Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
I was reading an article on Yahoo! Sports questioning if the Giants had enough offensive firepower to be successful again. You can read the article here, but let me summarize it for you: the Giants were lucky twice and they will be bad like they were in 2011 because they only have Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey hitting home runs.
Honestly, I completely disagree.
The Giants might have been lucky in 2010 withe their lights-out pitching and timely hits, but in 2012 I was never more confident in their offense.
In the playoffs last year, the Giants averaged 4.05 runs per game. During the regular season, they put up 4.4 runs per game. Were does that put them with the rest of the league? Twelfth in the majors.
Okay, so 12th isn’t great, but its still better than 18 other teams in the league. And besides, the offense is only half the battle. pitching is what makes this team so effective.
I’m getting off track here. Offense is the concern, so let’s talk about it.
The Giants didn’t have a full season of Posey in 2010 and 2011 when they averaged 4.3 and 3.5 runs per game. The Giants didn’t even have the healthy-hitting Sandoval of 2011 in both Championship years.
New additions Hunter Pence, Marco Scutaro and Angel Pagan were spark plugs in the lineup, but were only used as a unit in the last couple months on the season.
Imagine how good the Giants will be without Aubrey Huff taking at-bats away form Brandon Belt, or Ryan Theriot starting over the revived Scutaro.
Some of you may want to bring up the loss of the juiced Melky Cabrera and how he carried the team in the first half.
Sure, the man was on pace for well over 200 hits and had a huge amount of triples in the first half, but was he the only one contributing? His defense was above average (thanks to his new arm filled with steroids), and he hit everything everywhere.
I think the proof is in the pudding:
| Runs per game | |
|---|---|
| First half (Opening day - July 8, 2012) | 3.93 |
| Second half (July 13 - Oct. 3) | 5.00 |
The Giants were more successful without Cabrera and his cheating may have brought the clubhouse together, who knows?
I am getting excited about the 2013 Giants team not because of the good pitching as always, but because we are about to see a full season with the resilience we saw in the postseason.
With the addition of Andres Torres, I feel this clubhouse will be more united than before.
Here’s my opening day lineup:
#1 – Pagan
#2 – Scutaro
#3 – Sandoval
#4 – Posey
#5 – Pence
#6 – Belt
#7 – Blanco
#8 – Crawford
#9 – Strasburg (surprise trade in February, just wait…)
Lookin’ good, Giants. Where isn’t the offensive firepower?
Loading ...
