SF Examiner: Spander: The Three Cys letting Giants down in early part of season

By Art Spander
Special to The Examiner 4/15/09

SAN FRANCISCO – That should do it for the Giants, a team meeting. Why, of course. Bruce Bochy and the boys sitting around the clubhouse and telling each other they’re not as bad as they’ve been playing and exchanging ideas.

Someone might suggest to Randy Johnson while an 11 is acceptable at the craps table, it’s not what you want in an earned-run average.

It’s a good thing the Giants have Johnson and two other Cy Young winners on the staff, otherwise they might be in trouble with that lineup. One run Sunday, one run Monday. The pitchers are grinding their molars.

You are familiar with the Three Amigos and the Three Tenors. The Giants are offering the Three Cys. Or is that the Three Sighs? Johnson, an oldie but we believed a goodie, Barry Zito and the latest in line, Tim Lincecum, who earned the award in 2008.

So far in 2009, Lincecum is 0-1 with a 7.56 ERA, Zito 0-1 with a 9.00 ERA and Johnson 0-2 with that 11.42 ERA. In other words: Help!

Lincecum is the biggest worry. Johnson is in his 40s (age not ERA), and Barry, one of the good guys, has not been one of the good pitchers for the last several years. But Lincecum is only 24, in his third major-league season and, we’re told, headed for greatness.

The fear is there may be a few detours, such as expectations and the dreaded Cy Young jinx. (What, you don’t know about it?) So much was written and said about Tim, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, the cover of the Giants’ media guide. He may not be taking it all to heart, but rather trying to prove he is deserving of such attention.

“Something’s not clicking, and I’m going to figure it out,” was Lincecum’s forthright assessment. “You worry about things going on, especially in the present.”

For good reason. The Giants were winners only twice in their first seven games. While that was the same as the Boston Red Sox (and their zillion-dollar payroll), Milwaukee Brewers and Arizona Diamondbacks, it’s hardly encouraging.

San Francisco has finished with losing records four straight years as it wobbled through the departure of Barry Bonds and other travails. The hope in ’09 was for at least a winning record. The dream was for a place in the playoffs, but let’s not be ridiculous.

It’s a long season. Baseball cliché No. 1: It’s early. Baseball cliché No. 2: But once you get into a hole, unless you’re the Yankees or Cardinals, invariably you stay there. The Giants need virtually a week of wins to get even, and they’ve only played a bit more than a week of games.

The premise among the baseball mavens was the Dodgers, the hated Dodgers, had the bats, but the Giants had the arms, and that pitching inevitably will triumph over hitting. Oh? Is that why L.A. was an 11-1 winner over Frisco on Monday?

Any moment now, Giants GM Brian Sabean will be telling us it’s no time to panic. Hey, Brian, we’ll be the judges of that.

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com.

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