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Giants on to Pittsburgh, Bonds returning in 08?
By Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin August 12, 2007 |
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SAN FRANCISCO--After being swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend, the San Francisco Giants will now head to PNC Park in Downtown Pittsburgh. The Giants cannot get enough of the Bucs as they make up a scheduled rain out two games from earlier this season. The Giants took two out of three from the Nationals in the previous series. The Giants have faced two last place teams in their last three series and with most of August in front of them have a long road to hoe as they settle in Pittsburgh for this make up doubleheader. What the series means for San Francisco is with a sweep the Giants could at least have the start of a decent road trip, which will continue with the Braves the following night. The Giants come into this doubleheader some 16.5 games back and are just playing for prosperity at this point as the dead last place team. Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy at this point is trying to take a look at what he has on the roster and how he will play out the young prospects for the rest of the season in a future season rebuild. Part of that rebuild will be in the players of Kevin Frandsen, Guillermo Rodriguez, Bengie Molina, Rajai Davis, Dan Ortmeier, of the position players. The Giants were in trouble when they used pitcher Noah Lowry to fill in right field and used third baseman Pedro Feliz to come in and catch in an earlier game this season. Since that game, the Giants have been untracked and have even some clubhouse morale problems that stemmed around the time of the Bonds home run chase when veterans Omar Vizquel and Matt Morris questioned what was more important wins for the team or Barry Bonds home chase. Vizquel said at the time he wondered if any one remembered that he set the all time consecutive short stop appearance record, ho-hum or Morris' comment if winning was not a big deal any more and that Bonds chasing Aaron was all the rage. Morris was traded one week after making the comment at what some sources have said at Barry's request. The Giants official excuse at the time was that the Giants did not want to pay for Morris' contract for next year and that he was having a rocky season and that he would be better served somewhere else. Morris later said a day after the trade that the Pirates want to win more than the Giants do and that Giants did not care about winning. That Morris was used to being in a clubhouse that cared about winning from his days with Tony LaRussa on the Cardinals. Morris later recanted and told his ex-team mates before Friday's game he just was upset about the whole situation and the way he was traded away from San Francisco. Morris wished he had could have had more time between leaving the Giants and starting right away against them last Friday. Talk also has been if Morris can get back on track that LaRussa and the Cardinals would explore taking Morris back. Morris was rocked by the Giants on Friday night but the Pirates came back to win the ball game 8-7 at AT&T despite Bonds hitting his 758th career homer that night. But for right now the way things are going the Giants will experiment and will try players at different positions and see what they can come up with. As talk show host, Joe Cronin said on his radio show last weekend "if something sticks to the wall for the Giants then they should go for it at this point." One experiment that the Giants are looking at is bringing back Brian Wilson from the minors and sending Jonathan Sanchez back down to the minors. Sanchez had been pitching 1-2 with a 5.30 ERA with 43 strikeouts and 35.2 innings worked. After watching, Sanchez in some outings Bochy felt some work in the minors would do Sanchez good, "this was a case of winning to get Wilson up, and it gives us a chance to get Sanchez consistent work. We think a lot of (Sanchez) and he's going to be a very good major-league pitcher", said Bochy. Wilson comes back to San Francisco and joins the team in Pittsburgh with a record of 0-0 ERA 0.00. Monday night's pitching tilt: Game one Matt Cain starts for the Giants (4-12 ERA 3.77) for Pittsburgh Paul Maholm (7-14 ERA 4.59) and in the night cap the Giants will start Noah Lowry (12-7 ERA 3.32) for Pittsburgh Shane Youman (2-3 ERA 4.76) for a 2:00PM PDT first pitch. Indictment or league suspension can only stop a Bonds 08 return: Talk of the Giants pretty much was about how the season is deep-sixed as the club has 16.5 games at least to dig themselves out of last place in the N.L. West. The discussion has turned to a Barry Bonds return for the 2008 season and how or how that might not happen. How it will happen is that Giants owner Peter Magowan knowing that he has to core up a new crop of Giants for the new season is one area he will have to work on. If he and General Manager Brian Sabean knows that it's going to take a couple of years to rebuild a contender then they have to have the resources to keep the fans coming back to fill the seats and who none other to do that than Bonds. Bonds has made it no secret about continuing and in spring training had said that he would like to return to the club and that he came into camp feeling so good that he could hang around for 10 more years. The one year that were talking about here might be one year too long as is but Magowan may not have much of a choice. He cannot afford to have a number of no sellouts if Bonds is not there for 2008 when Bonds wants to return already. On the down side, Magowan knows that he also faces scrutiny from baseball fans, media, and others around the country and here if he was to bring Bonds back. But with a sold-out park and fans in standing room situations the only choice looks like Magowan has no where to turn but to sign Bonds back to another year. Bonds also wants to chase 800 home runs and he's only 42 away from that mark. He hit three last week and sat out again on Saturday but if he penciled himself in there he improves his chances to get there faster. For Magowan it's damned if you do and damned if you don't but if he and his side kick team Vice President Larry Baer are looking to get some butts in the seats for 2008 they have no choice but to bring back Bonds. By bringing him back, everyone knows Bonds is a morale killer in the clubhouse but it's his team. Bonds will come in a bad mood, edgy for whatever reason but as former Bonds manager Jimmy Leyland once said, "He'll bust his butt for you". The only thing that would stop Bonds from coming back next season is if the Federal investigation on the BALCO case is resumed. There has been talk that this could be revived by as early as September and nothing would be a more of a home run celebration killer than having Bonds pulled out of school to see the principal at the Federal Court Building in San Francisco's civic center than an indictment. The government has been interviewing and trying gather as much evidence against Bonds for perjury as they can but they have been embarrassed by Bonds as the government has been on the short end of the stick and Bonds himself has said "what have I done wrong?" As if to say let them prove it. Sources have said that an indictment is likely and Bonds lawyer Michael Rains had said that he and his client are prepared for it when that moment comes. Just what will the government have? There is a wide laundry list on that but talk has been on former Mets batboy Kirk Rodomski who was arrested for steroid distribution and the list of some 28 players that was blacked out by the feds. Rodomski has agreed to cooperate with the feds in his case. That the San Francisco Chronicle has asked that the freedom of information act be enforced so the names on Rodomski's list of some 28 players he distributed steroids to is made public. So far, a federal judge has denied that request due to the sensitivity of the federal investigation. It was reported that a player that is high profile BALCO connected is on the Rodomski list. Until that player is revealed, the twists and turns of this whole steroid investigation will keep all involved on edge. If an indictment is handed down Rains has made it clear that the government better have its ducks lined up. If the government gets those ducks lined up, an indictment in September would take Bonds away from the game and have him tied up court for the rest of next month and maybe until the end of the year. The government has had no luck so far in getting Bonds’ former personal trainer Greg Anderson to talk. But at the say time they are using other sources to see what evidence it can build up on Bonds, one being Anderson's doping calendars that he kept Bonds schedules of steroid distribution which Anderson refuses to testify about, and the wire tapped conversation in which Anderson talked about how the steroid he was distributing was undetectable and fell off the radar screen during testing every time . As always more to come. Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin cover Giants baseball and co-host Sportstalk on 1690 KFSG Sacramento. |
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