About a month ago, I gave the Giants all sorts of advice. And they seemed to have taken it to heart. (Yes, I firmly believe the Giants front office reads this blog.)
I told them to give Pat Burrell a shot and I said to just bring Buster Posey up and play him where ever he can fit.
Done and done.
And tonight Burrell homered and Posey tripled and the Giants are scoring some runs.
Good work. You listened to your pal Sully.
The lineup got a much needed injection... and they got it without calling BALCO.
Now KEEP LISTENING.
The Bullpen is nothing special. In fact I think it is downright mediocre. Wilson is OK but hardly a slamdunk. Romo is eh, nothing special. Affeldt has been awful. Now Casilla and Bautista have done well but the Giants need to bolster their bullpen.
And like with Posey, I think they should start from within. And I told them what to do last May and I stand by it.
Eric Hacker is pitching well in Fresno and at age 27, there's really no reason to keep seasoning him. He pitched well this week against Sacramento and basically is a Quadruple A pitcher at this point. Why not put him in the pen and see what happens?
But Madison Bumgarner should seriously be inserted into the bullpen as their lefty set up man. What does he have to prove in the minors? He has a career 33-6 record with a 1.95 ERA over 61 minor league games. I think he's ready.
But he's also only 20 years old and they don't want to blow his arm out.
Fine. There are 16 weeks left to the season.
Bring him up and have him pitch 4 innings a week... all out of the pen. Bring him in at the beginnings of innings and give him days off between appearances.
That's 64 innings. The Giants don't wear him down and those 64 innings come late in the game when chances are won't have faced him before.
And as I said before, starting in the pen didn't hurt Jim Palmer, Jimmy Key, Pedro Martinez and Adam Wainwright's career.
Make those two moves, improve the pen and all this without giving up a single player.
Listen to me Giants... when have I steered you wrong?
They also read my mind when they made these moves, do the giants have that technology?
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