Giants claim San Diego Padres closer Heath Bell on waivers

[Auggie]

From espn.com:

Bell will become a member of the Giants' bullpen if San Francisco and San Diego can agree to terms on a trade. San Diego has 48 hours to decide whether to trade the three-time All-Star, allow him to be claimed or pull him back from waivers.

SNIP

The Giants continue their series against the Padres on Wednesday night. Bell earned his 35th save in the Padres' victory Tuesday night.

"If I'm still a Padre I'm going to try to beat the Giants. If things change, then things change," Bell said Wednesday.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/6892003/san-francisco-giants-claim-heath-bell-san-diego-padres-waivers

Giants closer Brian Wilson is on the disabled list with inflammation in his right elbow.

They're not giving up. Wow.

[hughee99]

1. As I said at the beginning of the season...

the Giants will have, by far, the best pitching staff on the golf course in October.

[Auggie]

2. Quite likely, hughee99...

but not necessarily for the reasons you or other naysayers might have thought.

[hughee99]

5. I thought it was going to be because they can't hit and score runs.

I didn't doubt their staff at all. Every team is going to have injury problems, and the Giants could get by with some pitchers missing time, but they couldn't afford to have ANY offensive injuries. Even almost all of their healthy hitters aren't producing. They are last in MLB in runs, second to last in BA and OBP.

If they could get in the playoffs, they'd still have a decent chance, because their pitching is that good. They'd just need to pray for timely hitting, but your offense can't be THIS bad and expect to make it though 162 game regular season.

[Upton]

3. If the Giants don't make it..

they can justifiably blame injuries. Just like the Red Sox did last year..

[hughee99]

4. I agree.

The problem is that their hitting is SO thin, they couldn't afford to lose anyone. Once Posey went down (and I was skeptical that he would be enough to make a difference this year anyway), they could have 5 Cy Young candidates and still miss the playoffs. They needed to address that in the offseason and really did not. "Timely" hitting, which they had plenty of last season, isn't an sustainable recipe for success. They have a team full of what would be 7-8-9 hitters on most other teams. A decent bounce back for the Panda, though.

Keep the Panda, Posey, Belt and maybe Schierholtz and send the rest packing. You can't fill a team with older guys who can't hit for average or power, and don't have a future upside either.