Pablo Sandoval hasn’t looked completely lost at the plate, but his .161 start after eight games was mentioned by Brian Sabean yesterday when he discussed the team’s decision to table contract talks for the time being. “He might be pressing a little bit because it’s in his head one way or the other,” the Giants general manager said.
Bruce Bochy was asked about a few questions about Sandoval this afternoon.
Q: Can an impending free agent’s contract situation affect his play on the field?
Bochy: The hope is that it doesn’t. There are times when it does affect the player. They have to understand that it’s part of the business of baseball. Both sides have to agree on something, and right now that’s not happening. So the only thing you can do is concentrate on what you were supposed to do, and that’s play baseball. That’s where Pablo says he’s at. He says he’s not getting caught up in the contract. It’s something that we’ll take care of. That’s the only thing you can have, and hopefully that’s the case with Pablo.
Q: Has he talked to Sandoval about any of this?
Bochy: I briefly talked to him a while back when all this started, just to make sure he wasn’t thinking about. He said, “Hey, I don’t even know where they’re at and what they’re talking about. My agents are handling this. I’m just going to come out here and play.”
Q: How has he looked at the plate recently?
Bochy: I like his approach right now. He’s seeing pitches, showing some discipline out there. He’s a guy that should have better numbers with the hard-hit outs he’s made. It’s such a small sample size, but he’s swinging better than .160. I’m not sure what he’s hitting He’s swinging better than that.
***
— I wrote about Sabean’s comments and a couple reasons why the Giants might not have room for Sandoval earlier today.
— Jeremy Affeldt, who pitched a scoreless inning for Fresno on Sunday, is slated to pitch tomorrow for San Jose. The plan is to get him to pitch back-to-back days, and Bochy said the Giants are expecting to activate him off the disabled list within a week or so.
