Answers, questions and hope

I talked to both Bien Figueroa and Dave Maroul tonight.

Bien said Maroul playing second or short is a product of two things. First, he wants better defense up the middle than what the team's been giving and hopes that maybe Maroul's athletic ability can help. To that, Maroul told me the Giants had him play the entire spring at second two years ago, so the position isn't entirely foreign. The first night he was there in Portland he said was weird, but he got used to it quickly.

Figueroa's other concern is that he has no other middle infielders and needs to be able to rest Kyle Haines and Olmo Rosario. Rosario from what I can tell is the player Figueroa is most concerned about defensively.

This is what makes no sense. Nate Bump went on the DL again today and there was no replacement. Brooks McNiven leaves Monday for Toronto to join up with Team Canada for the Olympics. By Monday there will be two open slots on the roster and no guarantee that they'll be filled or that a middle infielder will be one of the replacements when they do arrive.

As for Ben Snyder, he's been over matched but looked good for the most part tonight. He struck out five over four and then after letting two guys single to start the fifth, struck out the next two before drowning. I don't expect him to leave. What the rotation looks like right now in no particular order:

Martinez
Broshuis
Cowart
McKae
Snyder

The crowd was fantastic. Announced -- and looked like -- 7,070. That's the largest I recall in a few years outside of the All-Star Game. What really impressed me was how after Pablo Sandoval (3-for-4, 5 RBI) finished talking to Matt Martinez on the field for the radio postgame, the fans behind the first base dugout cheered for him. Folks, if you don't realize we have something special in town in the form of Little Papi (trust me, don't go with Papisito -- it doesn't translate to what we think).

My worry with anyone getting their hopes up is that a vast majority of the tickets I was told by one Defenders employee on Friday was bought up by people there for the armed forces salute prior top the game (notice the camo jerseys). Charlie Dowd said that was not correct. either way, over 13,000 fans packed into Dodd Stadium the last two nights. Also, the team passed Harrisburg in league attendance.

I also want to mention the excellent hitting of Adam Witter this month. .318 and counting. He'll catch Joey tomorrow with Pablo likely to DH.