by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–In this series the Giants would like to leave the Los Angeles Dodgers bloody and win at least four out six in this last homestand of the season consisting of the Dodgers and Padres. If the Giants do take four out of six the following things can happen number one they can finish no worse than tied with Colorado for fourth place. If the Rockies lose even one game the Giants would be guaranteed not to finish in the cellar.

Number two they would have won the season series against every western division team, so there is a little bit of something to play for there. There are guys who are trying to establish themselves like the Giants Ehire Adrianza who is going to get a good look next spring and he has a chance to be next year’s Tony Abreu or next year’s Joaquin Arias.

For the Giants Brandon Belt who had a very good year and he’s really, really improved over the second half of the year and until he cooled off in New York City he was on a march towards maybe hitting .300 by the end of the season and he was hitting .290 when he left L.A. Looks like that’s not going to happen. Still a .285 season certainly is respectable and I hate to see what will happen if he as they are discussing gets together with Buster Posey in the off season and picks up Posey’s weight training room than we might be able to see Belt as a 20-25 home run hitter.

If you have Belt in the line up along with a hopefully returning Hunter Pence as another 25 home run guy and Posey as another potential 25 home run guy suddenly you got something in the middle of that line up. If Pablo Sandoval goes out and loses weight like he should and said he will, he’s potentially a 25 home run guy and now you have a pretty darn solid line up right there with four guys in the middle of the line up and these guys can hit somewhere between 75-90 home runs among them.

Tim Lincecum the Giants starter is a hope for an extension, people forget what this kid has done he threw 1500 first strikeouts faster than any pitcher in baseball history. He’s in a class that it doesn’t take very long to call roll let’s put it that way. He’s still young and he’s clearly lost some velocity but that’s alright everybody does. Either you can pitch or you don’t and it seems to me he learned how to pitch.

Swinging A’s: In the American League wild card Tampa Bay could come out and they’ve been dominating this year and it could be Texas who the A’s have dominated this year, or it could be Cleveland and I’m sure they don’t want to see Angel Hernandez as an umpire at Progressive Field or better remembered as Jacobs Field. The A’s might face Detroit and they seemed to do just fine the last time they went to Detroit but Boston might be a little bit more of a problem for the A’s in post season.

I see the A’s being a possible American League Championship team I don’t know who’s coming out of the National League and what the momentum is going to be and I didn’t think anybody saw the Giants as a World’s Championship team either time that they won it , certainly nobody did after the first two games against Cincinnati in the N.L. Playoffs.

A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson is a solid player and that young man is a solid kid I’m very happy for him when you realize that he’s playing Gold Glove quality third base and is in the running for an MVP at third base he was a catcher two years ago now you realize just how good he is. We found out one thing for sure the A’s are not a modern appliance they do not have pilotless ignition on that note they need a spark and Coca Crisp was certainly it. He just torched the league with his come back.

i wouldn’t have given 100 to one odds that Jed Lowrie would play more than 95 games this year on opening day it’s been his history to get injured and some how they’ve kept him healthy this season and they’ve kept him in the line up this year, and while he may not appear to be the quintessential number three hitter he certainly is not much of a home run hitter he’s only got about 13 or 14 he’s going to approach 50 doubles this year and that just means when you get Coco on base he’s going to hit one out of every three games he’s going to get a hit that’s going to drive him home.
That’s just an astonishing rate of success for a guy who was always thought of as a good player but never has been thought of as a consistent player that may change now.

Micheal Duca does A’s and Giants commentary each week for Sportstalk