I for one will not miss Magowen if he chooses to leave.   Despite his many successes,  Magowen has always represented a bastion of conservative thought.  It was under his guidance that the Giants squandered a golden opportunity with Bonds and, far more damningly, fell behind the learning curve of modern roster construction.

Bochy avoided a near disaster with this pinch-hit move. By not allowing the lefty Lewis to hit off of the lefty Brian Fuentes, the universe was kept in order: according to the laws that govern our universe, a left-handed hitter is incapable of getting a hit off of a left-handed pitcher. Now I hear rumor that it’s happened a couple times, but I’m skeptical. There’s no way that Fred Lewis, a career .297/.381/.378 against lefties, could possibly have gotten a hit off of the lefty closer. Thank God that crisis was averted, as Dan “Righty” Ortmeier struck out to end the game.

With the Giants facing five straight left-handed starters in the next week, Bruce Bochy has a decision to make about Lewis, who’s had a grand total of 9 PA’s against lefties this season (with 2 hits and 3 BB’s). With Zach Duke on the mound tonight, Bochy has failed the first test, benching Lewis in favor of Dan Ortmeier in left-field. Going by this theory, Freddie Lewis, our best hitter insofar this season, could potentially not start for a whole freakin’ week. Regardless of who’s pitching, it’s simply bad baseball to bench a .320/.402/.524 hitter out of fear of a lefty-lefty matchup.

Benching Lewis in favor of Ort makes absolutely no sense. Ortmeier on the season is hitting .222/.300/.333 against lefties in 18 AB’s. Benching a superior left-handed hitting player in favor of an inferior right-handed hitter is nothing less than shooting yourself in the foot. Now if the fear is of Lewis not hitting lefties well, he’s certainly not going to improve on this weakness by not facing lefties.  At the same time, such a fear wouldn’t be of merit, as Lewis actually can hit lefties.

All Bruce Bochy has to do to find out this out is to spend a few seconds on Baseball Reference. Watch, I’ll do it right now. In 3.23 seconds, I’ve found out that Frederick DeShaun Lewis is a career .297/.381/.378 against left-handed pitching. That’s really all it takes.  I’d do it again, but I can’t spare another 3-4 seconds out of my busy schedule to look up information that a 3 year old could locate.

The next item of business to plug is a TV show entitled “Playing for Peanuts.”  This show follows the season of the South Georgia Peanuts of the South Coast League.  I was fortunate enough to see a promo of the first episode of the season, and found it to be enlightening to say the least.  Managed by Wally Backman, the Peanuts are a team staffed by people who play baseball for the love of the game, and nothing more (the $147/month salary ensures this).

Whether it’s the less than roomy living conditions (3 bedrooms and 7 players to a house), the town of Albany where the Peanuts play (population: 75,000), or the 8 hour bus rides (Georgia to Florida for the Opening Day road game), the plight of the true baseball player is portrayed in a way never seen before.  If you’re interested, visit the website of the show, www.PlayingforPeanuts.com.  The show is set to debut May 11th (on Sportsnet Bay Area: Dish Channel 419, Direct Channel 654) at 8pm.

The 126 million dollar question right now: why is Barry Zito mediocre? One can point to a declining K/9 rate every year since 2004. One can also point out the rise in BB/9 in every season following his Cy Young year of 2002. He’s not striking people out, and isn’t putting the ball in the strike zone. Simple stuff right? It would seem so, but the statistical evidence doesn’t explain everything. Like why Zito’s fastball lost 4-5 mph in the offseason. Or the reason that a seemingly healthy arm is experiencing a violently sharp decline at the age of 29.

This being said, let’s narrow down these symptoms:

1. 4-5 mph off his fastball over the course of one year
2. Inability to find strike zone
3. Arm slot out of wack, leading to the front side flying open, causing the fastball to tail up and away (think Noah Lowry)
4. A seemingly healthy arm unable to top 85 mph when just a year ago was 88-89 mph.

My big bad theory is Dead Arm Syndrome. Put simply, the wearing away of the muscles of the rotator cuff, and a partial or even full tear of the labrum (rim of cartilage that holds the upper joint in the shoulder) which causes the condition known as Dead Arm Syndrome in which a pitcher loses miles off their fastball, arm slot gets thrown out of wack, and very often a pitcher doesn’t know about it until an MRI is taken, as all they feel is a lack of “zip” in their delivery.

Mark Prior threw his first 200+ IP season at the age of 22, and we all know how his career turned out. While Zito hasn’t had exactly the same amount of problems Prior has had, one can think that all those innings without missing a single start would begin to wear away at the arm of even the most durable pitcher. Now keeping this all in mind, the “workhorse” Barry Zito has thrown 200+ innings in 6 of the last 7 seasons, while averaging 218 IP a season starting from the age of 23. In his 22 year old season he threw 92 IP. The very next year he jumped up to 214 IP, and stayed there ever since, not missing a start for 7 seasons.

I say get this guy a freakin’ MRI before he tears something and needs surgery. Now of course I could be wrong, and a trip to the bullpen could add miles to his fastball and solve all Zito’s problems, or it could simply compound the problem by making an injury less evident through less work. In the meantime, enjoy Pat Misch every 5th day; I know I will.

CORRECTION 4/30:

It was brought to my attention that Zito’s velocity has dropped much more gradually than I thought.  Fan-graphs tracks his average fastball velocity from year-to-year:

2005: 87.3 mph
2006: 85.8 mph
2007: 84.5 mph

Sanchez, a hard throwing lefty with minimal control and modest secondary offerings, entered the season as an emergency 5th starter. But not unlike finding an extra wad of dollar bills in your pocket at the strip club, the Giants may have found something much more exciting. To date, Sanchez has struck out an unbelievable (and most likely unsustainable) 12 batters/game. TWELVE FRIGGIN’ BATTERS PER GAME. As an added bonus, he has done so while walking an acceptable 3.8/game. He has simply dominated the opposing hitter. He has in fact pitched better than his 3.5 ERA suggests as indicated by his 3.04 FIP.

I have no idea whether he will be able to maintain his success, but through the first several weeks of the season, Jonathan Sanchez has been one of the best starting pitchers in baseball.

But there’s one notable exception to that rule: games started by Tim Lincecum.

The Franchise has appeared in five games this season (four starts, plus his rain-mangled debut against the Dodgers), and the Giants have won all five of them. They’ve only managed to score 16 runs in those five games, but they’ve been infallibly victorious nonetheless, because their opponents have plated just a paltry seven. Lincecum, himself, is 4-0 to start the season, a feat many of us thought impossible, given the impotence of our Bengie Molina-led lineup.

But Timmy has figured out a way to usurp Barry Zito’s spot atop the staff, and emerge as a true ace in his sophomore season in the bigs. The Giants have lost all five of Zito’s starts, but, as mentioned above, they’ve won all five of Lincecum’s, because unlike his $126 million rotation-mate, Timmy has kept games close enough where even the Giants’ mediocre bats were sufficient propel the team to victory.

How has Lincecum done it? Well, for starters, he has allowed just 27 hits in 29.1 innings of work, while collecting a whopping 36 strikeouts — the most in the majors to date. Though Lincecum has walked 14 batters (about one every two innings) thus far, he has used his 98-mph fastball and knee-buckling curve to offset the free passes with K’s, stranding an impressive 87.9 percent of the runners that have reached base against him. Put all of that together, and you’ve got a tidy 1.23 ERA, and thus, a spotless 4-0 record.

It’s worth noting that Lincecum is unlikely to maintain that bloated LOB percentage throughout the course of the season, as part of the success can be attributed to luck. However, Lincecum’s BABIP so far this season is a sky-high .378 (compared to the expected .300), providing evidence that while Timmy has been fortunate when it comes to stranding runners, he’s been rather unlucky when it comes to opposing hitters’ success rate on batted balls.

Lincecum’s FIP (fielding independent ERA) currently stands at 2.16, an indication that his otherworldly 1.23 ERA won’t last much longer, and — by extension — that it’s foolhardy to expect Timmy to continue holding opposing teams to little more than a run per game. We already knew that, of course, and I’m sure most Giants fans, myself included, would happily settle for an ERA around 3.00 from Lincecum. Anything lower would be gravy.

But if Lincecum is able to maintain his stunning strikeout rate — a possibility, given his terrific arsenal — and to keep the Giants close in most of his starts, it’s far from inconceivable that he could break the 15 win threshold this season. Combine that with an ERA in the low-3.00’s, and decent peripherals, and it would seem that Timmy has the potential to piece together a rock-solid case for Cy Young honors.

Plenty of things, good health among them, would have to break Lincecum’s way, but stranger things certainly have happened. Should Johan, Jake, and Brandon be watching their backs?

Timmy is clearly an underdog in this race, even with his awesome start, and especially because the Giants will likely be counting his innings come August and September.

But he’s been Seabiscuit all 23 years of his life, and he now has a chance to make the nickname stick for good.

Lewis has one of the best opposite-field approaches of any hitter I’ve seen in awhile, making it very difficult for pitchers to figure him out, and just as difficult to keep him in a slump for too long. The way it usually goes with hot-hitting young (he’s 27, so young-ish) player is that they tear up the league for 2-4 weeks, then pitchers gradually start to find the hole in their swing (traditionally with breaking balls off the plate). What Lewis has done though, has made this process impossible, as his swing is designed to beat the breaking ball off the plate, while still maintaining good power to all fields (he went deep to right-center in Arizona a couple nights ago).

Even with his advanced hitting ability, there are still some kinks to be ironed out in F-Lew’s game, namely his baserunning. He has all the raw speed in the universe, but next to no instinct, and is apt to be picked off and get bad jumps off of stealing bases. His defense leaves something to be desired as well, as he’s had numerous problems tracking down fly balls out in left, even with the ability to make up for this deficiency with his speed. Both of these issues are easily fixable, and can be refined as the season goes on. Teach the kid some smart baserunning and defense and he’ll be an all-around weapon.

In the meantime, let’s hope he continues to impress. Dave Roberts’ stay on the DL isn’t permanent, but benching Lewis in favor of the “veteran savvy” would be counter-intuitive to the whole spirit of the season (losing, but losing with young exciting-ish players). Guys like Lewis and John Bowker have given us little rays of hope in the midst of the Rich Aurilia’s of the world. These vets can only stick around for so long until their welcome is worn out even to the Bruce Bochy.

At the same time though, this also poses a significant problem though. By babying the young arms with a 6-man rotation, they won’t get in the workload of a typical season. When and if the Giants return to a 5-man staff, starters will have to re-adjust to four days off between starts instead of the five they’d be undoubtedly accustomed to. Essentially, it’s like walking 3 miles a day in order to run 8 miles in the near future; their arms are being protected, but in exchange for the valuable ability to endure a long season. 162 games in a 6-man rotation yields 27 starts (barring extenuating circumstances), while a 5-man rotation is up towards 32-33 starts. A 5-6 start difference times 6-7 innings per game takes away 35-40 innings of experience a season.  Instead of learning to endure 190-200 innings, a pitcher would be relegated to 155-160 IP.

I’m all for not burning out a young pitcher early, but the best way to handle our current situation is within the boundaries of a 5-man rotation, where you can pick and choose innings limits. Maybe with a Monday/Thursday off, Lincecum or Cain can be passed over to keep them fresh and healthy (a situation that could occur any number of times throughout a season). The 6-man rotation locks the starters into a lengthy rest between starts, something that if adapted to could lead to shellshock when they finally do have to endure a longer season.

This being said, I would try with all my might to put together a trade involving Correia or Lowry in order to free up room, while keeping Sanchez. The alternative to this (6 men in) is detrimental to the development of our biggest asset at this point. So please, Bruce/Brian, I know thinking things through isn’t necessarily your strong point, but you absolutely must think long and hard on this one.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Brian Sabean is going to call-up Burriss, an exciting prospect but one who is batting just .258/.281/.306, to split time at shortstop until Omar Vizquel is ready to return from the disabled list.  Burriss has game-changing speed, but is still quite raw, and hit just .165 in High-A ball last year.  

In the process, the Giants are essentially going to give Rajai Davis away, and while they don’t really have much use for him, this nullifies their return from the Matt Morris deal, consummated with the Pirates at last year’s trade deadline.

But that’s not even the worst part of this debacle.  In promoting Burriss to the show, the Giants will be forced to add him to the 40-man roster, and they’re already wasting one of those spots on the hapless Brian Bocock.

Both Bocock and Burriss were drafted in 2006,  are 23 years old, and haven’t hit worth a lick since coming into the organization.  Now, the Giants — even after Vizquel returns — will have to keep both of them on the 40-man roster, which means wasting some money, and a year of cost-control for each of them.  Burriss may be a switch-hitter, but considering that neither he nor Bocock is likely to do much at the plate, it’s ludicrous to platoon them.

Most of us would agree that Brian Sabean lost his touch in terms of player evaluation awhile ago.  But this, coming from an 11-year veteran of the general managerial position, is nothing short of inexplicable ineptitude.