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Giants feeling Rowand's pain already
By Joe Cronin and Ken Gimblin April 20, 2010 |
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SAN FRANCISCO--The Giants who were rolling until Aaron Rowand got hit in the cheek with a Dodger pitcher Vincente Padilla up and in pitch on Saturday that put Rowand out for at least 15 days ( he's expected to be out for a month). Ever since being put on his backside the Giants have skidded in a small way but enough for concern. Seems like when Rowand was in the line up the team offense seem to jell. Right now it's somewhat melted with loses to Los Angeles and San Diego on this current road swing. Padilla has a reputation of coming inside and the Giants are convinced that he did not intentionally try to hit Rowand. It's a tough situation losing Rowand because he was off to a great start and it's certainly going to hurt the team in that respect. He's on the 15 day D.L. you can almost be rest assured he's not going to come back in the time alotted by the Giants look for Rowand after May 15th. Whether or not it was intentional or not it's not a good situation and some still have second thoughts whether Padilla let that pitch get away or it hit his target. If intentional you just don't do those kind of things and if he said it got away there will always be doubt because Padilla has a reputation of throwing inside. So will the Giants remember it or will they just move forward. We'll find out when Padilla has to face Giant pitching later on. It's just something that the Giants will circle on their calender when they face Padilla and the Dodgers again. They will remember. In the meantime Andres Torres and Eugenio Velez will platoon in center field while Rowand is out of action. Both Torres and Velez will be a huge help in Rowand's absence, the Giants certainly will find players who can fill in but still it's going to be very difficult to replace somebody like Rowand. The Giants are looking at missing Rowand for a few weeks but the bats and the fielding have to come in his absence. Later this season the Giants will need the wins today for September when the dog months come. It's a long year and right now San Francisco can only hope that they don't get any more injuries. They had a day to day injury with Mark DeRosa but he's back. The Giants are battling the Padres in this series and the Giants are just ahead in the National League West by one game. This series will just make this race in the month of April a little more interesting. The Giants loses on Sunday and Monday were tough loses and the Padres in this current series have not given up any ground to the visiting team. The Giants have got good pitching out of the starters but the offense has been stale since Rowand's been gone and have not been able to settle on a victory to get in the win column. Certainly they did not want to walk away with losing to the Pads two games to one in this series. Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin cover Giants baseball each week for Sportstalk |
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