The saying rings true for the Giants “You can’t lose when you don’t play” as the team limps home after a nothing-went-right road trip. The road was unkind to the Giants and resulted in 6 straight losses adding to a total losing streak of 7. Things don’t get much worse. Who do the Giants find waiting for them at 24 Willie Mays Plaza as the roll back into the bay area? The Yankees of course, and the start of a challenging home stand that will see not only the Yanks come into town, but division leading Padres and a tough D-Backs squad.
Gulp. Breathe. Exhale.
If the Giants can win one of the upcoming series and not get swept in the others, I’ll consider it an improvement. That’s not asking for too much, is it?
Some news from around the league:
Jason Schmidt will be out for the rest of the season with surgery to repair, among other things, a torn labrum. Labrum tears in pitchers are usually a kiss of death and it’s the exact same injury that finished Rob Nen’s career prematurely. Schmidt hopes to be ready by Spring Training ’08. As much as it sucked to see Jason put on Dodger blue, I hope he recovers to pitch awful against the Giants, but pretty good against everyone else. One thing in the article that struck me as weird was this quote from Dodger GM Ned Colleti:
Conte said there’s no way to tell when Schmidt suffered the injury. Colletti insisted there was no sign of any damage when the Dodgers inspected Schmidt in the offseason before making their contract offer.
“If I had any inkling that this was what was going to be happening in the middle of June, I doubt if we would have gone forward with that,” Colletti said.
The MRI’s turned out alright when Schmidt signed and passed his physical but both Colleti and Conte had worked close with Jason in the Giants organization for years. You would have thought the constant declining velocity on his fastball, indicating arm trouble, would have clued them in on the fact that Schmidt might not be 100%? The real question is, would I rather have Schmidt’s contract than Zito’s right now. I have to admit, that as of now, I’d probably lean towards Schmidt. Signing pitchers to 7 year deals never turn out well. Anyways, it’s apparent that Colleti took a gamble, which happens in many MLB dealings, and came up on the short end on this one.
Two Giants’ prospects made the Futures Game roster this year. SS Brian Bocock and RHP Henry Sosa both made the cut. It’s great to see Bocock get some props after his solid season so far and Sosa is a guy that’s rapidly climbing the prospect chart.
