Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
As the 2016 San Francisco Giants season is about to get under way it’s time roll out what I hope is a regular feature here on TortureCast. Welcome to “The Friday Five”. Each week I’ll take a look at a few different things going on with the Giants. It’s a chance to look ahead to the weekend as well as catch up on anything that you might have missed during the previous few days.
- The long, cold void of winter is over. Monday morning at 11 am the Giants open their regular season in Milwaukee. Madison Bumgarner (career: 85-58, 3.04 ERA) gets the ball for his 3rd straight Opening Day start. In the previous two openers Bumgarner has allowed 1 earned run in 11 innings of work. The Brewers send RHP Wily Peralta (35-37, 4.04 ERA) to the hill for his 1st career Opening Day start. The current Giants roster is batting .361 against Peralta so we may see lots of scoring in tiny MIller Park to start 2016.
- In case you missed it, earlier this week Andrew Susac was optioned to Sacramento. With that move Trevor Brown won the backup catcher role to start the season. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of Susac as the season moves along, if he can stay healthy. I poked around the Giants 25-man roster this past Monday.
- In ex-Giants news, the former lovable panda known as Pablo Sandoval has lost his job as the starting 3rd baseman in Boston. The 29-year old will begin the second season of a 5-year/$95 million contract on the bench. Feels like the Giants dodged a bullet when Pablo decided to leave town.
- Tweet of the week, make sure you check out this Brandon Crawford piece:
“If they think you can help the team out, they’ll call you up.”@BCraw35 on the @SFGiants
https://t.co/kKv9VsjP28 pic.twitter.com/qdiDPf5c4r
— The Players’ Tribune (@PlayersTribune) March 31, 2016
- To finish off “The Friday Five” every week I’ll link to various Giants and baseball related stories that caught my eye during the previous 7 days. Here’s a few to get us going.
- We’re recording our 100th episode of TortureCast this weekend. Submit your questions to be answered on the show. See if you can stump us with trivia, share a favorite moment from the show, or just drop a line about the 2016 team.
- In the SB Nation season preview, Grant Brisbee looked at what teams would look like without trades or free agents. It’s fun to see which teams some of today’s stars originally signed with.
- The Giants were picked to lose the Wild Card game in that SB Nation preview.
- Over on ESPN, two of their “experts” pick the Giants to win it all. To be fair, most have them in the playoffs and 5 of 31 analysts have the Giants winning the NL.
- Sticking with the prediction theme, Sports Illustrated’s panel loves the Cubs and no one picks the Giants to win it all.
- Finally for the predictions, Fox Sports checks in with theirs. Once again the Giants don’t get much love.
- Make sure to head over to r/SFGiants. It’s fun place to interact with Giants fans from all over the world.
It’s great to be back for another season of talking about Giants baseball. You can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and make sure to subscribe to our podcast on Stitcher and iTunes.
Don’t forget, our season preview is coming in our 100th episode this weekend. Thanks for all of the downloads, listens, and shares. It’s going to be another interesting Giants season.
-Eric
The TortureCast 