San Francisco Giants Take a Step in the Right Direction in Win vs. San Diego

The San Francisco Giants went into Tuesday night's game in San Diego, seven games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West.  The Giants are still mathematically alive in the pennant race but they no longer control their own destiny with 21 games to go and three left against Arizona.

Giants fans have been clamoring for some youthful energy in the starting lineup and Tuesday night they got it.  Eric Surkamp started his second big league game and more importantly, Brett Pill made his major league debut, starting at first base. 

Pill had a monster season at AAA Fresno and many would say that at age 27 he should have a monster year in the minor leagues.  Still, his PCL-leading 107 RBI were almost more than double that of the Giants' co-leaders, Pablo Sandoval and Aubrey Huff, who both came into the game with 55 RBI.

Pill represents hope and there really has been no hope with this team since the end of July in Cincinnati.  He hits the ball hard and has ample power to hit 20 or so home runs.  If his time hasn't come right now, it never will.

The Giants also purchased the contract of Justin Christian from AAA Fresno.  Christian is far from prospect status at 31 years old but seems to have revived a career that began in the Independent Frontier League in 2003.  He made it to the big leagues in 2008 with the New York Yankees for 24 games, but was dropped from their 40-man roster the following season.

The Giants hope that they can catch another Andres Torres circa 2010 lightening in a bottle with Christian who stole a combined 52 bases at AA Richmond and AAA Fresno in 2011.  With centerfield and leadoff such a black hole for this team right now, I'd expect to see a lot of Christian as the 2011 season winds down.

The team that beat San Diego on Tuesday was not he same team that has floundered for seemingly the entire second half of the season.  They hit the ball consistently throughout the game and it proved vital when the end of the game came along and there was no Brian Wilson available to finish things off.

All year the Giants have struggled to add to their run total during a game.  They score a run or two in one inning and then rely on the pitchers to make those runs stand up.  You can't win like that, and an offensive game like yesterday's was way overdue.

Are Justin Christian and Brett Pill the answer to the question that will allow San Francisco to make a mad dash into the post season?  No, but there is a lot to be said about letting guys show what they can do at the big league level.  If nothing else, pitchers may take a few series to develop a successful course of action against them; meanwhile they may provide a spark to get the team going.

The bottom line is that the Giants took a major step in the right direction by starting Brett Pill and Justin Christian on Tuesday.  What remains to be seen is whether or not they will continue to let them and other unproven players get the majority of the playing time down the stretch.

There are certain veterans who have never been able to get going this year and most likely won't, so the Giants need to see what they have in guys like Pill, Christian, Belt, Crawford and even Hector Sanchez.  In doing so, they could learn something about these players, the future of the organization and may just win some games in the process.  If Arizona slips up a little, they might even make a race out of this thing yet.