Panda out with broken bone in hand...

The Giants lost one of their few competent offensive performers Saturday as they announced that third baseman Pablo Sandoval will be sidelined from four to six weeks with a fractured hamate bone in his right hand.

Sandoval, 24, was leading the Giants in batting average (.313), on-base percentage (.374) and slugging percentage (.530). The switch-hitter was exempt from the team-wide slump gripping the Giants, who entered Saturday ranked 14th in the National League in scoring and 11th in hitting. Moreover, the slimmed-down Sandoval also had performed admirably on defense.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110430&content_id=18440366&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf&partnerId=rss_sf

Bad news. Pablo had been looking like the player of two years ago after losing all that weight.

So far this year, the Giants have had to DL:

Brian Wilson
Cody Ross
Santiago Casilla
Andres Torres
Barry Zito
Mark DeRosa
Pablo Sandoval

Every team has it's injury problems, but we've barely played a month of the season....

than that of the Rangers' fundie drunkard..

Sandoval fractured the hamate bone in his right hand. And though the Giants are saying 4-6 weeks, there is this to consider..

Typical recovery time for power after a hamate injury is 12-18 months

http://www.faketeams.com/2010/8/2/1599292/down-on-the-farm-prospect-chat

A buddy of mine broke his in a fight years ago and he had problems for almost a year. This could be a tough one to recover from this season, especially in the hitting department.

finding new ways to lose with every game

I don't why the official scorer ruled that a base hit, but I see it's now been changed to an error. The Giants aren't hitting at all, they can't afford to give up runs like that...and it's not the first time Tejada's fielding has cost them this year..plus he's hitting around .200

Bochy needs to shake things up... First order of business should be to sit Miguel down.

the pitching will be there, and they're all young..Giants just have to start hitting...and get healthy. The loss of Sandoval though, considering he was leading the team in almost every offensive category, plus playing a great third base, is nothing short of devastating..

Actually, the way the Giants are playing, it's amazing they're only 2 games under .500

Excuses, the story of the Shrub.

you weren't too happy when Tulowitzki got injured last year. Nor were you exactly jumping for joy about Josh Hamilton this year..

As for Bush, weren't you and him on the, er, cheering for the same team last year?

That'll change when Sandoval, Belt and Torres rejoin the team (Torres is 33, but he plays young).

Long ago. I watched his last few years in Baltimore. Not impressed. I am however impressed with the Nationals starting pitching staff which is looking more like the Giants staff than the Giants right mow

You know, when the Giants signed Tejada, I knew there could be potential problems with his lack of range, but I figured no big deal because they had the same range problems with the left side of their infield last year. Thing is, Tejada isn't even making the routine plays and he isn't hitting worth a damn either.. He's already made 5 errors, he's got a negative UZR and WAR...In fact, if this keeps up, he'll have the worst stats of his career...and he's costing the Giants games. The 7th inning should have finished 0-0

I don't often watch the Nationals, I do see they're in the top ten pitching wise, so that's good, but I don't know how much stock I'd put in their performance over the Giants..because San Francisco's hitters are making everybody look like Cy Young. The Nationals do look improved though.

The Giants pitching is fine. They have a 2.10 ERA over the first 7 games of this road trip....which further highlights their lack of hitting, because they've only gone 3-4..

:rofl:

That poor guy probably lost another five years after this past weekend...:rofl:

I'll trade his power for Fontenot's defense. Man, it's tough to see them fade like that.

:shrug:

Try playing half a season without your 1, 2, and 4 hitters (Ellsbury, Pedroia and Youkilis), without your 3 hitter for 6 weeks (Victor Martinez) and your opening day starter (Beckett) missing 10+ starts. How they won 89 games (3 fewer than the 2010 World Champion Giants) with an outfield of Daniel Nava, Darnell McDonald and Ryan Kalish still baffles me.

the Red Sox still scored the second most runs in MLB last year. However their team ERA was 22nd (9th in the AL)...Which makes a lot of people wonder why, during this past off season, and while making a big splash picking up Crawford and Gonzales, they did virtually nothing to address their most pressing need...PITCHING.

The Sox did redo much of their middle relieve (which was a big issue last year). They are stuck with the Lackey albatross, and as a Giants fan, I don't need to tell you about the frustration of paying someone like an Ace but watching him pitch like a #5 starter (If that). Beckett is healthy this year and Buchholz is a year older. This year they're (only) 21st and after an abysmal start where I think they were last after the first 15 games or so, maybe they're moving in the right direction.

The contract situation they've put themselves in precludes them from doing almost anything with their starters. Their "cheap" starters pitch well, their expensive ones don't pitch well enough (or consistently enough, or often enough) to be able to trade them (given their salary). On the other hand, they lost two of their biggest bats from last year (V. Martinez and Beltre) and had to replace them, and there were players available. No doubt they overpaid for Crawford, but I think they got Gonzales cheap.

Zimmerman, Danny Espinosa and prospect Derek Norris. In each case there was a huge season long power loss even after their return. Espinosa is about 6 months out from his surgery.