitched well enough as a rookie in 2010 that one would think, "Okay, this guy could carve out a number of years in the majors and make a good amount of money...as long as he doesn't run around like a klepto stealing cheap t-shirts before games."

The real question in this is; why didn't Dusty Baker send in Francisco Cordero after Leake got arrested? I mean, this was a save opportunity, right? Typical bullpen mismanagement by Dusty.

Very, very cool

The whole win vs. the Rockies was very cool, of course, in all facets. But I'm going to focus on a quote from Pat Burrell after the game in reference to the no-hit bid by Tim Lincecum, because it was very, very cool:

Burrell said he went to manager Bruce Bochy and begged to be taken out, figuring he was a defensive liability in left field late in the game.

"I went in and talked to Bochy and said, 'Listen, I'd hate to be the guy that doesn't get to a ball that somebody else might catch,' " said Burrell, who was replaced by Darren Ford in the middle of the seventh.

Usually I don't take much stock in things said post-game, since they're usually players giving clichéd answers to tired questions. But I thought that was good stuff. So hats off to Burrell...and his cartoon-ish .333 IsoP.

Besides that:

• Freddy Sanchez's pop is an interesting byline to his very good early season start. He's not going to SLG .500+ all season, but at the moment he's more of a threat at the plate than at any point I can remember in a Giants uniform.
• Aaron Rowand has been almost literally feast or famine at the plate. His 13 games played so far are made up of: six multi-hit games, four 0-fers, two pinch-hit appearances where he went 1-for-1, and one inexplicable game where he didn't go bonkers or suck -- he went 1-for-4 that day.
• The Rockies gave Pablo Sandoval about 9 games worth of walks in one game with the 3 walks issued on Monday (well, 9 games worth for Panda, at least).
• Welcome back, Ryan Vogelsong...it's like you never left. And never mind that's because you didn't actually leave -- you were traded, out of MLB for a few years, came back, and it wasn't like you were all that well-known when you were traded anyway. Still though, it's like you never left.
• Retraction: whole win vs. the Rockies wasn't very cool -- Miguel Tejada is starting to get on my nerves. Badly. It isn't that I don't think he can perform better, but I'm just seeing too many histrionics from him after his outs. I know to a degree he's an emotional guy, but there's only so many times you can be demonstratively angry with yourself, an umpire, or your batting helmet after making an out. We get it, Miggy, that's not what you wanted to happen. Let's move on, okay?

And another note on Miggy -- it's still early, but he's currently seeing under 3 p/pa at 2.97. He's never been a particularly patient hitter, but that's running almost half a pitch worse than 2010, which was his lowest recorded p/pa of his career.