Monday, April 5, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. Pacific
 

KEVORK DJANSEZIAN / AP Barry Bonds AL West AL Central AL East NL West 1. San Diego Padres 2. Arizona Diamondbacks 3. Los Angeles Dodgers 4. San Francisco Giants 5. Colorado Rockies NL Central NL East Baseball '04 main

4. San Francisco Giants
 
He's here: C A.J. Pierzynski, OF Dustan Mohr, OF Michael Tucker, RHP Brett Tomko, LHP Wayne Franklin.

He's outta here: RHP Sidney Ponson (Baltimore), RHP Joe Nathan (Minnesota), OF Jose Cruz Jr. (Tampa Bay), SS Rich Aurilia (Seattle), C Benito Santiago (Kansas City).

Ranking the rotation: 2nd in the division, 15th overall. Kirk Rueter is a Jamie Moyer type. Brett Tomko will eat innings, give up a lot of runs and finish around .500. The key to this group is the health of Jason Schmidt (starting the season on the DL) at the top of the rotation and Dustin Hermanson at the bottom.

Written in Stone: No team seems more ripe for a fall than the Giants, who rode a 13-1 start last year to 100 wins and a wire-to-wire division title. They enter the season with their ace (Schmidt) and closer (Robb Nen) both on the DL while recovering from arm surgeries. The rotation behind Schmidt is spotty, and the bulk of the lineup is uninspiring — but the Giants can never be counted out as long as they still have the big guy in left field. How he got to be so big will be a season-long issue, of course, but Barry Bonds remains the most disruptive force in the game. Even he can't do it alone, however. Giants GM Brian Sabean has a track record of building better teams than they appear on paper, but this could be the year the magic runs out.

Lineup card

P Hitters Avg. HR RBI 2B Ray Durham .285 8 33 1B J.T. Snow .273 8 51 CF Marquis Grissom .300 20 79 LF Barry Bonds .341 45 90 3B Edgardo Alfonzo .259 13 81 RF Michael Tucker .262 13 55 C A.J. Pierzynski .312 11 74 SS Neifi Perez .256 1 31

TH Starters W-L ERA SO RH Jason Schmidt 17-5 2.34 208 LH Kirk Rueter 10-5 4.53 41 RH Brett Tomko 13-9 5.28 114 RH Jerome Williams 7-5 3.30 88 RH Dustin Hermanson 3-3 4.06 39   TH Closer W-L ERA SV RH Matt Herges 3-2 2.62 3