SAN DIEGO, Sept. 7 (UPI) — Brett Pill made his major league debut Tuesday with a two-run homer that helped lead the San Francisco Giants past San Diego 6-4.

Pill cleared the leftfield fence in his first at-bat at Petco Park to give the Giants a 2-0 lead and help move San Francisco to six games behind first-place Arizona in the National League West.

Carlos Beltran went 3-for-4 with three RBI for the Giants.

Eric Surkamp (1-0) prevailed in his second major league start, holding San Diego to three runs on five hits in five innings. Ramon Ramirez notched his fourth save.

Wade LeBlanc (2-5) took the loss. He allowed four runs on eight hits over five innings.

Nick Hundley homered off Surkamp in the second inning for the spiraling Padres, who have dropped 11 of their last 12 games.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—The San Francisco Giants have placed outfielder Nate
Schierholtz(notes) on the 15-day disabled list to make room for left-hander Eric
Surkamp(notes), who will make his major league debut against the Houston Astros on
Saturday night.

The Giants must still make room for Surkamp on the 40-man roster.

Schierholtz, who expected the move, tested his fractured right foot Friday
and was still too sore to play. He fouled a pitch from Atlanta’s Tim Hudson(notes) off
his foot in the series opener with the Braves on Aug. 15.

Schierholtz played through it, then had an MRI during Monday’s off day. A CT
scan followed to confirm the fracture.

Since his call-up on May 26th, Brandon Crawford has been a steady hand defensively at shortstop.

Besides his grand slam in his debut against the Brewers, Crawford has done little offensively, hitting a measly .216/.310/.324. 

Fortunately, the Giants were interested more in his glove than his bat, and they have been rewarded. Crawford’s solid defense has been a marked improvement over Miguel Tejada’s board hands, and has helped keep the Giants in close contests.

Having a fortified middle infield has done wonders in improving what was a very porous Giants defense.

Crawford should also be recognized for playing competitive ball coming straight from High-A San Jose. A .216 average might not be good by major league standards, but it sure is impressive for an emergency call-up who had never played higher than Double-A in his life.

The Giants may not have had the best defense range-wise in 2010, but they were able to make the plays on everything they got to.

The Giants defense is subpar in 2011, but most of their errors came early on. The Giants are currently 13th-worst in the National League in errors with 40 and 12th in the league in fielding percentage at .983.

According to Baseball-Reference, as a team, San Francisco’s Rtot (the number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made) is minus-three, so their defense has slightly cost them a few runs.

One glaring defensive question mark is Miguel Tejada. As a shortstop this season, Tejada has made six errors and has a .942 fielding percentage in 27 games—with an Rtot of minus-three.

The Giants have made the most of Tejada by placing him at third base while Pablo Sandoval is recovering from his injury. Tejada has responded nicely by making just one error in 27 games, with an Rtot of four and a .988 fielding percentage.

If the Giants want to repeat as champions in 2011, they will have to continue doing something they excelled at last season—catching the ball.

Vinnie Cestone is a Baseball/San Francisco Giants Featured Columnist for The Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained first-hand or from official materials from ESPN or the Major League Baseball website.

 
This article was featured on The Talking Giants Baseball Blog.

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The San Francisco Giants used their 116th overall pick on first baseman Ricky Oropesa out of USC, and when they took him, the Giants knew what they were in for. Oropesa has insane power, maybe one of the most powerful bats in this year’s draft, and there’s video to prove it.

Here’s a clip from a 2010 game against UCLA that Oropesa takes Erik Goeddel yard on the second pitch he sees:

USC Sophomore 1B Ricky Oropesa (vs. UCLA) (via rkyosh007)

You can tell that Ricky has one thing on his mind at the plate, and that’s to absolutely destroy the baseball. He generates a lot of his power is his legs and hips, almost turning his back to the ball before uncoiling his devastatingly smooth swing. It almost looks too easy for him here, like Goeddel gift-wrapped a fastball for him. Let’s just hope that Ricky can turn out more like his first base counterpart Brandon Belt or maybe even an Albert Pujols, instead of someone like Pedro Cerrano.

We’ll be here for the next three days covering the 2011 MLB Draft. For more in-depth discussion about the Giants head to McCovey Chronicles. For more general minor league and draft discussion, check out Minor League Ball and Baseball Nation.

The Freak.  The Franchise.  Big Time Timmy Jim.

Whatever you choose to call him, he has managed to become not only the face of the contemporary San Francisco Giants, but has etched his name in the history books, both with the Giants and Major League Baseball, in just his first five big league seasons.

Tim Lincecum is just shy of his 27th birthday, and already he has collected two National League Cy Young awards and a World Series ring.

Lincecum has led the National League in strikeouts in each of the last three seasons, and on June 6 recorded his 1,000th career strikeout, becoming the second fastest to reach that mark behind Kerry Wood, and just the eighth player to reach that number in his first five seasons.

The Giants ace has struck out opposing hitters at phenomenal rates, leading the National League in strikeouts per nine innings in each of the last three seasons, and averaging an astounding ten strikeouts per nine innings pitched over his entire career.

Lincecum is already a three-time National League All-Star and is likely to be appearing in his fourth All-Star game this July.

What Lincecum accomplished in the 2010 postseason was legendary.  It began in his first career postseason start against the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, in which he pitched a complete game shutout with a franchise postseason record 14 strikeouts. 

It ended with a ten-strikeout masterpiece in Game 5 of the World Series, when Lincecum recorded the win in the deciding contest, giving San Francisco its first world championship.

Number 55 is just entering his prime, and will in all likelihood be at the top of this list when all is said and done.