Marty; At the start of yesterday’s game against St. Louis the Giants had two outstanding starters, Schmidt and, surprisingly, Williams. Each of the remaining members of the rotation presented problems. Rueter had been lit up in his two previous starts, Foppert was a promising youngster who had not developed in a manner consistent with his spring training numbers,and Moss had for two months been a disaster. By the second inning the problems were magnified. Reuter had come down with a sore left shoulder and removed himself from the game.He now is on the DL. When he returns is anyone’s guess.

Click below and I’ll give you my thoughts.
This leaves the team with Foppert, Moss and, for the moment, Brower, to fill the remaining three spots in the rotation. Not exactly what one would like to see on a team contending for the playoffs.

Foppert has shown flashes of talent but has been basically inconsistent and one would not like to rely on him for a strong performance. It will be interesting to see how he fares against Colorado tonight. There is more at stake than this one game. Brower has pitched well in his long relief stints and on the one occasion he was called on to start. However, he is essentially unknown as a starter, pitching every fifth day. Moss is the weakest link in the chain. He has given no reason to believe that he will be able to assume a starting role and not get lit up every time he walks out to the mound. He cannot throw a strike, is behind every batter he faces. They sit on his fast ball which he inevitably throws down the middle of the plate. He doesn’t have the necessary control to pick his spots and throw to them successfully.

Alou was quoted, after Moss’ most recent start, which took place after a start in which he was taken apart in a few short innings, that “I think we have our pitcher back.” This after he had been removed from the rotation to recover from the indignity he had suffered and which allowed Brower to make his one start in his place.

Alou’s statement was made after an effort by Moss during which he managed to last 4 and 2/3 innings, walked three batters in the 4th and hit another and left the game with the bases loaded, for his reliever to cope with. The article which quoted Alou concluded that “The Giants must be patient with Moss because he arrived from Atlanta at a high price: Russ Ortiz, who was selected as an All-Star on Sunday.”

Alou is putting the best face on a miserable situation. The Giants gave away a probable 20 game winner to a team they may face in the playoffs for a pitcher who cannot get anyone out. Moss’ comment after the game was that he” took a step in the right direction”.

One hesitates to conjecture what a step in something less than the “right direction” would look like. All of the above is indeed unfortunate. The Giants are playing great ball . The team deserves better than having to deal with these pitching problems which mainly arise as a result of the Ortiz trade. It is pointless to try and picture what the rotation would look like with Ortiz in it. This team, even with the problems described, has a .618 winning percentage, bettered only by Atlanta in their league and Seattle in the other.

They have just finished wiping out the strongest hitting team in the league, St. Louis, in five out of six games. And these five wins weren’t close. The Cards were held to one run in four of them and in the fifth the Giants were leading 8 to 1 in the late innings before the Cards managed a couple of runs. Their young pitcher held them to two runs in fifteen innings, one of the games being a complete, nine inning win.( Williams is a story which must wait for another day, but what he has accomplished is no less than astonishing and it appears that he will continue to be successful.)

Despite Arizona’s present run, 18 wins in 22 games, the Giants remain 5 games ahead of them. This is a measure of how well the Giants have been playing over the same period. Arizona should have Johnson and Schilling back shortly and the Giants task gets more hairy. The three game series coming up in a few days should be informative, even though Arizona will still be without their two pitchers. The manner in which the Giants must manipulate their present staff is daunting. Sabean and Alou have their work cut out for them.

The bullpen, fortunately, has been a tower of strength lately, bailing out those starters who have needed help. Rodriguez is giving some signs of being the set up man he once was, and Worrell has been as good a closer as the team could have wished for in place of Nen.

The upcoming times may be times that try men’s soul. We shall see. (Incidentally, as I believe you know, I agree with you that Perez should be playing shortstop)

Ed