Giants' stock rising with more than Bonds

Stuck in neutral, yet loaded with talent.

No, not the Atlanta Braves, who simply don't stay dormant for a whole season.

The San Francisco Giants, after 63 games, stood one game below the .500 mark. And while many baseball observers surely expected them to break out of their funk -- as they did last year after a sluggish pair of opening months -- the inevitability factor which exists for the Braves and Yankees of the world could not be applied to last year's N.L. West champions.

As Barry Bonds continues to swat home runs left and right, it's important to consider the plight of the Seattle Mariners. Just what did they do in recent years (1998 and '99, to be exact) when Ken Griffey Jr. and the Mariners routinely belted balls out of the Kingdome and Safeco Field? They floundered.

Seattle's offense became one-dimensional and lacked the ability to manufacture runs. A pitching staff crippled by the loss of Randy Johnson, the struggles of Jeff Fassero, and a god-awful bullpen couldn't make up for the Mariners' prodigious power.

And so it had been for the Giants this year. While everyone stood and admired Bonds' electrifying power display, everyone else on the Giants, with the exception of Rich Aurilia, forgot to bring their hitting shoes. Combined with the team's struggles at the dish, Livan Hernandez -- last year's number one starter and the man Dusty Baker entrusted with Game 1 of the Division Series against the New York Mets -- couldn't find the rhythm that made him so effective in the 2000 season.

On top of Hernandez's struggles in Y2K plus one, what increased fears even more in Giant Land was the fact that Hernandez's marked drop-off had a precedent: his decline in the years following his magical October in 1997 with the Florida Marlins. General Manager Brian Sabean pulled off a major coup when he plucked Hernandez from the Marlins, and a rejuvenated Hernandez -- back on a winner and out of the baseball hellhole known as Miami -- performed like a champion. After the first few months of this season, however, Hernandez needed to regain that form in midstream, something that is profoundly difficult if your name is not (Greg) Maddux or (Tom) Glavine or (Andy) Pettitte.

Make no mistake about it: at the plate and on the mound, the Giants -- to a man -- could not count on waiting out losing streaks and assume their talent would rise to the top. Too many questions existed, and one previous season of excellence does not a division champion make - -not if you're anyone other than Atlanta or the Bombers.

With this dynamic in mind, it seems as though the Giants finally, and truly, did turn their season in the right direction this past week.

Forget the fact that they won six straight games,--,just about anyone does that at some point in a 162-game season. Forget the fact that the Giants are now tied with the reeling Los Angeles Dodgers for second place in the N.L. West.

What's important is that the Giants' pitching staff, with Hernandez playing a part, has righted itself, and that San Francisco is coming out on the sunshine side of tough, low-scoring games.

Consider Saturday's 2-1 win over Oakland. Hernandez pitched eight strong innings, giving up just a solitary run. Yet, entering the bottom of the eighth at Pac Bell Park, the Giants trailed, 1-0. A loss, and any of the confidence Hernandez might have gained from his performance could have been snuffed out, smothered by the time Livan would take the mound again.

Instead, the Giants -- and not Mr. Bonds -- used three straight hits (by Aurilia, Armando Rios, and Benito Santiago), none of them homers, to score twice and tip the A's, 2-1. When a team wins several games, what's just as important as the wins themselves is the way the wins are accomplished. The fact that the Giants have won with pitching is an indicator that they're ready to make a serious push with sustained and consistent ball over the long haul. When anyone makes a run with pitching, that's a telltale sign that good times are a comin'.

When Kirk Reuter wins consecutive decisions with just three runs of support each time; when Russ Ortiz wins a 1-0 game; and when Shawn Estes leads the league in ERA, San Francisco baseball fans can't exactly call a playoff appearance a lock the same way Seattle Mariner fans can today, or as Braves fans and Yankee fans did in the past... but the outlook is a darn sight better than it had been just one week ago.