Castillo vs. Feliz - the rematch

It seems that every time Jose Castillo steps up to the plate with a runner on first, I expect him to hit into a double play or strike out in some ugly way. I am not inspired by our current third baseman.

A few weeks ago, I compared Castillo to the guy he replaced, Pedro Feliz.

Some of the stats are still remarkably similar (note: all statistics were from the start of the day, not including games played on Monday). Both have 85 total bases. Castillo has 50 total hits to Feliz' 52. Castillo has hit into 11 double plays (is that all?), with Feliz laying claim to 9 (is that all?). Batting averages are both similarly mediocre: .255 and .259. OBP is close, too: .308 to .297.

The big difference offensively? Castillo has an anemic 19 RBIs, compared to Feliz' 28 (not monster numbers for certain, but better than what Castillo's putting out). And Castillo has struck out 36 times to Feliz' 20 whiffs.

And, of course, defensively Feliz is better. His FPCT/RF/ZR is .972/2.89/.816; Castillo is .950/2.65/.806. Feliz has 4 errors; Castillo has nearly double that at 7.

The Giants are woeful on offense. A middling bat such as Castillo needs to at least make up for that with stellar defense. And that's just not happening. Every now and then he gets lucky and, say, starts a triple play. But day-to-day, he's limited and not as effective as the team needs him to be.

My conclusion last time I compared the two fellas: "But despite all this, you'll never catch me wistfully wishing that we still had Happy Pete, though. I cringed every time he stepped up to the plate. At least with Castillo the expectations are extremely low, and he meets those low expectations nicely." I suppose one part is still true - I don't wish that Feliz were still with the team. But I think Castillo and the way he barely meets his low expectations are not helpful to a team that needs to develop and nurture its young talent. Other positions need to play crisply to help the rookie infielders hone their craft. Castillo is not the man for the job.

Of course, the question still remains - where do we find someone who is?

Castillo vs. Feliz

As an indication of the sorry state of the Giants, one of the bigger controversies of the season is the Castillo vs. Feliz debate. Much to my delight, the Giants let Pedro Feliz go to the Phillies during the off-season. Much to my dismay, though, they then failed to sign a 3B free agent that could provide some pop to the line-up. Instead, the Giants claimed Jose Castillo off waivers (after he'd been cut by both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Florida Marlins - now there's a ringing endorsement).

Once you crunch the numbers, it appears that the players' stats are pretty similar, although Feliz does have the advantage on defense (Castillo's FPCT/RF/ZR is .931/2.35/.774; Feliz' is .960/3.05/.816). They've both grounded into a similar number of DPs (9 for Castillo, 8 for Feliz). Total bases are also close (57 to 53), as are RBIs (14 to 16).

Surprisingly, Castillo has more strike-outs - 20 to Feliz' 13. I say "surprisingly," since Feliz swings at all kinds of slop - high hard ones, balls in the dirt. Heck, I could imagine him swinging at a ball behind him if the game were on the line. Yet, Castillo manages to strike out more - he is impatient at the plate (but at least he's not swinging at pitches behind him - yet).

But despite all this, you'll never catch me wistfully wishing that we still had Happy Pete, though. I cringed every time he stepped up to the plate. At least with Castillo the expectations are extremely low, and he meets those low expectations nicely.

Unfortunately, the Giants don't have any third basemen in the minors that have any hopes of succeeding in the majors. So what are the Giants plans for the hot corner? Can we hope for a trade this season to bring a bat and defense to third base?

Zito - All better now?

After spending 10 days in the bullpen, with exactly zero relief appearances, Barry Zito gets the ball for a start tonight against the Pirates. Apparently, two bullpen sessions was all he needed to fix what ailed him. Do you buy it? Not me.

Maybe Bochy thinks that Zito would have a better return against a weaker Pittsburgh offense. Of course, Bochy made the announcement about Zito's start yesterday, before the Giants got whupped by Pittsburgh's "weak" offense. Can Zito fare better than Sanchez and Hennessey? I suppose that at least he won't have to hear the hometown boos at AT&T Park.

I'm skeptical that two bullpen sessions without a batter in the box were enough to take care of Zito's control problems. Zito says "I think you can achieve those things in the bullpen if you put yourself in that frame of mind. Yeah, you're not in a game situation, but you can achieve those things with a catcher." But what else could we expect him to say?

Obviously Zito needs to get out of the first two innings cleanly. I'd imagine that if he gets hit hard in the first inning in particular, his confidence will suffer enough to sink the game.

But I'm hoping to be proven wrong. I want to see the Zito that the Giants overpaid for. Although for tonight, I'd settle for him making it past the third inning.

Eugenio - Oh no!

The young Giants have added a bit of excitement to the team this season. Emmanuel Burris' smackdown on Carlos Ruiz at home plate to score in the fourth inning of today's game against the Phillies is something we haven't seen much of with the elder Giants of recent years (wouldn't want to break a hip, see). The effects of that play will be felt in the clubhouse for a while - that kind of thing can charge up a team. And it may have made Ruiz nervous during the top of the eighth inning when Aaron Rowand charged the plate on Jose Castillo's triple - Ruiz appeared to shy away from hard contact.

But on the flipside, the young guys are error prone. Today's example: Eugenio Velez. In the top of the 5th, Velez failed to dig out Jose Castillo's throw from third on Eric Bruntlett's grounder with no outs. Castillo was credited with an error, but it could just have rightly belonged to Velez.

And then in the bottom of the ninth, with the score tied and two out, Velez let a routine grounder go under his glove, to allow the winning run to score from second base. Ouch.

This is a game that easily could have gone to the Giants. At this point in the season, Velez has to make those plays. I am no fan of Ray Durham (especially his defense), but if Velez keeps this up, I may want to see some more of Ray, and less of Velez (I know - the horror!).

Velez will have at least tomorrow off to ponder his play today. Let's hope he spends some time working on his fielding basics.

The Giants need to get one of these guys

Pitcher Micah Owings came in to the D'backs - Astros game today in the 6th inning as a pinch hitter, and hit a two-run home run to tie the game (which the D'backs then went on to win). This guy's batting stats put any of the best current Giants hitters to shame. Oh, and he can pitch pretty well, too.

It must be baseball season - the first 50 game suspension

So the first 50 game suspension has been levied, and it's SF Giant Eliezer Alfonzo (who started the season in Fresno).

He's admitted his guilt and apologized to his family, teammates and the fans (he has fans?) for his "mistake."

What kind of idiot uses any kind of performance enhancing substance in today's baseball climate? And so soon after the release of the Mitchell report? The scrutiny on players right now is intense, and it seems colossally stupid to juice in today's baseball. Instead of accelerating his return to the bigs, he has drawn 50 days of sitting (minus the accompanying paychecks) and has likely hurt his chances of a call-up by the Giants (who are trying real hard right now to appear squeaky clean after the exposure in the Mitchell report).

Bad move, Eliezer. Bad move.