Kuzul

I knew New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson about 30 years ago. He was new in baseball, acting as the general counsel for the Oakland Athletics. He was a classy guy. Very nice, very engaging. Very friendly to a young kid who was doing some day of game work for MLB Productions. The guy who ripped Giants fans and one of the fine young hitters in baseball, Pablo Sandoval, is a different guy. Alderson showed absolutely no class with his Twitter comments. He came across as petty and arrogant. Alderson tweeted: ASG election of "Kung Fu Panda" shows the value of a cute nickname. Surprised Giants fans didn't elect a "ball dude" to start at 3B.— Sandy Alderson (@MetsGM) July 3, 2012 Of course Wright deserves to start ahead of Sandoval at third base for the National League.But did Alderson forget about the 2009 election, when Sandoval clearly deserved to ...

I'm sure like all San Francisco Giants fans, watching the first inning of last night's 5-4 win over the Oakland Athletics was both excruciating and exhilarating.   By the time the second batter for the A's, Jemile Weeks, had finished his at bat, Oakland already had a 1-0 lead. It got worse.After Weeks' RBI single, Josh Reddick singled, and Yoenis Cespedes walked to load the bases. Seth Smith reached on one of the strangest fielder's choices you'll ever see, as both Brandon Belt and Hector Sanchez contributed to the A's second run with misplays.  Then, Lincecum walked in the third run of the inning, and there were still no outs. Already, the Giants had bullpen activity.  For those of us who have witnessed Tim Lincecum's previous 14 starts, the fear was that this would be the worst one of all. All of a sudden, visions of an eight-run inning couldn't be ...

If you want to know why the San Francisco Giants are barely a .500 team, you don't need to look any further then the sixth inning in the Giants' 7-6 loss Friday night to the Miami Marlins. With one out and one run already in to cut the Giants' lead over the Marlins to 3-2, the Marlins had the bases loaded. Tim Lincecum was already over 90 pitches and looked like he had lost it. Then John Buck hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game. Only then did Giants manager Bruce Bochy get the bullpen going. A little late, don't you think? The next batter, Chris Coghlan, hit a three-run homer and the Marlins had blown the game wide open, leading 6-3. By the way, Coghlan had a homer in only five career at-bats against Lincecum.  Bochy pulled Lincecum, but it was way too late for the Giants and ...

After watching another pathetic performance by the San Francisco Giants, one that almost put me asleep, I had a thought. This team might not be doing itself much good right now, but boy it's been good to its opponents.As evidence, I give you tonight's opponents, the Arizona Diamondbacks. Before tonight, the Diamondbacks had lost five in a row and seven of their last eight.Giants to the rescue! It doesn't matter that the D'Backs rolled out a guy with a seven-plus ERA; he was still able to shut down the Giants' feeble bats.And the Giants' defense helped again with a couple of errors, along with a misplay in the outfield that opened the door for a three-run inning that undid the Giants. Down 4-1 at that point in the fifth inning, the score might as well have been 16-1 the way the Giants have been hitting. Or I should say not ...

Bruce Bochy is consistent, you have to give him that. The San Francisco Giants manager seems to be getting worse before he gets better.A couple of days ago my esteemed colleague Barry Shiller wrote this piece about Bruce Bochy's blind spots. He was too kind. I'm not that kind.In tonight's 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bochy showed again why he has no place managing the San Francisco Giants, let alone the Bad News Bears.In the bottom of the eighth inning, Giants catcher Chris Stewart bunted for a base hit with one out. Nice job by Stewart to get something going for a San Francisco Giants offense that had been stifled yet again, this time by Cy Young candidate Clayton Kershaw.The obvious move, the move every San Francisco Giants fan and many non fans knew was coming next was to pinch run for Stewart with Giants speedster Darren Ford. Who ...

Tonight, the Giants made a statement in their 6-2 win over the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks: They're not going away quietly.I'm probably the biggest optimist around when it comes to my beloved boys in Orange and Black, but as you can tell by my recent articles, I had all but given up. Why? Because in the last month this team had shown virtually no signs of life. Not only weren't they hitting, but they have been playing sloppy baseball.That seems to have all changed on Wednesday. The day started out with the surprising announcement that Aaron Rowand and Miguel Tejada, two high-priced veterans, had been designated for assignment. The Giants not only were willing to let the underperforming Tejada go with a month left in the season, but in a mild surprise they sent Rowand packing with a year and $14 million left on his deal.It seems that the team has ...