Jeff Fletcher | October 31, 2010

Well, it didn’t take long. The Giants’ lineup is out and I agree with one of Bruce Bochy’s decisions, but disagree with others.

The good thing is that Travis Ishikawa is playing instead of Pablo Sandoval. That’s what I think he should have done. I also said before that Ishikawa should play first and Aubrey Huff should be the DH, because that’s a better defensive lineup, but the more I think about it, that’s not so great. If the Giants have to pinch-hit for Ishikawa against a lefty, they’ll have a problem at first. Either they’ll lose the DH by moving Huff there, or they’ll have to put Sandoval there or they’ll have to move Buster Posey there. Putting Sandoval there is bad because of the defense and because you don’t want Sandoval facing a lefty. If you move Posey there, Eli Whiteside has to catch. He’s a decent catcher defensively, but he hasn’t been out there in a long time and he’s basically an out at the plate.

Second, Bochy benched Pat Burrell and he put Nate Schierholtz in right, with Cody Ross moving to left. I don’t like that because Burrell is going to play in Game 5 against Cliff Lee. You’d like him to get some hacks on some lesser pitchers in Game 4 before he faces Lee in Game 5. Instead, he’s going to have the day off to think about all those strikeouts, and then he’ll get Lee.

That’s my two cents. Bochy has been right most of the postseason, though, so we’ll see.

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Jeff Fletcher | October 31, 2010

Today is my turn in the main press box in Texas, which actually isn’t that great. The third row of seats in Arlington gives you this view of the field…

Yes, that’s kinda crummy. Apparently the fine folks in Texas who designed this press box didn’t think it was important to actually be able to see the whole field. It’s OK, though. I won’t complain. Hall of Fame writer Tracy Ringolsby is sitting two seats over from me, so if this seat is good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.

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Jeff Fletcher | October 30, 2010

Here in Texas, just sitting around in the press box getting ready for Game 3. There isn’t a whole lot to do before these games, other than the limited availability from the interview room. Bruce Bochy today said that Cody Ross would have been the starting right fielder even if Jose Guillen were on the roster.

Do I believe him? Well, maybe. It certainly didn’t seem like that much of a stretch at the time, because Guillen had been so bad. If he was hurt, which he really was, it made sense to play Ross instead. I suspect Guillen may have been on the roster as a backup if not for the HGH thing (which the Giants haven’t confirmed, obviously). He certainly would have stayed with the team to be ready for future series, like Barry Zito et al, if not for the HGH thing.

I’m out in the auxiliary press box again tonight, which is not bad at all. It’s a luxury suite, so there’s plenty of room. Not a bad view. They have electricity, wifi, TVs, food, game notes and a bathroom. That’s all you need.

Also, I hope you have been checking out all my World Series stories so far, and all of the video stuff I’ve been doing. Like this report after Game 2, and this one advancing Game 3.

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Jeff Fletcher | October 27, 2010

The Giants just beat the snot out of Cliff Lee, just like everyone thought. Ha. Just kidding. Seriously, though, let’s look back at something I wrote in my prediction earlier today, about the Giants’ chances against Lee…

Cliff Lee is going to be a handful, but the optimistic way to look at it is the Giants are going to be hacking (as they always do), so they may actually fare a little better against him than the work-the-count Yankees, who got behind a lot.

So after the game, someone asked Cody Ross about how the Giants were able to do what the Yankees couldn’t to Lee…

“The thing about our team is we’re a free-swinging team and the Yankees take a lot of pitches. We’re aggressive and we knew he was going to be aggressive. Even when we were 0-2 or behind, we knew he’d still come right at us. Rarely is he ever out of the zone. It works to our advantage. I think that’s what happened.”

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Jeff Fletcher | October 27, 2010

It seems I’m going out a limb here, since the conventional wisdom is that the Rangers will win the World Series. I can’t argue too much that the Rangers look a little better right now, but I think it’s close enough that I’m not sure why so many people are picking them.

First, I want to point out Baggs’ outstanding blog post in which he writes exactly why it’s foolish to try to make any predictions in a short series. I couldn’t have written it better myself.

Still, I made my case for the Giants in this little FanHouse video. Basically, my prediction comes down to a very simple concept: Good pitching beats good hitting. If you don’t believe that, just ask the Phillies. It’s a popular thing now to say that the Rangers lineup is much more dangerous because they are swinging the bats so well, where the Phillies were slumping. Were they really? The Phillies had averaged 6.0 runs per game over the nine games before the NLCS, 5.4 runs over the previous 19 games and 5.5 runs over the previous 34 games. That doesn’t look like a slumping team to me.

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Jeff Fletcher | October 27, 2010

Yes, I’ll be back today at 10 am PT to do a little pre-World Series chat. We’ll see if anyone shows up, other than you Brandon, and has questions.

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Jeff Fletcher | October 26, 2010

Are you ready for the World Series? Team FanHouse is really cranking. We had three writers and a video crew at the ballpark today, and we’ll have three more writers for the games. It’s really quite impressive.

I wrote two stories today, one on the Bengie Molina factor, which I’ve already discussed here. I really don’t think it’ll make that much of a difference in the series. If the Giants pitchers execute, they’ll get outs. If not, they won’t. Anyway, makes for a good story.

The other story is a primer for the new fans just now tuning in to the Giants and Rangers, explaining what the deal is with all those little symbols and catch phrases, like “Torture” and the Thong and the Beard. You gotta believe a lot of people are going to tune in to these games and wonder.

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