The First and the Last

The Giants just completed their first week of the 2016 season while the Warriors wrap up their regular season on Wednesday.

The Warriors

If the Warriors win Wednesday they will break the all time NBA record for regular season wins.  If they don't it will be one of the biggest upsets of the NBA season after the future San Francisco team went all out to successfully beat the San Antonio Spurs twice.  These wins prove to me that the team can turn it on if need be a concern I have had during the last few weeks of the season.  The  big question still remains, will they be able to do it for two more months.

The Giants

The Giants won five of their seven games to take a one game lead over the Dodgers in the NL West.  Ironically they could have easily won all of their games.  They blew numerous opportunities against the Brewers in their one loss to Milwaukee and Tomlinson misplaying a double play ball in the 9th inning in the mud at AT&T cost the Giants Saturday's game against the Dodgers.

Eleven different Giants hit 14 home runs in the first week of the season. They are currently on a pace to hit over 360 round trippers for the season.  Even the great home run hitting New York Giant teams of the late 1940s were only able to hit around 220.  Last year the 'g' men hit 135.  The Giants got home runs from every position except center field.  Last week I wrote that Span did not show me anything.  He made that statement  look foolish by driving in 5 runs in the opener at Milwaukee all with two strikes and two outs.  Now that showed me something!  He is however off to a very slow start and I am not sure if his injury from last year is still bothering him.

Bochy batted the pitcher 8th about five times during the week.  It hurt Sunday when Cueto came up with two on two out and was an easy out.  In the season opener, Pagan batting 9th got on to lead off an inning.  He then stole second and scored on a single by Span.  A classic run.

One major goal of the Giants this year was to cut down on the use of the bull pen by having their starters go more innings.  If the first week of the season is any indication that goal will not be achieved and the relief staff will be worn out by June.  Just about everyone repeated the party line that spring training was too long except the restaurants and hotels in Arizona and pitching coach Dave Righetti who indicated that the starters could have used another week.  Its really not fair to judge the staff after just one week.  Lets give them a couple more starts then make a judgment.  Its a long season that won't be over until the 2016-17 'World Champion' Warriors start practice.

The Masters

Although the play of the golfers this year left something to be desired, it is always a pleasure to watch this classic event.  Brings back memories of how people use to be courteous.  You might have noticed that they don't even have volunteers raising their hand to keep everyone quiet when a golfer is hitting the ball.  Not needed at the Masters'!


Television

The Dodgers series was blacked out in Los Angeles by Time Warner.  We were only able to see Saturday's game which was on national television.  I believe the people at Time Warner must have been Dodgers fans to award them so much money for their rights.  This is the reason the Dodgers can start the season with $114 million in salary being paid to players that did not start the season on the 25 man squad.  In contrast the payroll for the entire Milwaukee team is $50 million for this year.