San Francisco Giants Roundtable: First Half Surprises and Disappointments

ANDY BENSCH

Biggest first-half surprise: Justin Miller and Brandon Medders

Coming into this season the Giants had a completely revamped bullpen from a year ago. It was unclear where the middle relief was going to come from.

Everyone by the bay expected young stud Sergio Romo, free agent Jeremy Affeldt and closer Brian Wilson to hold down the fort in the late innings. But last year the Giants had Keichi Yabu as the only source of middle relief and that ended up as a major failure.

Therefore, there was significant concern from Giants fans about who would be able to take the ball early in a game after a poor start from Jonathan Sanchez and keep the game close before handing it over to the late-inning relievers.

And putting those concerns to rest have been Medders and Miller. In all honesty, not many fans (including myself) had heard of these relievers before this season. However, so far this season, they have proved to be incredibly reliable.

Medders has thrown 33 2/3 innings and struck out 29 batters and despite a relatively high WHIP of 1.49, the 29-year-old reliever has kept the earned runs to a minimum, allowing just 11 of them for a 2.94 ERA

As good as Medders has pitched, Miller has thrown even better. In 37 2/3 innings, Miller has allowed just nine earned runs, giving him an miniscule 2.15 ERA and a fabulous 1.17 WHIP. Not to mention opposing hitters are batting just .233 against him.

These unsung heroes are key pieces to the Giants bullpen which has gone from one of the league's worst in 2008 to one of the league's best in 2009.

Biggest first-half disappointment: Emmanuel Burriss

Despite being a Kevin Frandsen supporter, I was expecting big things from Emmanuel Burriss after the speedy middle-infielder won the starting second-base spot after Spring Training.

Not only had Burriss put up tremendous numbers during Spring Training, but he was coming off a rookie campaign where he finished with a .283 average and 13 stolen bases.

However, after starting this season with eight stolen bases and raising his average to .287 on May 10, Burriss started to slump. And finally after and 0-24 stretch in mid-June was sent back down to Triple-A Fresno.

With his replacements Matt Downs and Kevin Frandsen struggling as well, hopefully Juan Uribe can keep his hot bat going on a daily basis.

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