Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 30, 2008
Pivotal Week

Henry Schulman believes this week will make or break the Giants. San Francisco faces the Cubs and the Dodgers in SF, but the Giants are playing poorly at home:

Start with the Cubs. They have the best record in the NL (49-33) but a) are coming off being swept by the White Sox, b) are 16-23 on the road, c) will not have team RBI leader Aramis Ramirez for the first three games of the series because (unfortunately) he has a family emergency in the Dominican Republic, d) will not have Carlos Zambrano or Alfonso Soriano, who are still hurt and e) had to do the long overnight fly-west thing the Giants just did going from Cleveland to Oakland.

As for the Dodgers, they may or may not welcome back shortstop Rafael Furcal on Friday. He is in minor-league rehab. As usual, the Dodgers are underperforming, but they obviously have the pitching to win games. The Giants simply have to find a way to defend their home turf against their biggest rivals (sorry, A's marketing department).

If the Giants come away with a 3-4 or 2-5 homestand, we'll know the home-field advantage thing is a lost cause for 2008.

San Francisco is just five games out of first place in the NL West. With no one else in the division playing well, if the Giants pitching can stop a depleted Cubs lineup and a hitless Dodgers lineup, we might see San Francisco in second place by the end of the week.


Posted by David Pinto at 04:19 PM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
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