When the Oakland A's brought in Jason Giambi as a free agent they knew what they were getting. He was going to strengthen the lineup and add a powerful left handed hitter into the lineup as well.
Also, what was known was Giambi's excellent eye at the plate. Well his plate discipline has been horrific and he's been far from impressive in the start of his second stint as an A.
In tonight's game against the Seattle Mariners the A's had an excellent chance of getting some runs back after starting pitcher Dallas Braden allowed two in the top of the first.
Giambi is up with the bases loaded and Jarrod Washburn struggling with his command it was the perfect opportunity for Giambi to do some damage.
The first pitch he swung at he just missed, but it was the next pitch he swung at which wasn't even close to being a strike and the pitch that he struck out on after getting the count to 2-2 were not even close to being in the strike zone.
The good news was that Giambi didn't hit into a double play, but the bad news was that Adam Kennedy grounded out to end the inning without the A's scoring any runs after making Washburn work.
The question is when is Giambi going to start hitting better? He isn't going to be a .300 hitter that he used to be but he should be able to hit at least .260 and hit some more homeruns, he's only got five on the year.
Maybe it's time for Giambi to start using the defensive alignments towards him. Even with runners on base teams are playing the shift against him meaning that he has not used it to his advantage. He pretty much has the third base side of of the field to work with.
If he wasn't trying to pull so many pitches he would start getting that batting average up and teams would be respecting the fact that he is now taking the ball to the opposite field which means once that happens he can look to pull the ball again.
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