San Francisco Giants

1. Bruce Bochy

Bochy has frustrated fans all season long with his in-game decisions. He also irritates fans with his starting lineups. Bochy is known as a manager who likes to pay veterans, and this is probably why youngsters like Nate Schierholtz did not get a lot of playing time in the beginning of the season. Bochy seems to always not know when to pull a starter or a reliever, and that has cost his team many games this year already. The Giants are winning in spite of Bochy's poor managing skills.

2. Barry Zito

In my humble opinion, baseball, more than any other sport, lends itself to historical analysis and the reliving of its greatest moments. Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier and the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" immediately come to mind.

Record breaking moments, amazing streaks, and heroic postseason plays are often times retold to the point they become legendary.

As the San Francisco Giants try to determine whether they are going to buy or sell at the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, right fielder Nate Schierholtz is beginning to prove that he is a legitimate major leaguer.

We always heard that Schierholtz could play, but because of a variety of things—reliance on older players or the lack of regular playing time in the majors—he hasn't seen any real opportunity to show he could hang with the big boys.

There were a lot of high hopes for infielder Eugenio Velez when he first broke on the stage in 2007.

In a cup-of-coffee 14 game stint at the end of the 2007 season, Velez hit two triples, scored five runs, and stole four bases.

And he did this in only 13 plate appearances.

The following spring training, Velez tore it up and built on that small stint he had the previous season. The buzz about this kid was something special.

In the 2008 Sports Illustrated baseball preview, a club official likened Velez to Willie McGee.

The Giants number one prospect Madison Bumgarner just won again, but you know what? What else is new with this kid?

Madison Bumgarner is quickly becoming the David Price of this year and his numbers continue to show why the Giants regard him so high.

Let's take a look at his numbers between Advanced Single A and Double A.

W-L: 9-2

ERA: 1.63

CG: 1

IP: 77.1

SO: 66

Pretty spectacular numbers if you ask me. 

With a chance to take three out of four games against one of the best teams in baseball, it would make sense to keep your team's hottest hitters in the lineup.

But with Giants manager Bruce Bochy throwing out his 45,699th lineup of the season on Thursday, both right-fielder Nate Schierholtz and shortstop Edgar Renteria were absent from the lineup.

To be fair, after picking up 14 hits in a six-game stretch, Schierholtz went 0-for-4 in back-to-back games heading into Thursday's series finale.

After a dropped foul ball and a questionable non-strike call helped the Cardinals snap San Francisco's three-game winning streak, the month of July didn't start off the way the men in orange and black would have preferred.

However, the 2009 Giants still lead the Wild Card race coming into the second of July. Currently, San Francisco is still 1.5 games ahead of both the Cardinals and those pesky Colorado Rockies who have seemingly rose from the dead.

His locks free-flowing, and his quirky, juxtaposing windup spell out sentences in the book that is the 2009 San Francisco Giants.

Tim Lincecum is just the tasty, page-turning first chapter.

Everything else is falling into place. Everything for a team that was picked to finish, by some, fourth in the deplorable National League West.

They knew the pitching would be there, they knew that, but what they didn't know is that a slew of castoffs and no-namers would come to the helm and contribute on a daily basis to wins, spun by some of the best dealers on the mound.

Don't get me wrong, I like the direction the Giants are taking.

I like the fact that GM Brian Sabean has finally wised up and has stayed away from his usual dumb tactics.

Overspending on players and filling position needs with aging veterans past their prime seems to be a thing of the past.

Now, Sabean is giving shots to the young guys, the up-and-comers who were bred in the Giants farm system. It's a nice thing to see. It's nice to see players succeed for the Giants that come from our own organization, and not from some other team in the league.

I'll tell you what, although watching Albert Pujols hit two gigantic bombs last night was exciting, I would still much rather watch Jeremy Affeldt's intense celebrations after clutch double plays.

And I'll tell you another thing: Nobody would have predicted that come the dawn of July, the team with the second-best winning percentage in the National League would be 26th in runs scored, third to last (28th) in home runs, and dead last in walks.

However, for as putrid as those numbers may seem, the Giants would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.