Coaching staff the real MVPs

Forget your Poseys, Pandas, and Scutaros for a second.

I know it's hard, but just try not to think of individual performances for a second and transport yourself back to the beginning of the season.

Think about what you wanted this team's goals to be-- both for each player and collectively.

All we wanted was Pagan and Cabrera (sorry) to be better than 4th outfielders. We wanted Brandon Crawford to play good defense, and if he hit his weight, we'd be thrilled.

We wanted Brandon Belt to get playing time and to learn how to hit with any kind of consistency. We fought amongst each other all season as to whether he should be sent down-- whether he had the mental makeup to deal with his situation.

We didn't think Hector Sanchez was ready to catch a big league pitching staff coming out of Spring Training. He was too raw, we were told. Joaquin Arias was a random infielder who we knew very little about. He impressed in Spring, and with the injury to Freddy Sanchez, he made the team and never looked back. He made the final play of Matt Cain's perfect game and has racked up clutch hits.

With Brian Wilson shelved very early on, Santiago Casilla stepped up until the all-star break, closing out games with authority. Now that's Sergio Romo's job-- something he's never done before.

We PRAYED that Buster Posey would be able to play 100 games and thought 15 HR and 70 RBI with a .280 avg. would've been a great comeback story. We all know how that turned out.

Look at our starting pitchers. We expected ZERO from Barry Zito. Many of us, including me, just said eat the guy's contract and get someone-- ANYONE in here other than him to be the 5th starter.

When it became apparent that there was something dreadfully wrong with Tim Lincecum, the staff never gave up on him or his season. They continued to cart him out there, always treating him with the respect and waaayyyyy-tooooo-long rope earned by being a two-time Cy Young winner.

They worked with him, watched tape, talked to his dad-- anything that would get their ace back to some semblance of respectability. He seems to have found that respectability as a reliever of all things.

Vogelsong and Bumgarner had incredible first halves, but tailed off badly after the all-star break.

Now look at them. Shutdown baseball in the playoffs-- seemingly out of nowhere.

Pablo Sandoval, still not up to required fitness standards, struggled at times this season-- frustrating all involved. Instead of rehabbing his hamate bone, he was out until all hours in a Santa Cruz resort getting into trouble. He fell in and out of his old ways at the plate; impressing sometimes, maddening us in others.

Now look at him.


We don't see what goes on behind the scenes or on the practice field, but it's clear that this coaching staff constantly spins thread into gold on their baseball loom. It's unbelievable.

Remember when we led the league in errors in the early season? Remember that game in Houston when we had all absolutely HAD it with Crawford and his errors? Seems like a long time ago.

Now? His coaches and his hard work have molded him into a Gold Glove candidate who hit .248-- higher than the .235 we were praying for.

He hit .204 last year.

So much tangible improvement by so many players during the season didn't happen by accident. So many in-game moves and questionable lineup moves by Bochy have turned to gold seemingly every time.

When we all scorned George Kontos for constantly allowing his inherited runners to score, and demanded to know why Bochy continued to cart him out there during similar situations, we got our answer when he came into huge situations in the NLDS, and up until his last two outings, has shut it down.

Gardy the bullpen guru.

The entire coaching staff has left an indelible mark on this 2012 season, something that I can only compare to 2010's magic or perhaps even the turnaround by the 49ers from 2010 to 2011.

Mark Gardner in the bullpen has overcome the loss of our closer and the entrance of new players like Jose Mijares and the aforementioned Kontos. He got Casilla back on track after he'd seemingly lost everything in July. He has managed to keep this bullpen together when it seemingly was running out of steam during the dog days.

Dave Righetti is a magician. Overseeing the entire pitching staff while it regressed and befuddled all, Rags managed to keep it between the lines. Look at the job he's done with Barry Zito! Absolutely incredible.

Rags, the miracle worker.

Look what he's done with Vogelsong and Bumgarner for God's sake! Vogey is our #1 and Bumgarner just threw 7 scoreless in the World Series after being left for dead. He turned a guy struggling to keep his 2012 postseason ERA under 15.00 into a World Series hero in a matter of a week.

As for Bochy? What more can I say. He's just unbelievable.

I've likened him to a big oil tanker at sea. It takes him forever to get moving, and even longer to change course. Sometimes that's a good thing though.

If he made every little knee-jerk decision we demanded of him on Twitter, Crawford, Belt, and Kontos would probably be in AAA, and God knows what would be happening with Lincecum and Zito.

I know I'm gushing like a schoolgirl here, but this staff needed this kind of recognition. Ron Wotus, Tim Flannery, and Shawon Dunston invisibly tutoring the infielders, Will Clark handing out pointers during BP, Billy Hayes down there in the bullpen teaching Hector Sanchez how to catch Tim Lincecum-- it just goes on and on...

Bam Bam and Belty.

Bam Bam Meulens? Another miracle worker.

We couldn't hit last year worth a damn, and newly acquired players like Pagan, Scutaro, Pence, and a healthy Posey have definitely helped that tremendously. BUT, one cannot discount the work put in with young guys like Crawford and Belt-- seemingly lost at the plate. You have Pagan beasting around since early August and Posey contending for the MVP while we annihilate the Cardinals and Tigers in back to back games.

Kudos Bam Bam. Seriously.

I know I've rambled here. I can't help it. Every time I thought of one example of great coaching, another jumped out at me. If the Giants do indeed win two more games this season and manage to accomplish this crazy feat of winning it all twice in three years, it will be due in great part to the magnificence of this group of men assembled as the Giants' coaching staff.

Bullpen issues plague the Giants

Scutaro completes yet another comeback.

We know how to come back from behind, that's for sure. This team, like 2010, seems to never say die, and always seems to get it done in the late innings. Lord, do we appreciate that, but how about sometimes we just don't fall behind to begin with?

Our pitching ain't what it was, that's for damn sure. We got spoiled with our superior rotation and superior bullpen and superior closer. The honest to God truth is that we have a slightly above average bullpen, and a strong rotation. Sorry. No superiority here.

Vogelsong has had a few rough starts, Lincecum is about as steady as a heroin addict trying to detox on ice skates, and Zito is just a wild card.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that Bruce Bochy, as solid as he is in so many decisions, continually sticks with the wrong guys until it's too late.

You see what he does with Zito and Lincecum now. They're on a short-ass leash. He's starting to view them like the rest of us. He can tell when they don't have it and knows when things are inevitably going to spiral out of control.

He yanks them.

Well it's time for Bruce to start being more careful with this bullpen.

I get it. He's a player's manager. He's loyal, he's understanding, and he's even-keeled. He doesn't make knee-jerk reactions like the rest of us. Bruce Bochy is like one of those big ass fuel tankers out in the ocean. It takes forever for him to stop and change direction, but when he does, his new course is usually the correct one. You can see a demonstration of this when he walks to the mound to make a pitching change. You can almost hear his old catcher's knees creaking like a haunted house's unoiled hinges and loose floorboards.

If I have one request of the skipper these days, it is the following:

It's time to relegate George Kontos to a smaller role, and Shane Loux is to be removed from the discussion entirely.

It's like, "Dude. Do you not understand that George Kontos lets two thirds of his inherited runners to score?"

For Christ's sake Bruce, he does it almost EVERY TIME.

This is the #1 Google Image result for George Kontos.

Technically as of this page's updating, he's allowed 10 of 21 inherited runners to score, 12 of 23 if it hadn't been updated since Sunday.

The point is that Kontos cannot deal with the pressure of coming into a sticky situation.

As bad as Casilla has been at times this season, he's still only allowed 7 of 25 inherited runners to score. Why not bring him in during a jam in the 6th? He's not the closer anymore, does it really matter when he comes in?

I know my ranting isn't the best writing job, but this can't be something all of you are not already upset about.

And Shane Loux? Dude, I'm sorry this whole baseball thing hasn't worked out. You stuck with it, but you're like 31, and it ain't happening. Hopefully you can find success in another field. Maybe coaching or something.

All I know is that if Bochy carts him out there again, I'm going to pull my hair out. He was sent to Fresno for a reason earlier this season-- just like Steve Edlefsen-- and he has no business pitching in a pennant race. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Now this Jean Machi character may have something to contribute. He's 30, and you just saw his solid outing against Arizona as his first major league appearance. He looked good. Let's give him a shot.

It's all just very unsettled and scary to me other than Romo and Lopez.

I have a feeling that Bochy is just trying to rest some of the important arms by giving some September callups an inning or two, I get that. But, some of these guys just aren't able to contribute in all situations.

If there's just one point to this badly structured rant of a blog post, it's that Kontos needs to start innings, not finish them. We see it, why has it taken so long for Bochy to see it?

Anyway, that's what I've got right now. Nothing profound was said here, but I'm just thinking out loud and trying to make sense of some of these moves.

Let's just keep winning!