by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–It’s unlikely that we will see Pablo Sandoval back in a Giants uniform not becuase they don’t want him back next season but because they will choose not to pay market rates for him. Giants general manager Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy are satisfied with what they see in Sandoval he hit.185 in the first five weeks of the season and has hit .320 since then how can you not be satisfied with that?

In spite of all that the Giants would like to have him but they can’t afford Sandoval, here’s what it comes down to he was asking for three years for $40 million which is $14 million a year that’s not terribly dis-similar from the numbers that were being thrown around from Hunter Pence’s numbers from the beginning of last year.

Pence closed with an explosion in September wound up getting a deal worth $18 million a year that’s five years for $90 million. Pence has played himself into that territory even though five years is a gamble with his size and that’s not to demean his condition and his weight we’re just talking about his body type. He has a shorter squatty body, he may lose his ability to react to the ball.

There is no question about it Bochy said the first three months of the season Panda was gone as soon as he was hitting in games in the seventh inning or later. He replaced Joauquin Arias at third base for defense, now I don’t think there is anybody in the National League you would use to replace him and the Panda is as good a defender as anyone out there.

Oakland A’s update: The Braves are becoming another team that’s an anigma with the highest runs scored in baseball. They traded away one player that wasn’t having that good of a year he was having his worst year in a Brave uniform and suddenly you have a team that can’t score runs. The Angels have been giving the A’s an opportunity to pull away their not taking advantage of it as they lost to Braves on Friday.

The A’s lost three out of four in Kansas City and now their in Atlanta facing a team that has to put out an all points bulletin to find out anything about them. Nobody knows anything about the Braves because they looked like they moved out of Turner Stadium. The A’s come to town and the Braves are below .500 and yet they got blown out on Friday night 7-2.

The Braves haven’t scored seven runs in a game in a week or two, the Braves have Justin Upton .210, Freddie Freeman.294, and Jason Heywood is swinging .269. You could have six guys in a row hitting .279 and how did they score on the A’s? On a single, walk, and a run. They didn’t score putting together rallies they put together hits when they needed to.

The Braves got some big contributions or they get nothing at all, the other six guys in that line up including the pitcher have to hit in order for that line up to win. The Washington Nationals are the class of the NL East and the Nats are going to end up running away with that division. and they’ll win it by double digits by the end of the season.

Michael Duca reviews the Giants and A’s weekly for http://www.sportsradioservice.com