The Giants and the Rockies play each other 18 times during the 2010 season, and their first meeting is tonight in San Francisco’s AT&T Park. While we certainly pay homage to the Commissioner's party line that every game is important (kind of the way every vote in Chicago is so important it gets counted several times), but we know the games between Colorado and San Francisco are the most critical contests of the year for both clubs.
      
The single, most significant obstacle in the way of the Giants winning the NL West is the Colorado Rockies. Each time they beat the Rockies, the Giants stride a whole game in the standings on that significant obstacle. Baseball hype aside, full game jumps in the standings against your toughest opponent are like gold, whether it’s April 30th, June 15th or August 1st.

But let’s take a moment to step into the wayback machine and recall what was being said about the National League West before this season started.

Fat-cat baseball pundits, sitting in their overstuffed leather chairs, sipping 300 year old scotch, watching the Food Channel on their 120 inch plasma TVs, and nibbling rare albino beef from Uzbekistan, all agreed on one thing last March: the Colorado Rockies would easily win the National League West in 2010.

The reasoning went something like this: the Los Angeles Dodgers, last year’s number one team, are in disarray. Their historical pitching dominance has disappeared faster than Joe DiMaggio when the waiter brought the check. Besides, Dodger owner Frank McCourt is going through a mega-messy divorce, and apparently the wife has asked for a huge cash settlement and a player to be named later. That‘s not good.

The Rockies, who finished second with 92 victories in the NL West in 2009, are stronger than last year (so the theory goes) because they have good pitching for the first time since that law was repealed banning the Rockies from having good pitching. And they have a very strong lineup, with shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, and first baseman Todd Helton leading the offense. But the Rockies took a major hit when a starting pitcher they were counting on, Jeff Francis, went out until mid-May with a shoulder strain just when the team’s young phenom hurler Ulbaldo Jimenez is having his breakout year. So the Rockies will end April either at one game above, or one game under, .500— way too early to panic, but certainly not too early to start taking contractor bids to build a panic room.

As far as Arizona, with the possible exception of Justin Upton (and he’s hitting .214), we’ve waited a number of years for those young Diamondback players to blossom, and so far all we’re seeing is a lot of extra ice plant along Interstate 10.

The San Diego Padres are...   what's the word for it that doesn't involve any unfortunate hygienic terms? Oh yes...   rebuilding.

Which leaves the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have the best starting staff and best bullpen in baseball, and maybe just enough hitting to back them up. (We have discussed why “just enough” may not be enough, and what to do about that, elsewhere in The Cove.) Great pitching can overwhelm opposing teams in a way that great hitting cannot, and that's what's for dinner each and every time you face the San Francisco Giants.

This is the obstacle facing the Rockies, and it’s a tough one.

The Giants must make the decision to permanently promote star prospect Buster Posey to the 25 man big league roster. Posey gives every indication he can contribute something the Giants have desperately needed for two years: an increase in runs scored.   

When the San Francisco Giants broke Spring Training camp in March 2010, and the final 25 man squad was selected, Giants management temporarily forgot that increasing the number of runs scored was their primary mission this season. That’s why Mark DeRosa was signed to a two year $12 million contract, that’s why the Giants tried to get first baseman Adam LaRoche and settled for Aubrey Huff at $3 million for one year.

But the Giants front office sent super hitting prospect Posey to Triple A Fresno and kept the underachieving Travis Ishikawa, who has a slick glove at first base but has demonstrated throughout his two years with the Giants he is not a Major League level hitter.

In 2009, Ishikawa hit .261 with 39 RBIs, a .329 OBP and 89 strikeouts in 326 at bats; in Spring Training this year, Ishikawa hit .250 in 16 games with a .263 OBP and 12 strikeouts. He is currently batting .200 after 10 at bats with 2 strikeouts. Between 2009 and 2010 to date, the Giants have invested 336 Major League at bats in Ishikawa with consistently negative results. Negative because a run starved team like the Giants cannot afford to squander hundreds of at bats on a corner player who cannot contribute to the offense.

Catcher/first baseman Buster Posey hit .315 in Spring Training, and is currently hitting .353 with a .438 OBP at Triple A Fresno. Posey is rated by ScoutingBook.com as the 11th best prospect in all of baseball. Of the ten players ahead of him, two are playing in the big leagues— slugger Jason Heyward for Atlanta and fireballer Neftali Feliz for Texas— and the number one pick, Stephen Strasburg, will likely be brought into the Nationals starting rotation by June 1st.

Bringing Posey up certainly presents a number of serious roster problems for the Giants. A shortstop in his 2006 freshman year at Florida State, Posey was moved to catcher as a sophomore and did play some first base during Spring Training. It is inescapable that he will catch, play first base, or sub at both positions.

Normally, Posey would simply replace the Giants current back-up catcher, Eli Whiteside. But Whiteside has been invaluable working as the primary receiver for fourth starter Jonathan Sanchez. Last year, Whiteside called Sanchez’s no hitter, and this year the Whiteside/Sanchez partnership has produce a one hitter against the Padres and Sanchez’s current pitching line: 2-1, 1.85 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, and 33 strikeouts in 24.1 innings.

The other problem is that starting catcher Bengie Molina and starting first baseman Aubrey Huff were signed to play full time at their positions because they can produce runs. So unless the Giants make a significant roster move, when Posey is brought up he will be taking at bats from Huff or Molina (although Molina is rested one or two days a week).

There is little doubt that, 1) the Giants have to immediately commit to Buster Posey; and, 2) Posey is worth the Giants not only thinking outside the box, but tossing the box under the nearest bus. That means either making several trades or recasting several positions in the field. Now, not next year, is the time to start reshaping this team to feature Posey. 

The first move: Posey should immediately replace Travis Ishikawa on the roster. Second, the Giants should seriously consider playing Aubrey Huff in the outfield several games a week, which will mean rearranging the current outfield. The team will have to decide if that means moving Mark DeRosa to the infield, or trading some combination of John Bowker/Nate Schierholtz/Eugenio Velez.

And here's the famous bottom line: does the team want at bats for Posey, or for John Bowker/Nate Schierholtz/Eugenio Velez? That should be an easy question to answer.

A revised line-up with Mark DeRosa, Pablo Sandoval, Aubrey Huff, Buster Posey, and Bengie Molina all getting close to maximum at bats would provide potent support for the Giants’ starting pitching. And that could translate into not only making the 2010 playoffs, but the possibility of going very deep in the playoffs.

San Francisco Giant pitcher Tim Lincecum’s fourth start of the 2010 season did not go well.

Throughout the Friday April 23, 2010 home game against the tough St. Louis Cardinals, Lincecum struggled to locate two of his four pitches, the fast ball and curve ball. He walked three batters (he previously walked a total of three hitters in the 20 innings of his first three starts). His ERA went from 0.90 to 1.00 because he allowed an earned run. He threw 120 pitches in 7 innings— the average number of pitches in his first three starts was 104 pitches. Somehow, Lincecum managed to match his 2010 strikeouts per game average with eight knock-outs.

Oh, and he won the game. Lincecum is now 4-0 with a 0.93 WHIP.

On the NBC Bay Area post game show after the Giants 4-1 victory, Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow provided extraordinary insight into the dynamics of how a great pitcher manages a game when he doesn’t have his best stuff. Krukow pointed out that Lincecum’s curve and fastball were out of sync and not working for him; but the very fact these pitches were not locating properly still oddly set up his change-up and slider and made them effective against Cardinal hitters. That’s a fascinating observation, and it takes our understanding of just how smart and talented Lincecum is to a kind of fourth dimension of analysis that only applies to the elite pitchers in the game.

Watching Lincecum pitch against St. Louis last night was like observing a single-minded scientist tinkering away in the lab. Lincecum kept working to make his pitches, and he kept trying to find the point of release and rhythm that would locate them across the plate; but the fast ball and curve refused to cooperate right up until he finished seven innings of six hit ball. And got the win.

This game was a master class on how to pitch great when you're not throwing great.
                                                                       ______________________

Additional kudos: reliever Sergio Romo (1 inning, no runs, no walks, 1 strike out— Albert Pujols swinging), and closer Brian Wilson (1 inning, no runs, no walks, 3 strike-outs). Although the Giants beat their average runs scored per game during the previous four games (1.21) by scoring two earned runs (and 4 total runs) last night, the team's hitting crisis continues.

San Francisco Giants 5th starter Todd Wellemeyer has made three starts in 2010. Here is Wellemeyer's current line through 4/22/10:

In an amazing coincidence, April 27, 2010 is one of the fifty-two dates on which the famous 16th century prognosticator Nostradamus predicted the world would end. Although Nostradamus only mentions Todd Wellemeyer three times in his books, he mentions Bruce Bochy 147 times!

The Giants lost their last four games: 2-1 vs the Dodgers, and 3-2, 1-0, and 5-2 versus the Padres. And, yes, you counted correctly-- San Francisco  has scored 5 runs in the last 37 innings; that's 1.21 runs per game. The good news is it beats the team's 2009 average of 1.20 runs per game.

Tuesday's loss to San Diego was certainly ugly: Jonathan Sanchez and Sergio Romo combined to pitch a one hitter with 11 strikeouts. Sanchez lost 1-0, and after the game Tom Shane called Romo to tell him that he does not have a friend in the diamond business.

SF Chronicle sports writer Henry Schulman reported the Elias Sports Bureau found that, since 1900, the last time the Giants lost a 1 hitter in a regulation ballgame was on September 22, 1917 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jamie Moyer got the win.

I don't want to say San Francisco isn't getting any respect, but for the upcoming series with the Giants, innovative St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa told ESPN that he plans to rest his offense and bat his pitchers third, fourth, and fifth in the Cards lineup each game. St. Louis pitching coach Dave Duncan will start game 1 Friday, and game 3 Sunday.

Next: "The Hurt Locker" musical, featuring Green Day and Larry King as Nostradamus.

The traditional MLB batting lineup has always been imagined as a linear list consisting of players with set offensive attributes. This linear list is viewed as continually starting and stopping, from lead-off to 9th then back again. Roles have been historically assigned to each spot on the linear lineup list which are supposed to define the offense; the lead-off man has a good on base percentage and is fast, the number four hitter has the most power, the worst hitter bats ninth, and so on. But as research refines tradition, there is little about the performace aspects of Major League Baseball that has been unexamined by a generation of baseball scientists who have also redefined the boundries of research.

The baseball establishment often tries to marginalize this serious work by dismissing it as the irrevelent mathematical ramblings of stat wonks who don’t appreciate the “real” game. But during the past ten years, a number of stubbornly conventional baseball organizations have found themselves left behind and desperately trying to catch the sabermetric train after it has left the station.

Baseball social politics aside, let me emphasize that the goal of all this hitting lineup analysis is to answer a question: can a team restructure its hitting lineup to create more runs scored. To put more runners on base when your best hitters come up to the plate, to develop more offensive opportunities during a game, to maximize offensive situations that develop during a game, and basically to put crooked numbers up on the scoreboard.

The instant the first pitch of a baseball game is tossed, the batting lineup, rather than being the repeating linear list we are familiar with, actually becomes a potentially unending circular directory (though almost always terminated in the 9th inning). As the cliché goes, unlike any other major sport, baseball doesn’t have a clock, which means it ends only when one team offensively outscores the other and holds the lead. Given the circular directory, finding the correct location and orientation for the most accomplished hitters is logically best served by having them centered in the circular directory, and separated from out producing batters.  

A Mobius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable, meaning there is no starting point or stopping point, only one side, and only one boundary. The analogy to a baseball batting order is that, once the game has begun, there is no lead-off batter and no number 9 batter; there is only a continually looping directory of players.

In a condensed summary of the Mobius strip theory, the three best hitters on a team bat 1-3 in the order, with the “best” hitter batting second; the 8th and 9th batters in the line-up would be the next two best hitters on the team. The players who contribute the least to the offense, typically the pitcher and players known more for their extraordinary defensive skills, are separated from the 1-3 hitters equally from either end of the lineup. 

Here’s how the 2010 San Francisco Giants lineup looks using conventionally accepted linear batting order criteria (please ignore currently injured players, and players whose talent does not perfectly match the specific slot criteria):
 
1. Aaron Rowand - CF  High OBP, fast runner, moves around bases well.  
2. Freddie Sanchez - 2B  Contact hitter, moves lead-off batter into scoring position, can bunt well.
3. Pablo Sandoval - 3B  Best all around hitter on the team, high BA, high OBP, on base for cleanup hitter. 
4. Aubrey Huff - 1B  Cleanup hitter; best pure power hitter, RBI leader.  
5. Mark DeRosa - LF  Second best power hitter, "protects"  #4 batter, second RBI leader.
6. Bengie Molina - C  Extra base hit power, RBI producer.  
7. John Bowker - RF  More likely to create outs, lineup spot for defensive standouts.  
8. Edgar Renteria - SS  Contact hitter, possibly on base for top of the order, second spot in lineup for defensive players. 
9. pitcher - P  National League pitcher slot; often American League "second lead-off" man.

And here’s how the same 2010 Giants lineup would look in a Mobius batting order configuration:
 
1. Mark DeRosa - LF  Second or third best pure hitter on the team. 
2. Pablo Sandoval - 3B  Best hitter on the team (the #3 batter in a linear lineup).
3. Aubrey Huff - 1B  Second or third best hitter on the team.
4. Bengie Molina - C  First of two players with extra base hit potential, lower OBP and BA.       
5. Aaron Rowand - CF  Extra base hit potential, lower OBP and BA.
6. John Bowker - RF  Second most likey to create outs in the continuing directory of batters.
7. pitcher - P  Most likely to create outs in the continuing directory of batters.
8. Edgar Renteria - SS  Good OBP, fourth or fifth best hitter on the team. 
9. Freddie Sanchez - 2B  Good OBP, fourth or fifth best hitter on the team.

Not only do the statistically best hitters, placed the 1-3  in the order, receive the most at-bats, the best hitter on the team (batting #2) has the three lineup positions in front of him filled by two of the next three best hitters on the team.

Each ballgame “artificially” starts with the #1 hitter at the plate, in this case Mark DeRosa. But, after the pitcher’s #7 spot is passed the first time around in the order, the lineup becomes the continuing directory of a Mobius strip, with the three best hitters up more often, and two quality hitters batting in front of those three players for the rest of the game.

The Mobuis theory puts the hitters most likely to create outs as far away from the top three hitters in the lineup as possible throughout the entire game.

Several sidebar issues. First, “moneyball” considerations of player on-base percentages, making contact with the ball, and scoring runs without pounding out 45 home runs, etc. are as workable as any other definition of what a preferred hitter might be. Each general manager and manager determines the criteria of what constitutes a “good hitter”; so primary placement in a Mobuis lineup can include such considerations as which players are the best contact hitters, which hitters take a lot of pitches, and which players are most adept at moving around the bases. The manager still has the primary responsibility to put the right players in whatever lineup configuration is used.
 
Second, to the extent that pinch hitters are often used in National League games in the late innings to replace the pitcher, and pinch hitters are likely to be accomplished batters, their at-bats would only further support the overall effect of a Mobius configuration.

Obviously, player talent level is relative for each team; the object here is to look at the concept, not at individual player names. Having Alex Rodriguez playing third base rather than Pedro Feliz will obviously make a difference, but each team has to work with the personnel it has (and I mean no disrespect to Houston third baseman Pedro Feliz, who has, by the way, a World Series ring).

Having proposed the Mobius lineup theory, it is important to note that serious professional sabermetricians (who know more on Tuesday than I do all year) have conducted countless scenarios which consist of placing different categories of hitters in different slots in the batting order to see how run production might be affected. So far, although no agreed upon “perfect” lineup has emerged, a great deal of interesting and valuable information has been developed. Some amount of this research runs contrary to the Mobius theory; for example, some scenarios show batting the pitcher 8th in the order can increase runs scored, while batting the pitcher 7th does not.

As the corners of baseball’s sabermetric universe continue to be explored, the every day batting lineup will always be a focal point of discussion and theory. Which is the first step in challenging unexamined and conventionally less productive ways of doing business.

Currently one National League baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, is batting their pitchers eighth in the batting order. In past years, St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa batted his pitchers in the eight spot, but so far in 2010 La Russa has reverted to the more traditional pitcher-batting-9th. In the conservative world of baseball ownership and management an experiment like this is the equivalent of going from analogue to digital, or cutting rare steak from your diet and adding more fiber. And if there’s one thing baseball’s establishment needs, it’s a lot more fiber.

This fascinating subject is on the table only because La Russa, a respected and innovative manager, first batted his pitcher in the eight slot in 1998, his third year as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. In the tradtion of only Nixon can go to China, only La Russa could dare shake up tradition and tinker with baseball’s conventional batting order. It was difficult for the traditionalistas to come down hard on La Russa because his resume is impeccable: through the 2009 season he is second in baseball history, behind Connie Mack, in the number of games managed with 4,769; and he’s taken teams to five World Series, winning two.

Pirates Manager John Russell started the 2010 season batting his pitcher eighth in the Buc's lineup, and there’s renewed interest in the analysis that’s been done to determine the value of a position player batting ninth in the National League. La Russa has noted that his tenure as an American League manager convinced him that the “second lead-off” man batting ninth provided more opportunities for his number 3 and 4 batters to drive in runs. In St. Louis, La Russa has an definite interest in providing baseball’s best overall hitter, Albert Pujols, with as many runners on base as possible whenever his turn at bat comes up.

Typically, the MLB establishment was out buying a corndog at the concession stands when this issue first came up, leaving the baseball saber and statistical community  to crunch the numbers and properly analyze the phenomenon. And, as usual, they came through. Specifically, “The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball”, by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin; David Pinto at beyondtheboxscore.com; Cyril Morong at cyrilmorong.com, and a number of other great reseachers have thoroughly examined the impact of batting a position player 9th in the batting order (among many other batting order scenarios). Also, for a good overview on the subject, check out Sky Andrecheck’s April 8, 2010 piece at Sports Illustrated.com.

The hard research seems to point to a modest advantage for National League teams batting their pitcher 8th: an increase from 4.50 runs per game to 4.59 runs per game, about 14.5 runs a year, which results in maybe two additional wins a year. Although I don’t know many managers or general managers who would scoff at two additional wins in a season, a number of those same front office hardheads distain virutally any innovation that’s foreign to their baseball experience.

But not Pirate Manager John Russell. Twenty-five years ago, author Peter Palmer’s classic research (“The Hidden Game of Baseball”) determined that a team’s best hitter, rather than bating third in the order, should bat second. So Bucs centerfielder Andrew McCutchen, considered their best overall hitter, is batting second in the Pirate’s line-up. Tony La Russa may have opened the door, but Buc’s Manager John Russell is taking it to the next level.

Although the Pirates have started the 2010 season with a 7-5 record, no one expects these experiments will result in the instant turnaround of a damaged franchise. But right now, the Pittsburgh Pirates organization is boldly going into the sabermetric universe where no team has gone before, and it will be fascinating to watch what happens.
See Part 2: The Mobius Strip Lineup Theory.
May 1, 2010 note: Cardinals Manager Tony LaRussa once again started to bat his pitchers 8th in the batting order in late April 2010.

Game 1 Friday April 16th - Dodgers 10-8
The Giants hope that Todd Wellemeyer's great Spring Training stats would somehow spill over into the first several months of the regular season and solve their 5th starter problem is going up in smoke. In Wellemeyer's defense, his general body of work was contrary to his performance in March; the Giants just crossed their fingers and tried to will him to be a good starter.

Todd Wellemeyer through 4/18/10 

In the top of the 5th inning, centerfielder Aaron Rowand was hit in the face by Dodger starter Vincente Padilla. Padilla, who has a reputation as a bad teammate and a headhunter, was released mid-season last year by the Texas Rangers because he was "regarded as a disruptive clubhouse presence" (S.I.). Inexplicably, the Giants did not retaliate at any time the entire series.

Eugenio Velez took over in center as Rowand went on the DL. Velez is proving once again can hit, and hit with power; now if he can only be more alert on the basepaths.

Game 2 Saturday April 17th - Giants 9-0
Tim Lincecum six shutout innings, 3 for 4 at the plate with 3 RBIs. Bengie Molina continued his great start, going 3 for 7 in the first two games, and is now batting .406. Velez went 3 for 5 and had more adventures on the bases. Three shutout innings from the Giants bullpen.

Game 3 Sunday April 18th - Dodgers 2-1
A brilliant line by Barry Zito: 7.1 innings, 1 run, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts; he has a 1.86 ERA after three starts. Pinch hitter Manny Ramirez hit a two run homer off Giants reliever Sergio Romo in the bottom of the 8th.

Let's clear up some things about this game:
1. Manager Bruce Bochy was correct to take Zito out of the game in the 8th-- he hadn't allowed a run, but after walking Dodger pinch hitter Garret Anderson, Zito was clearly running out of gas.
2. One out in the eighth inning is not when closer Brian Wilson works (or should work). There are six other pitchers in the bullpen, two of whom are responsible for the eighth inning: Sergio Romo and Jeremy Affeldt. Bochy put in the righty Romo against the righty Ramirez, and it just didn't work out.
3. The real issue in this game is that the Giants did not score runs, and they had several good opportunities.

This loss to the Dodgers is nothing new to Giants fans with any kind of short term memory-- throughout 2008 and 2009, great starting pitching performances were repeatedly squandered because the Giant offense could not score runs. Sunday's game was a nasty reminder of those not so long ago days.

The scheduling fairy continued wildly waving her wand over the San Francisco Giants as the Pittsburgh Pirates came to AT&T Park to play the third series of the fledging 2010 season. After opening on the road against a Houston team on the verge of being declared a federal disaster area, the Giants faced the perplexing but talented Atlanta Braves.

The Braves, who look so solid on paper, were placed in a shredder by Giants’ pitching and clutch hitting. Only the semi-weekly appearance of Giants’ 5th starter Todd Wellemeyer prevented a sweep of the Braves. Six games, five wins.

The next day, the Pittsburgh Pirates pulled up to AT&T Park in several dilapidated 1978 Volkswagon vans, carrying their equipment in plastic Safeway bags, and wondering just how they managed to piss off the Old Testament God. Seventeen consecutive losing seasons, and all the Pirates can look forward to in 2010 is maybe a plague of locusts or to be driven into the desert by a high ranking Egyptian official.

The Giants took two out three games from the Pirates, 9-3, 5-6, 6-0, and would have completed the sweep if Giants shortstop Edgar Renteria had made an easy double play. What? Never assume the double play you say? Please. With a runner at first and no outs, pitcher Jeremy Affeldt induced an easy ground ball from the next Arrrrgh... another loss of Biblical proportions      batter, which he snagged and then tossed a perfect feed to second base. Renteria had it clang off his metallic glove and fall to the turf, allowing the next Pirate batter, Garrett Jones, to knock in an unearned run; the same unearned run that tagged Affeldt with the game two loss.

Giants Manager Bruce Bochy was feisty and very defensive in talking with reporters after the game, basically claiming that Renteria’s error was so rare it probably would never happen again. The Giants front office is extremely sensitive about any criticism of Renteria (.250 BA/48 RBI/69 SO/terrible range at short in 2009), who they signed to a ridiculous two year $18.5 million contract in 2009. It’s like the Nixon White House, the bigger the mistake the more hostile the response to questions about the mistake. The type of error Renteria made in the April 13th loss to Pittsburgh isn’t common, but it is symbolic of the variety of ways his defense costs the team runs.

That said, the Giants will not be seeing many baseball challenged teams for the next twenty-three days, facing 18 games with the Dodgers, St. Louis, Philadelphia, the Rockies, Florida, and the Mets. Oh, and a three game breather (hopefully) with San Diego somewhere in the middle. Will this be a test of their early success and enthusiasm? You can bet your iron glove on it.

Awaiting opening day, it is not unusual for baseball fans to have a heightened sense of anticipation if their ball team happens to be scheduled to open the MLB season on the road. But for Giant fans, that was just the tip of the anticipation iceberg.

Not only had the team revamped its offense in the off-season to better support baseball’s best starting and relief pitching, but April 2010 happens to be the 10th anniversary of the opening of a venerated jewel next to San Francisco Bay: AT&T Park. For those of us who attended the Park’s 1997 groundbreaking and April 2000 opening day, it seems impossible that this steel diamond has been part of the eastern waterfront for ten years. Waiting for the Giants to come home made for an extremely long week, even if the team convincingly swept the Astos 5-2, 3-0, and 10-4.

Opening day April 9th was a beautiful post-rainstorm Friday afternoon enjoyed by a sell out crowd of 42,940 fans, officially 103.3% of full capacity— maybe they stuffed a couple of dozen panda-capped citizens in the cable car that overlooks the right center field stands. And it was good to have that many witnesses to watch the slogging grudge match that took place, uphill and backwards.

The Atlanta Braves were in town with Tim Hudson on the mound, and through the first seven innings Hudson simply went through the Giant hitters like goose food through a goose. The first five innings, the Giants meekly went three up and three down. In the 6th, Atlanta shortstop Yunel Escobar’s error allowed John Bowker to get to first base, a distant place known only to Giants hitters through rumor and song. Bowker wasn’t even there long enough to snap some souvenir photos before Juan Uribe fouled out to first baseman Troy Glaus, and Nate Schierholtz grounded into a 6-3 double play.

In the 7th, Aaron Rowand led off with a single to right field, and Edgar Renteria followed with a double, Rowand to third. In keeping with this difficult day of difficult baseball, the Giants finally broke through via two ground ball outs by Pablo Sandoval and Aubrey Huff-- each groundout scoring a run. Since the Braves had been busy scoring three runs, at the end of seven it was 3-2 Atlanta.

After the Braves rudely added a run in the top of the 8th to make the score 4-2, the Giants were thrilled to see that Tim Hudson was inexplicably gone, perhaps attending a 1999 Oakland As reunion across the Bay. Whatever the reason, it appeared to be good news as one-time Dodger closer Takashi Saito toed the mound. The Giant hitters in the bottom of the 8th apparently did not get the Tim-Hudson-gone memo, and promptly went three up and three down. Again.

Giants’ fireballing lefty reliever Dan Runzler started the top of the 9th by walking Braves third baseman Martin Prado, then immediately solved that problem by picking Prado off and getting the next two batters out.

In the bottom of the 9th, behind 4-2, the Braves brought out their new closer, Billy Wagner. Yes, it is the same Billy Wagner who imploded with the hapless Mets last year, the same Billy Wagner with a 96 MPH fastball, and a baseball IQ in the low 70s. Amazingly, Atlanta signed Wagner to pitch for them in 2010 for $6.75 million—apparently Eric Gagne was unavailable.

So the legendary Billy Wagner faced Giants utility man Eugenio Velez in the bottom of the 9th. And, by the way, why are some play-by-play announcers now calling Velez “Gino”? What, a five syllable Latino first name is too much trouble to bother with? And why stop at “Gino”, how about we just call him “Buzz” or “E”? Eugenio might have answered Rod Steiger’s “So what do they call you in ‘Frisco, boy…?” question from “In the Heat of the Night” with “They call me A-U-Hey-Nio...”.

So the legendary Billy Wagner faced Velez, and Mr. Velez hit a double off a 95 mile an hour fastball. An out later, Giant shortstop Edgar Renteria absolutely electricfied the crowd with a two run home off a Wagner curve ball. Why the hell Wagner threw a curve ball in that situation will be investigated later in an upcoming episode of “Miami CSI". With one out in the bottom of the 9th, the Giants tied a game they were absolutely losing right up until that moment.

As Yogi Berra might have described it, “That hit was, in a word, totally awesome.”

Then many things happened: runners from both teams got to third base, Giant relievers did their usual masterful job, and then…   …and then the game went to the bottom of the 13th and the Giants' Jose Uribe walked, stole second, and advanced to third on Atlanta catcher Bruce McCann’s error. Then Uribe scored on a ball hit slowly by Aaron Rowand to the Braves shortstop. Giants win. Giants win. Giants win.

Two things about this game: first, the vast majority of the sold-out crowd stayed through the 13th inning, which showed some very serious fan grit. And, second, this 2010 Giants team showed they were tough and showed they will not give up easily. And, more than having a big-bomb home run hitter, more than having some kind of precious "team chemistry", and more than having the excess cash to purchase expensive free agents, pure grit is worth a lot in the game of baseball.

The 2010 home opening day weekend for the San Francisco Giants was like balancing a tray of crystal glasses while riding a rollercoaster: terrifying, exhilarating, and some stuff got broke.

Giant relievers made 12 appearances and pitched 13 1/3 innings during the three game series with the Atlanta Braves, and given the nature of the games— a 13 inning opening win on Friday, a loss Saturday, and a four hour and eight minute rain delay Sunday that Tim Lincecum won— it could have been a geat deal uglier.

            Sergio Romo

The bullpen line for the Atlanta series is remarkable given the circumstances:

Jeremy Affeldt: 3 innings (1 ER, 2 walks, 1 win)
Waldis Joaquin: 2 innings (3 ER, 3 walks)
Dan Runzler: 2 innings (0 ER, 3 walks)
Brandon Medders: 2 innings (0 ER, 0 walks)
Brian Wilson: 1.2 innings (0 ER, 2 walks)
Guillermo Mota: 1.1 innings (0 ER, 0 walks) 
Sergio Romo: 1.1 innings (0 ER, 0 walks)

Obviously if there is a negative it’s the nine walks, seven in the first game of the series. But the entire bullpen roster was used between all three games, and their overall performance was excellent. Todd Wellemeyer started game two of the series Saturday and went 6.1 innings with four earned runs and a loss. Four relievers were used in that game, which came the day after all seven relievers were used in the 13 inning opener win.

Although Manager Bruce Bochy doesn’t need a fifth starter for pretty much the month of April, he is determined to use Wellemeyer every fifth day to keep his first four starters fresh. But if Wellemeyer can’t nail it down, and his starts regularly become bullpen eaters, the Giants will have to face making an early season change in their starting rotation.

Luckily, this team is cooking at 6-1 and with four quality starters going every fifth day, there should be plenty of opportunities for the bullpen to straighten itself out after the occasional heavy use game. Right now, it looks like the best starting rotation in baseball is being backed up by the best bullpen in baseball.