Buster Posey Has Shingles. Ewww...

The Pittsburgh Pirates will roll into AT&T Park hopefully ahead of the seemingly always present overcast skies. As the San Francisco Giants fans prepare to celebrate Opening Day, the gloomy weather could be indicative to the start of the Giants season.

The Giants fans should be a little cheerful as their club is coming off a victory.  The team put up some early runs against the Rockies 49-year old starter Jamie Moyer, and held on late when the Rockies loaded the bases in the ninth.  Brian Wilson got his first save of the season.

The win sets the Giants record at 2-4.  It’s not the record we anticipated.

In strange news usually left for geezers like Tony LaRussa, the Giants star catcher Buster Posey has shingles.  Yeh, shingles.  What the hell is shingles?

We looked it up.

Shingles has the word (herpes) listed after it.  That’s enough for me.  But if you want to play doctor–have at it.  But remember, I warned you.

The Giants offense has scored nearly six runs a game–most in the National League.  Six runs a game and still only two wins?  How is that possible? Don’t the Giants have a stellar pitching staff?

We reached out to Around the Foghorn to get some answers.

What can you say about the Giants  pitchers that will trot out for the series?

Scheduled starters are Cain, Zito and Vogelsong. Cain will be Cain – the question marks are Zito and Vogelsong. In the Colorado game, Zito did a fantastic job at repeating his arm slot which has been a revolving door of an issue with his struggles. He tends to have one solid three to four game stretch of starts per year where he can replicate that arm slot where he’s very competent and solid. He looked so awful all Spring with his new delivery, so they kept him in Arizona as the Giants went north to finish their Spring and worked with him on replicating that delivery. At least for one game, it worked well.

As for Vogelsong, he’ll be making his season debut after rehabbing in AAA Fresno. He’s looked solid in his rehab starts, but, first starts back are never easy and the Giants may play cautious with him in terms of pitch count. Difficult to project what he’ll bring to the table for that first start of the season.

Is Timmy going to be ok?

Timmy will be fine. He tends to get in these funks and send half the country into a tizzy. Just some bumps along the road he always runs into. He’s been having trouble getting his pitches down, which is what makes him so effective. When he’s leaving them up, the boomstick gets brought out.

Are you in panic mode yet after some serious damage has been done to the Giants pitching staff in the first few games?

Nah – actually, I myself feel pretty good. The Giants can pitch and they can play defense. So far, they’ve done both REALLY horribly so far. Their offense has been great though, which has been the problem child. Once the pitching comes around, which should be soon, the Giants will be fine.

Did the Giants do enough in the offseason to improve this club? Is there a move you would have loved to see the team make that didn’t happen?

I think so. They certainly changed the dynamic, adding speed and defense – two things the clubs needed heavily. All the Giants need is a competent offense and it appears they have it, so, I think generally the fan base is happy. I would have liked them to bring in a big bat obviously, but, financially they needed to commit elsewhere (Cain, Lincecum, etc) – but overall, myself and the majority of the fan base are okay with the additions and think they’ve improved the offense and defense for the better.

What’s up with Brandon Belt?

Belt’s probably wondering the same damn thing. Brian Sabean’s not exactly the nicest guy to his prospects – more of a tough love type, so I guess he feels the best thing to do is give the kid crap and yo-yo him around. There’s little reason for him not to be playing 5/6 days a week, but the Giants’ brass has their oddball reasons to treat the guy the way they do. Hopefully in the next few weeks he’ll get enough of a chance to maintain a spot in the lineup consistently before the guy has some type of emotional breakdown. lol

Photo: Carlos Gonzalez

The 2008 Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum will pay $250 for possessing a pot pipe an AP report said today. The agreement must still be approved by Judge Darvin Zimmerman.

Grant Hansen, the deputy prosecutor on the Lincecum case, said his office is willing to dismiss a misdemeanor charge of possessing 3.3 grams of marijuana.

“We negotiated the case in the manner we do with just about every first-time marijuana-drug paraphernalia case where the individual is cooperative with the officer,” Hansen told The Columbian. “We dismissed possession of marijuana and amended the other charge to buying or selling drug paraphernalia, a Class A civil infraction.”

Lincecum was picked up just after sunrise on Oct 30 and a week later it looks like the case is quickly wrapping up.

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Mr. Hansen was heard singing this catchy jingle from the Fox TV hit show Family Guy.

Who made Jones feel ‘wanted’ as he mentioned in the pregame show yesterday?  Someone on Neil Huntington’s team is smiling like all of those Giants fans were smiling last night.

We have learned that Twins farm director Jim Rantz tried to sign him in the offseason, but Jones wanted to go elsewhere.  It probably had something to do with being snubbed in September. 

Jones is all over the minor league record books for the Twins.  He played hard, burnt no bridges, and yet….

Whoever made that decision to piss off Jones, thank you.  The Pirates love the Twins front office.

Now, let’s focus on what you should know about Jones.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire is happy for Jones, ” good for him, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

You should know that Jones had female fans in Minnesota as we discovered by reading this post from July 2.  [Oh it's THOSE Girls]

 Most Minnesota fans remembered Jones for hitting a ball so hard that he broke Michael Cuddyer’s foot.  Cuddyer was on an injury rehab and the Twins were counting on him for their playoff push after his expected three day rehab was finished.   [read it here in the Minnesota Star Tribune. ]

Some say Jones was blocked at first base and in the crowded Minnesota outfield.   So we took a look at the Minnesota [team stats. ]  Nobody on the Twins bench looks like they can hit, so who made that call? 

You should also know that the fantasy baseball insiders from ESPN believe that Jones is for real too.  [ESPNInsider]

 The Democrat Chronicle did the best job of giving the background on Jones in this story.  [Former Red Wing on Hot Streak with Pirates]

The most hilarious comment we found on Jones was at the outstanding blog by Joe Christensen (yes, that guy who did such a great job on the Baltimore Sun staff). 

The comment was by IOWA FAN…”isn’t Garrett Jones payment enough for Freddy Sanchez ?” 

As you read about Jones, it is great to hear so many people are happy for the 28-year old rookie.  That says something.  So does the way he plays baseball. 

Remember that tough loss to the Phillies?  Remember who had their head on the dugout rail when most of the other players were already in the shower?

Yeh, you are right.  It was Jones.

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Last night, Jones had trouble matching his homer off Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum from July 18.  His play in the field was also off his normal performance as well.  Perhaps it was the fact he was not the NL Player of the Week? Ah, just kidding.  The Pirates were no match for Tim Lincecum last night until the sixth inning. 

Jones got his 16th RBI on a groundout to first and the Pirates worked two hits and an error into two runs.  Their first and only runs of the game and the first runs in two and a half games.

After the sixth inning, Lincecum continued to dominate for the Giants and finished with 15 strikeouts as the Giants won 4-2.

Just look at Delwyn Young flash that leather at second.