Schmidt's on the fritz
Don't need any deep analysis to see that there is something horribly wrong with Schmidt, whatever it may be. Bad Fung Shui, unbalanced Chi, wrong planet in his fifth house of whatever, who knows. Some claimed that he was overused last season but his usage hasn't changed much over the past couple of seasons - or so it seems on surface remembrance - so I don't think that's the case. If anything, he hasn't been the same since his mid-season injury last season. This could be the straw to break this camel's back about the Giants chances this season.
Like most people, I feel that the playoffs are pretty much wide open, subject to strong individual performance swaying the results, so the key thing is to prepare to make the playoffs and don't worry as much about "winning it all" because there's no way to buy your way into that (right George?). When Bonds went out, I looked at the numbers and figured that the Giants offense would be still productive without him. When Benitez went out, I figured we made it through last season without a true closer and came close to making the playoffs, so we'll muddle our way through this difficulty. Neither made me think about the Giants not having a chance to make the playoffs, though had we had them, I would have thought it was a slam dunk.
However, Schmidt not pitching well, not even pitching mediocre, well, that's a horse of a different color. He hasn't looked good in any start and our starting rotation, frankly, is horribly underperforming my expectations. That, coupled with Lowry and Williams both performing inconsistently and doing poorly for the most part has killed the Giants chances in many games before the offense has a chance to get going. And Tomko is doing his usual thing, following good performances with bad, inconsistent to a fault. Rueter has probably been our most consistent starter. If this string of bad starting continues much longer, we might be seeing Matt Cain sooner than later to try to stem the bleeding among the starting corp, along with Brad Hennessey.
Like most people, I feel that the playoffs are pretty much wide open, subject to strong individual performance swaying the results, so the key thing is to prepare to make the playoffs and don't worry as much about "winning it all" because there's no way to buy your way into that (right George?). When Bonds went out, I looked at the numbers and figured that the Giants offense would be still productive without him. When Benitez went out, I figured we made it through last season without a true closer and came close to making the playoffs, so we'll muddle our way through this difficulty. Neither made me think about the Giants not having a chance to make the playoffs, though had we had them, I would have thought it was a slam dunk.
However, Schmidt not pitching well, not even pitching mediocre, well, that's a horse of a different color. He hasn't looked good in any start and our starting rotation, frankly, is horribly underperforming my expectations. That, coupled with Lowry and Williams both performing inconsistently and doing poorly for the most part has killed the Giants chances in many games before the offense has a chance to get going. And Tomko is doing his usual thing, following good performances with bad, inconsistent to a fault. Rueter has probably been our most consistent starter. If this string of bad starting continues much longer, we might be seeing Matt Cain sooner than later to try to stem the bleeding among the starting corp, along with Brad Hennessey.
posted by obsessivegiantscompulsive at 5/09/2005 05:14:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home