Bridge Ball

And Take The Giants With You...
The news is not as great for the Giants, who's spring has featured a full-blown steroid-fueled media storm, setbacks to the best pitcher in the League not closing games and the former team fireballer, and the key catcher acquisition looking much less than the All-Star that GM Brian Sabean had promised.

But it's not all bad. Not really. We'll not exceptionally. The best player to ever don a Giants uniform finally started to get some pitches this week. It seems that spring training pitchers finally realized that these games don't count and started throwing the ball in the vicinity of the plate to Barry Bonds. Of course if a ball is thrown near the vicinity of the plate, Bonds will quickly change the Zip Code of the said spherical object. He's hit four homers in the past week.

But Bonds shouldn't get used to seeing many strikes. This is the weakest everyday lineup the Giants have put on the field since 1996. Look for a lot of pitches to be out of the zone. It's a lock that Barry will break his own single-season walk record this year. Could 225 free passes be possible? Depends on how weak the lineup truly ends up.

Fortunately for the Giants, the NL West resembles the AL East, that is if you removed the Yankees and the Red Sox. Just based on past performance, you'd have to imagine that the team has an excellent chance to win the divison crown and possibly even keep their string of four straight 90-win-or-better seasons alive. But only if the Dodgers offense continues to cough up blood, the Padres are not all that, and the Diamondbacks continue to age (the one constant in the west will be the still struggling Rockies). Last year the Giants racked up a sick 54-23 (.701 winning pct) record against their Western brethern. No way will that happen again, but a strong record in division could be the difference in who is grist for the mill in the playoffs against the Cubs, Phillies, or Astros.

Like Jason on the suddenly matured and professional (read: boring) Athletics, I'll be posting a position-by-position review of the Giants. And while the prospects aren't as hot for the team as the A's, the one thing you can bet on is that this season may be many things, but it won't be boring.