Pleasant surprises.

All through spring training, I kept hearing about how the Giants would lose 100 games this season, how they would be historically bad offensively, and how only Lincecum and Cain coul;d keep them from the all-time loss record.  And I have to admit, watching their performance this spring didn't seem to offer much evidence to the contrary.  Things looked bad, dear reader, very bad indeed.

Jump to June 10th.  The Giants just swept a four game series in Washington, and find themselves in the middle of the division standings, only 5 games behind the division leaders, and only 1.5 games behind second place LA.  Now, don't get me wrong.  The Giants won't win the division.  Not even close.  They may get a sniff at second place in the coming weeks, especially if LA keeps playing the way they have recently, but they probably won't even end up that high in the standings.  I will say this, though: I have a lot more hope for the future with this Giants squad than I did three months ago.  They are winning games, they're winning close games, they're getting great pitching (with Jonathan Sanchez being a surprise contributor in that department), and most importantly, they are doing it with their young players.  Fred Lewis is playing every day.  John Bowker has been getting most of the starts at first recently, and has looked like a real big-league hitter.  Burriss and Holm have contributed.  

I feel like the Giants, while still a few years away from really contending, are FINALLY handing the team over to the next generation of players.  Things are looking up.