Stat of the year

Q: How many runs did Aaron Rowand, the Giants' best-paid offensive player, drive in during the month of September in 86 ABs?
A: One

He had a .286 OBP and a .253 SLG for the month. What a lousy signing this has turned out to be -- yet another reason for Sabean to be fired. Initially, I didn't have anything against Rowand, but he's become like Dave Roberts: yet another overpaid veteran (with four years left on his deal) who's on the decline. I was baffled as to why Bochy kept running him out every day during the last month of the season.

I discovered Rowand's non-performance thanks to a link to one of the earliest sites in the Giants' blogosphere -- Gregg Pearlman's recently revived Almost EEEEEE!, which had this to say -- What went wrong, I think, is that he was billed as practically the savior of the Giants, the guy who’d get them out of the sewage Barry Bonds had put them into by being such a cheating slacker. That’s an awful lot to ask of any player, especially a guy who’s not the type of player that you could ever call “The Man.” He’s a number-six hitter whom the Giants tried to plug into the five, three, and even two holes. In some ways it’s Tsuyoshi Shinjo all over again, except that Rowand isn’t a joke.