A Press Democrat Blog

Overtime

Ted Sillanpaa looks at the San Francisco Giants, other Bay Area sports and gives a dad's-eye view of Empire prep and youth sports trends

Giants’ defense hurting struggling pitching staff

Saturday, at 11:58 by

By TED SILLANPAA There’s grave concern over the way the Giants’ starting pitchers have performed lately. They’ve given up bunches of runs. The concern, exactly as expressed, is misplaced. It’s easy for pitchers to get hitters out, put up scoreless innings, when they’re pitching well. It’s those pitchers’ ability to do the same without their best stuff that made them world champions. And, it was solid defense that enabled the Giants’ five starters to succeed and for the team to… Read More »

Pagan was good, but didn’t have career year with Giants

Thursday, at 5:50 by

Made-up stats are too quickly adopted as facts. So, for the record, free agent center fielder Angel Pagan did not have a career year with the Giants in 2012. Northern California fans apply the phrase “career year” too quickly to free agents leaving the Giants, or the Athletics, simply because they only really know what the free agent player did in San Francisco or Oakland. So, Giants’ fans who didn’t follow Pagan in his first six big league seasons assume… Read More »

Scutaro decision much like Giants faced in 2011 with Huff

Tuesday, at 10:57 by

By TED SILLANPAA There’s no earthly reason to really be thinking about the world champion Giants’ 2013 season, but it appears some folks insist upon doing so. They’re wondering if the organization will pay to retain the services of second baseman Marco Scutaro and center fielder Angel Pagan. Given that the Giants kept the 2010 world championship in tact, built around a young pitching staff, there’s no reason to expect the organization to approach preparation for the upcoming season differently.… Read More »

Giants won with bad pitch in maddening, wonderfu

Friday, at 2:28 by

BY TED SILLANPAA Yeah, I wrote here Saturday night that the baseball gods had spit on the Giants and shown the Reds to be the best team in the National League. I ended by writing that the Giants could still win the National League Division Series, but that they just had to beat a better team to do it. The Giants beat the Reds … winning three gut-wrenching games in a row in Cincinnati … to advance to the NL… Read More »

Giants playoff roster: How many pitchers?

Saturday, at 6:14 by

By TED SILLANPAA The Giants had 11 pitchers and 14 position players on the 2010 postseason roster. There’s no reason to think the club won’t do roughly the same thing this fall. The only real question in 2010 was whether or not to carry Barry Zito on the postseason roster. It wasn’t so much a tough call based on his performance, but rather based on the reality that professional sports franchises don’t typically bench and embarrass their most highly-paid players.… Read More »

A bad hop, a flare and great pitches get Giants past Dodgers

Saturday, at 1:31 by

By TED SILLANPAA The Giants beat the Dodgers 5-2 Friday night in a game that should show what makes baseball mind-boggling and wonderful. Josh Beckett cruised through six innings for LA. Tim Lincecum walked five batters through five innings and seemed to be on the brink of one of the meltdowns that mark his season throughout. The big difference on Friday night was, of course, that Lincecum came up with that filthy, unhittable strike that froze Dodgers when they really… Read More »