Giant's Pitching Staff...or lack thereof

Let's talk about the starting rotation. It was supposed to be our strong point. We were supposed to have 5 pitchers who could go 7-9 innings any given start. Jason Schmidt has the best stuff in the National League. Right now all I see across the board is underachieving, but so far tonight is a ray of hope for the Giant's rotation; Brett Tomko is pitching 2 hit scoreless baseball through 5 innings.

Jason Schmidt: Sure he's 2-1. Sure he pitched well against the Rockies. But come on now...they're the Rockies. Nuff said. His velocity just isn't there right now. I've been to games and seen Schmidt hitting 98 on the radar gun consistently. What makes him a dominating pitcher is the transition of speed from 98 mph fastball, to a 90 mph changeup with movement. His "blazing" fastball is currently topping the radar gun at 91. On top of that, he doesn't have a lot of command with it either. Schmidt is being forced to throw his changeup 90 percent of the time; major league hitters notice those sort of things.

Kirk Rueter: Put him out of his misery and move him to the bullpen. Pretty soon there will be resounding calls throughout SBC park on a night when Rueter gives up 8 runs through 2 innings entreating "We want Foppert!". In his start yesterday, he was giving up hits. When he wasn't giving up hits, he was giving up outs that were smacked hard enough to be hits. My girlfriend's mom summed it up perfectly. "Rueter is a pitcher who gives up hits. That how he works". Although there was a certain positive connotation to that, that's not what we need out of Woody right now. We need him to be a pitcher who "gets people out". I say give him one or two more starts and if he doesn't show any promise then we yank him and let Foppert start a few games.

Brett Tomko: Up until now I haven't been all that impressed with Tomko, although his win-loss record is not entirely his fault considering the Giants have yet to score a run in his starts this year. That's right you heard me. His average run support in this young season is 0.0 runs per game. Some of his woes so far though can be attributed to Tomko's pitching performance. He's given up 2 home runs in 10 innings. 1 home run every 5 innings, almost 2 homers per game which is not good. 15 hits in those 10 innings isn't a very impressive number, along with his 5.91 ERA at the start of the night (his 5 innings of scoreless baseball tonight have got him a 4.32 ERA now). I can see Tomko improving based on tonight's start. Tomko has a reputation for being a very streaky pitcher, and when he gets into a good groove, he's untouchable. Cross your fingers...

Noah Lowry: Lowry has impressed me since his first career start last year when he showed he could hold his own against Major League hitters in his debut against a potent Orioles offense. This year, as expected, in 2 starts he's been a little shaky but it's nothing to panic about. What we need to panic about is the 6 runs he gave up to the Rockies, and the 3 homers he's given up in 11 innings. No need to worry about Noah though. He's already proven that he can be a dominating pitcher last year, and on the brightside but not all that important, he still doesn't have a major league loss. Point in case, Lowry is going to rebound from his start against the Rockies. He's a young pitcher with the composure on the mound of a veteran.

Jerome Williams: I'm bewildered to the fact that Jerome has only started one game this season. In his one start, so far he has been the only effective starter the Giants have right now. 7 innings, 5 hit, one run, 5 K's. That was the line from his ONE START. Felipe figured he skip Jerome's start because of a day off. He didn't want Schmidt going on 5-6 days of rest, so he decided, "Hey, how about I skip our only effective starter's turn so that our ace doesn't get too much rest". I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in order for Williams to continue his effectiveness, he can't go on 10 days of rest just so Schmidt doesn't get 5. Expect him to have a solid start tomorrow night vs. the Padres. Especially at Petco Park aka The Pitcher's Paradise. If he gets shelled then feel free to say "I told you so".


That's the Giant's rotation. While I was writing that, the Padres tagged Tomko for 5 runs in an inning and now I just don't know what to say. The umpire has been squeezing him all night and a few close calls killed him. This kind of performance by our dear Brett brings me to my next point: If the Giant's offense is going to carry this team, the starting pitchers need to stop giving up 5+ runs every game.


I'm starting to like Lance Niekro
Ok so Snow pulled his groin and Niekro came in to replace him and so far in 2 AB's I'm liking what I see. I've liked his swing since I saw him go deep in a spring training game. Tonight he's homered and doubled and maybe if Snow stays injured long enough Niekro will see some at-bats. He's definitely got 20-30 homer potential in a year or two. This season will need to be one where he learns how to hit in the Majors. In the meantime, let's can Snow and start Feliz at first when Bonds and Alou get back. Ok so i'm kidding about canning Snow but maybe he should be more of roleplayer/defensive replacement giving Feliz more of an exclusive role at first.


Tomorrow I'll talk about what went/is currently going wrong in the Giants game tonight, and I'll go through our middle-relief corps and analyze their performance the first 2 weeks of the season.