T. G. I. O. (Thankfully for the Giants, It's October)

Man, that was one long, depressing baseball season.

Herewith, the highlights and lowlights for the 2005 San Francisco Giants.

The good (not much, but there was some):

• Randy Winn. Oh, my goodness, Randy Winn. In September, the outfielder who came to the G-Men from Seattle at the July 30 trading deadline smacked 51 hits — the most in a single month by a Giants in 30 years — batted .447, racked up an .877 slugging percentage, and bombed 11 home runs, all statistics that led the major leagues for the month. Imagine if we'd had a whole season of this guy.
  
  
• Moises Alou. The aging right fielder got off to a sluggish start, but turned in a solid performance the last two-thirds of the season, finishing with a .318 average and a team-second 62 RBI.
  
  
• Mike Matheny. The veteran catcher's first campaign with the Giants netted a .404 slugging percentage, 59 RBI, and a year of rock-steady management of an erratic pitching staff.
  
  
• Pedro Feliz. Turned in a team-high 81 RBI despite never knowing from day to day where he'd play.
  
  
• Tyler Walker. Ran out of gas halfway through the year, but for a seriously overmatched youngster thrown to the late-inning wolves when closer Armando Benitez when down at the beginning of the year, he held his own as valiantly as anyone could have asked.
  
  
• Omar Vizquel. Day in, day out, still one of the best fielding shortstops in the game, even though he's, like, 102.
  
  
• Ray Durham. You forget Ray-Ray is there sometimes — and when the ball is hit to second base, you often wish he wasn't — but the man delivers: .290 average, .429 slugging, and 62 RBI from a non-offensive position isn't anything to sneeze at. And wonder of wonders, Ray got into 142 games this season, which for him is almost two seasons' worth.

The bad (and we'll try to keep this reasonably short, to avoid piling on):

• Pitching. In a word: Yikes. Maybe the worst the Giants' staff has looked since those nightmarish seasons in the mid-'80s when the G-Men were trotting losers like Atlee Hammaker out there every day. The big guns on the staff spent much of the year on the disabled list (Armando Benitez) or pitching like they ought to be on it (Jason Schmidt, Brett Tomko). (To be fair to Benitez, what we saw of him late in the year wasn't half-bad; next year, if he stays healthy, he might save 50 games.) My homeboy from Pepperdine, Noah Lowry, was the cream of a sorry crop — and he finished the season 13-13.
  
  
• The absence of Barry Bonds. Three knee surgeries sidelined the future Hall of Famer for all but the last three weeks of the season, wherein he provided a big enough jolt to the offense to kindle a truckload of if-onlys.
  
  
• Felipe Alou. Felipe, you know I love you, man, but it's time to hang up the clipboard. Half the time you looked clueless. The other half, the team won in spite of your often inexplicable lineup shuffling and mishandling of an admittedly bankrupt pitching corps. You've earned the comfortable retirement. Go take it. Please.
  
  
• Edgardo Alfonzo. Two home runs and 43 RBI in a mere 109 games played ain't a season, Fonz.
  
  
• The Giants' pathetically depleted minor league system. With the possible exception of pitcher Matt Cain, no one the Giants called up from their farm clubs this year looked like much. That doesn't bode well for the future, especially for a team whose ownership is loath to spend top dollar for big-name free agents.
  
  
• Did I mention the pitching? Yikes.