From the Merc

The Giants are above .500
and here, in the land of lousy sports, that’s cause for backflips. And
every day, we get better acquainted with Captain Sunshine Sandoval.

“He’s awesome,” said catcher Bengie Molina, who calls Sandoval one of the most special players he has run across in his 10-year major league career.

“He’s changed me,” Molina said. “He’s made it fun. He’s brought so much light and energy.”

Sandoval
is, simply, a delight. He loves playing. He never complains. He gets
better every day, right before our eyes. He has an exuberance that has
long been missing around the Giants, which spent the past decade or so
perfecting the art of dour.

Last year, Barry Zito dubbed Sandoval “Kung Fu Panda” after the goofy creature in last year’s animated film.

“He just resembles a character,” Zito said.

Like
a cartoon character, Sandoval always seems to do something physically
impossible — kind of like the Road Runner. Zito tagged him “panda”
after Sandoval leapt over the catcher at home plate last year. Even in
a loss, Sandoval does something eye-popping.

Wednesday, he made a leaping, backward-bending catch of a blistering line drive. All 246 pounds of Pablo was airborne. And when he landed, he casually blew an enormous pink bubble.

“I just had to be ready in the moment,” Sandoval said. “I knew it was a fastball count and he’d try to pull the ball.”

mlb.com
three multiple-hit games entering Monday, knocked in a two-out run vs LA. See the video.

Also: the Panda drew a walk and stole a base. Look out Rickey Henderson.

Brilliant post at despio.com pointing out that a big time Chicago Trib sports writer, Phil Rogers, referred to our Panda, Pablo Sandoval, as “Pablo Escobar” who was, unfortunately, a notorious Colombian Medellin Cartel member.

Third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s two errors, which doubled his Cactus
League total, might have been a mild concern to Giants fans. Bochy,
however, remained patient.

“It’s going to take a couple of days to adjust to this infield,”
Bochy said. “It’s a completely different type of infield than he’s used
to playing on.”

For one thing, it’s a much better infield than the ones in Arizona,
which were sun-baked and produced bad hops. But the pace of groundballs
at AT&T is slower, which could have thrown Sandoval a changeup,
figuratively speaking.

“The ball’s not getting on you quite as quickly,” Bochy said. He
also noted that Thursday night’s stiff wind could have altered the
course of a grounder or two — that’s right, it doesn’t happen with
just fly balls — which would have flummoxed Sandoval further.

Sandoval also went 3-for-4 with a double, triple and two RBIs. Overall, he did just fine.

– Chris Haft

I’m not too worried about Pablito’s D, though it’ll be harder on him to be prepared for two positions for every game. But excusing errors by saying the turf is too good and the wind pushed it, that’s bush. Don’t make excuses for him, just let him play.

Oh, by the way, still crushing the ball. I’m ready for these to count.

USA TODAY
• March 4, 2009

At 5-11 and 245 pounds, Sandoval doesn’t remind anyone of Mike Schmidt, but he’s a good athlete and a willing student. He has been working on his footwork and backhanding balls and says he has no trouble separating hitting from fielding regardless of where he plays.

“I did that last year when they brought me up to the majors,” Sandoval said. “It wasn’t easy, but you can make it look easy if you work hard at it and show you’re willing to learn something new every day.”