Just a little whistling through the graveyard

This is getting annoying in its sameness. The Giants lost to the A’s, again. A player got injured, again. There’s a position where injury could making depth an issue, again. And Jeff Samardzija got blasted, again.

Samardzija made his longest outing of the spring, six innings. He had great stuff, at times. But the end result was six more ruins allowed, a pair of screamers that left the yard, and a lot of hopeful “well, it’s just spring training” commentary regarding the 6-4 loss. It belies the fact that “The Shark” has been touched up for five homers and 13 earned runs in his last two starts (10 innings) and his spring mark is now 0-3 with an 8.53 ERA. He didn't get hit this hard playing football at Notre Dame.

There were plenty of comments about AT&T being a pitchers’ park when it was pointed out that Samardzija had allowed 29 round trippers a year ago at hitter-friendly Chicago. Apparently Arizona is kind to hitters too, because that’s five long balls in 19 frames. The Big Phone may help with some of that, but the Giants do play 81 games on the road. Yikes!

 “I feel good,” Samardzija told beat writer Hank Schulman. “That was a great day out there. The ball was down. ... The splitter was great today. We’d been fishing for it for the first few starts. To get a handful of swings and misses on it, and get a punch-out on it, and I think we had a couple of easy ground balls on it, that’s huge for me.”

Uh, so what did he throw when Matt Chapman and Chris Goghlan set balls into the stratosphere? Notes Schulman, Chapman ripped a sinker that caught too much plate and Coghlan unloaded on a backdoor slider. Nice to know Samardzija is working on secondary pitches, but a “handful of swings and misses” means a lot of swings that don’t miss over a nine-inning game.

It’s a recurring theme, and honestly cries about pitching aren’t uncommon during the spring. Hitters are always ahead in their development while pitchers are experimenting and build arm strength. But with less than two weeks until the season opener at Milwaukee, a lot of Giants fans are shaking their heads and wondering when this supposedly much-improved pitching staff is gonna show up.

Remember those calm types who assure you it’s just practice and everything will be fine? Those are the same guys who say it’s okay to hide behind the wall of chainsaws instead of jumping into the running car. Good ol' Leatherface is just misunderstood; they’re sure of it.

No Giants starter has looked good. Jake Peavy has been awful, Samardzija has shown flashes, Madison Bumgarner is struggling, and Johnny Cueto hasn’t thrown enough innings for people to remember his uniform number (they can, however, identify him by the word ‘Spaulding’ embossed on his forehead). The best hope right now is Matt Cain, who was understandably a little shaky in his first start but still ran up a good pitch count and had a motion that looked a lot better than the one on display for the past two injury-plagued seasons.

The other end of the battery is, well, just say that “battery” is an apt word to use. As in assault and ….

Buster Posey is The Man. The Giants have a need to develop his successor with a future move to first base for the team’s unquestioned star a foregone conclusion. We’d all thought Andrew Susac was the guy, but he’s got yet another “mystery” ailment in his surgically-repaired (?) wrist and can’t hit or throw at full speed. Lou Brown would remind him that those two things are important at this level;  just as much as caps and sleeves.

His struggles have made Trevor Brown interesting. In this blog’s opinion the question shouldn’t be whether he’s ready for the bigs but whether the Giants should carry three catchers. If it’s only two, Susac may be out of a job. Or so we thought.

It’s not considered serious, but Brown got dinged Tuesday when Mark Canha clipped him with a backswing. He’s expected to be fine (they told us that about Joe Panik, Nori Aoki, etc. last summer) but it illustrates just how tenuous the Giants’ position is. They depend on their catcher to stay healthy, and he’s one misstep from injury – and that misstep doesn’t have to be his own. Playing catcher is only slightly less hazardous than underwater bomb disposal, and the Giants options are running thin.

Wanna conjure up a scary thought? You can remember Eli Whiteside and Chris Stewart trying to fill Posey’s cleats in 2011. Yes, you can remember it. We’re trying our best to deaden that part of our frontal lobe. Tequila hasn’t been effective, and surgery may be required.

How about some good news? Anyone? Beuhler?

Angel Pagan and Hunter Pence are both hitting over .400 and Brandon Belt is swinging at .375. Belt’s performance (9-for-24, a homer and six RBIs) has the Giants talking extension, according to The Merc’s Andrew Baggarly. Oh, this is gonna be fun.

Belt’s reps are doing some serious sabre rattling. Their client would like to stay in San Francisco, but “fair is fair”. This “Legend of Billie Jean” shout-out brought to you by the If You Don’t Pay Me Someone Else Will Club.

Why is this man smiling?

“Fair” is subject to interpretation. Belt took the Giants to the door of the arbiter’s office this spring before settling on $6.2 million for 2016. That was a big jump from 2015’s $3.6 million but well short of the figure he wanted. Gotta wonder just what he’s worth to the Giants, and how closely they’re mark matches Belt’s.

Even if he performs, the biggest variable has nothing to do with Belt. No, the monkey in this wrench is Posey. Apologies to the spiritual leader (Pence), but Posey is the team’s backbone – see previous 2011 reference. Even missing Pence for much of the year, San Francisco was relevant in September in large part to their star. 

Belt’s future is tied to his. If the Giants see Posey as their full-time catcher for, say another five years, Belt will get an offer that directly reflects that fact that his days are already numbered.

And still little action on the Tim Lincecum watch with San Diego the only real public suitor -- and they're taking a wait-and-see approach.  If Giants pitchers continue to struggle, let’s just say that if Chris Heston is the answer then the question is pretty ridiculous.