• Rick Eymer of MLB.com reports that John Bowker made his first appearance in the big leagues on Saturday and became the 8th player in Giants history to hit a home run in his major league debut. Bowker had 4 RBIs and another home run in his second game the next day as the Giants went on to beat the Cardinals 7-4. Pretty impressive stuff, and needless to say, the Giants’ lineup could use a little power boost.
• Brian Bocock has been a solid replacement at shortstop for the injured Omar Vizquel, although his performance at the plate has left something to be desired (.200 with 2 RBIs). Still, he’s played every inning of every game so far this season. Bocock attributes some of his struggles to simply not being familiar with the pitchers he’s faced, so he’s been spending a lot of time watching film of the pitchers he will be facing in upcoming games, writes Chris Haft.

It’s looking more and more likely that Giants prospect Brian Bocock will begin the season as the starting shortsop in San Francisco. The Giants are extremely impressed with Bocock’s slick glove work. In over 50 innings of spring training work, Bocock has yet to commit an error. Giants CF Aaron Rowand had this to say about him:

“The way he plays defense? He’s a big league shortstop already. Great range. Great hands. And a cannon of an arm.”

The only concern for the Giants has been Bocock’s bat. He only hit .220 last year… at Single A. If he only hit .220 against Low-A pitchers, imagine what the NL West pitchers will do to him. Bocock is hoping that an adjustment he made to his swing at the direction of Rowand and hitting coach Carney Lansford will help him make more contact and use his speed to get on base.

It’s been well publicized that the Giants have been looking for someone to take the 3B job. With Omar Vizquel going under the knife, the Giants now need to fill two infield positions. They had thought that Kevin Frandsen could take over at SS while Omar was out, but now it seems he’s been pulled from that position. This opens the doors for three Giants prospects to start the season at SS:

Brian Bocock appears to be the front runner at this point because of his defense. Considering he played Single-A ball last season, this would be quite a jump for the youngster. BaseballAmerica has him ranked as the 11th top prospect in the Giants system in their Prospect Handbook. They praise his sparkling glove, plus arm strength and plus speed, but warn that his bat might hold him back. It seems the Giants are willing to live with the bat in favor of solid D up the middle.

Also in the running are fellow prospects Manny Burriss and Ivan Ochoa. Burriss is actually the top ranked SS prospect in the Giants system, coming in at #10 overall in the BA Handbook. The G-Men drafted him in the supplemental round of the 2006 Draft and saw Burriss as the starting shortstop in San Francisco by 2010. Now with the injury to Vizquel, his time might come much sooner than that. He’ll have to overcome bouts of hitting slumps and spotty glove work, but this kid has the wheels to terrorize pitchers on the base paths if he gets the call.

Ochoa has really come out of nowhere to claim his stake in this position battle. The 25-year-old performed well at Triple-A last year when healthy, but that was limited to only 47 games because of a knee injury. He went .296/.337/.430 at Fresno, but Ochoa doesn’t even show up in the index of the BA Handbook. Ochoa really is still a long shot to make the big league team; look for him to start the season in Fresno.