Beginnings.

The play-offs begin.

Not for the Giants, but for the Rays and the Rangers, and the Yankees and Twins, and the Phillies and the Reds -- in short, everyone but us.

The Rangers and the Rays kicked the play-offs off. The Rangers taking the first of the series with an impressive 5-1 win, but that's not even the most impressive thing today.

The deal right now is that the Giants will play the Braves. If we win against the Braves, we move on to play the winner of the Reds and Phillies series.

The big name today?

Roy Halladay.

Pitching for the Phillies today, Halladay led the Phillies to a 0-4 win over Cinncinati, but that's not even the most impressive part.

Halladay threw his second no hitter of the season, in a play-off game.

The guys been waiting forever to get a chance like this, and he got out there, and just no-hit the Reds. The Phillies, the Phillies are a threat, and a lot of Giants fans hate 'em right now, but at this very moment, I'd really love to just congratulate Halladay, because SHIT that is crazy. His second no hitter of the season AND in a play-off game.

The Phillies have both Oswalt and Halladay, their other pitchers are solid as well. They depend on low scoring games. The Reds are the opposite. The Reds depend on hard hitters and not their pitching staff, thus they expect high scoring games. It'll be an interesting series, as the Reds, very much like the Giants, always battle it out until the end.

Speaking of the Giants.

Roster predictions anybody? There are a number of questions floating around the roster. The pitching line-up, the bullpen, and the line-up all need to be reduced. The questions are who to cut and who to keep. Cutting their $126 Million dollar pitcher Barry Zito is one of the options. Zito, if he's not in the starting rotation, we need to keep him in the bullpen. There are guys we can cut from there, not a lot, but they're all solid and we needs Zito's experience, and as stupid as it sounds, we need his presence. He's a big part of the team, so he shouldn't be cut. 

 How about Aaron Rowand? He isn't exactly a cheap item either. It seems that the Giants have paid a lot of money for a nice bench warmer. Thanks Rowand!

Rowand leads me to the outfield. Of course, we'll be seeing Torres out in center, that's without a doubt. We'll also probably see Burrell in left. Now out in right, we have Jose Guillen and Cody Ross. We also have Nate Scheirholtz who plays right, but we usually only see him as a replacement. Cody Ross also covers all three outfield positions.

Alright, knowing Bochy, he'll want to play Jose Guillen. In my opinion, this is a crappy move, but there's really nothing I can do to stop him. Guillen stops rallys, he doesn't cover very much ground in the outfield. His numbers aren't very impressive. He might be a home run threat, but there are other options in that field as well. He hits well against righties though, which is a legit reason for him to play against the Braves.

In my opinion, it should be Cody Ross out there.

Ross can cover all three outfield positions, he can cover ground wherever he's playing. His splits are much better than Guillen's; he can hit both righties and lefties, so he's not limited. He has power. He's having an off-year, but he's still better than Guillen. He doesn't have as many home runs, but they are tied for home runs as Giants. Jose Guillen is having a dry spell while Cody Ross has been hot, so it doesn't make sense to be playing Guillen over Ross. It doesn't make sense at all, not that sense is Bochy's biggest concern;

clearly.

Here's what I would propose:

My friend and I discussed this today, and he suggested...

We start with Cody out in right field. Play him until roughly the 5th or the 6th where the switch happens and Burrell and Guillen usually come out of the game. Burrell and Torres will of course start in the two other outfield positions.

During the switch, Cody, because he can play out three outfield spots, moves to left to cover Burrell, and Scheirholtz or Guillen, likely Guillen comes in to fill right field; Andres Torres would ideally stay in center.

if we are batting against a particular right handed batter, I have no problem with starting Guillen, so long as he doesn't play the entire game. I'd replace him with Scheirholtz and Burrell with Ross, but that's only a secondary option in comparison to the scenario above.

I'd like to point out my amazing ability to draw on Microsoft Paint -- it's a masterpiece.

actually, it's freaking impossible, whoever thought you could draw with a mouse is crazy.

Anyway, that's my only problem right now, the outfield. We'll see what happens tomorrow. It's likely that my amazing artwork will turn out inaccurate, but we can always hope for the best.

The epic search for tickets continues, in fact we are really, really, really close. Now if I can only think of an excuse to disappear from 6-9:30 for my dad, I'll be set!

Again, we'll see what happens.

It's all kind of a blur right now, but now pieces of the play-off puzzle are finally coming together.

Play-offs start tomorrow for the Giants...

it's nerve wrecking, it really is. Like everything else, we'll see what happens!!!!

I've got a lot of faith in this team, and this group of guys. I know they have it in them to win.

so, whether I'm sitting at home in front of my non-functional television or trying to listen to the game on broken earphones off of my iPhone, I'll still be cheering:

GO GIANTS!!!!!!!!!!

 let the games begin.