Alex Smith this afternoon or the Giants this offseason both have plenty to prove.
After seven days of the 49er Faithful pushing his bandwagon, Smith has to build upon the “cold-blooded” status he earned during last week’s upset of the Philadelphia Eagles.
Smith showed he can win a big game against a good team. Definitely a step forward.
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As the sun finally set on the Giants’ defense of their first Bay Area world championship, another clock started ticking.
There can be no more delay. There can be no more if Brandon Belt develops, and Aubrey Huff rebounds or buts connected to Barry Zito’s contract. The Giants need to prove to Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain that there will be legitimate run support in their future.
Otherwise, the future of both aces may not be in the Bay Area.
This is not a slap at the franchise or the area. This is simply common sense.
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The first thing the Giants have to realize as they look forward to 2012 is that they can’t replicate 2010, when they got big contributions from aging veterans. They’re going to have to look more at — gasp — younger players.
One of them, Gary Brown, played at San Jose this last season and had a sensational year, hitting .336 with a .409 on-base percentage, stealing 53 bases and hitting for some power, too, with 34 doubles, 13 triples and 14 home runs, while playing a good defensive center field.
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Bruce Bochy made no plans for October. He fully planned to be working.
Instead, he will be busy in the coming days and weeks with player evaluations, sit-downs with his returning coaching staff, organizational meetings and a visit to the Arizona Fall League.
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What happened to the Giants? The better question is, what didn’t happen to the Giants?
From Opening Day, when they were beaten by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw — and Buster Posey was still healthy — there was a sense this year might be as frustrating as last year was elating.
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World Series momentum, a full field of All-Stars and dynamite pitching kept Giants in it till the end, but injuries, misfortune, a lack of a consistent offense derailed Giants’ chances at a repeat.
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The Tampa Bay Rays have exposed the A’s ownership team of Lew Wolff and John Fisher. So have the Giants.
The A’s official line is that they can’t compete because of a bad stadium which keeps them from attracting top free agents and low attendance which forces them to keep their payroll low.
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This is the way it ends, with a lot of cheers, a few tears and, once again, if not an unused ticket in a ballpark sold out from first game to last, certainly a lot of unfulfilled hopes.
In this season of 2011, the year after the World Series, the Giants broke their all-time attendance record, luring 3,387,303 fans. Yet in their attempt to repeat as Series champions, they couldn’t even get to the playoffs, breaking a great many hearts.
“We had planned on working in October,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said ruefully.
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As the Giants get ready to hand the house keys over to the Cal football team following this afternoon’s season finale, there’s a goofy idea floating around AT&T Park that the dethroned World Series champs should consider a stadium reconfiguration to boost their anemic power numbers.
Prompted in part by a recent announcement that the Mets are planning to move in the fences at Citi Field in 2012, some baseball insiders are speculating the Giants will also make their waterfront park more homer-friendly.
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The fact that the Giants didn’t repeat as division winners, let alone as World Series champs, is less surprising than the fact they stayed in the race as long as they did.
They were bucking history in trying to repeat as world champions. In more than a century, only two National League teams have repeated: the Cincinnati Reds (1975-76) and the Chicago Cubs (1907-08).
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