There’s a New Sheriff in Town….
Ubaldo Jimenez, Jesus Christ. This dude has 10 wins already and what’s he got, 5 or 6 more starts before the all star game? Utterly dominated us, as he has done all season against everyone else. We didn’t learn anything from this game except there’s a clear front runner for the NL Cy Young Award. Timmy has a fun little streak of 5 walks a game, 4 games running. When the fans are saying “at least we can count on winning the Wellemeyer starts” you know we’ve got problems. It’s not an overstatement to say that if Lincecum doesn’t right himself our season is doomed….
Congratuations to DPaintings! He won the mini-contest. MrBillBill took 2nd place. You guys, send me your address and I will get you the mini-Timmy bobblehead (d-paintings) and the mini-black baseball bat (BillBill) out ASAP….
At some point later this morning I’ll add up all the June Contest players and create a page on the right hand side of the blog for them….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Last night I was projecting Ubaldo’s numbers to date over the course of a season. Very roughly, he’s on track to log 250 innings and win 29 games. That ERA of 0.78 through May seems incredible. One wouldn’t expect the guy to keep up this pace, but a very impressive run so far.
Flav – We need to get you a logo for this here blog thing.
Can Ubaldo keep this up while pitching in Colorado? I mean, I know it’s not the hitters park of old, but still…
the logo and more is coming, Clown. I’m pimpin’ this shit out later this week when my friend can help me with some HTML stuff……
Lincecum will right himself and the season will go forth with much vigor and success. The real concern, of course are the injuries to the vets. Yet even then there is a silver lining. The younger guys will be plugged into the Giants lineup if the vets run out of luck.
Just one out of 162. I had really hoped for Tim to have his stuff, and for the Gigantes to put a beat-down on Jiminez, but WTF…the dude is just out of this world right now.
New day, and another game today. Let’s hope Barry can right the ship, and the team puts together a little run before hitting the road.
Flav,
How do you update your avitar, and also, is there a way to set it up so you don’t have to enter your screen name and email every time you make a comment?
Congrats to the contest winners.
Gotta run for an appointment. Go Giants!
Can Jimenez win 25 games this year? When is the last time anyone has won 25? The guy is pretty unbelievable…
Chi– I
d start by signing up with wordpress.com. I don’t think anyone is signing in every time, that should be automatic. Let me add you as an “author”, I’ll use your email. That could help too. Gimme 5 mins.
The thing that’s unreal about Jimenez is that he’s freaking doing it in the park universally known as the greatest hitters park of all time (though we know that their numbers have come down since the humidifier kicked in a few years ago).
I remember Welch won 27 sometime around 1987, right?
I cant think of anyone else who hit that 25 game mark…
and Chi– the avatar thing is accessible through something called “gravatar” and you can access that through your dashboard, I think. You guys see a different screen than I do though. Denny figured it out so he can chime in too. Also, smiley faces dude> 🙂
good stuff.
I love me some gay-ass smiley faces. 😀
bozo, every time I see your new screen name, reminds me of Sanford and Son episode: Lamont and a homie (Rollo maybe) are trying to impress some out of town babes they invited over. He tells them they’ve got “chips and dip, and boo-zho-lay”.
Turns out they are more impressed with Fred’s old school Ripple and onion stew.
Henry sez Bochy told him no Rent right away, so Downs is working out at SS to back up Uribe. And they still don’t want to C Posey, at least for public comments.
Has to be an issue tho—for all the talk about comfort level with Benjie, Tim can’t get it together with him behind the plate. In order to keep all the best hitters in the lineup and still have decent D in the field, an SF hallmark this season, Posey has to C.
Chi – You should be good to go once you’ve signed up w/ WordPress.com Welch? Never liked that guy. Might of been ’90 when he won 27 or whatever. Dodger and an Athletic. No wonder I never liked the guy. 🙂
You can find a lot of great info on baseball-almanac.com regarding historical records. I found a page that shows all 20+ game winners from 1976 to the present.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/pi20wcnl5.shtml
In that time, there are absolutely NO 25 game winners. But there have been 4 who won 24 games, including Steve Carlton (1980), Dwight Gooden (1985), John Smoltz (1996), and Randy Johnson (2002). That’s pretty good company if Ubaldo makes it.
Interestingly, there are no 20 game winners in 2006, 2007, or 2009. A dying art I guess.
There five 20 games winners in 1976 and 6 in 1977, then it drops off to mostly 1-2 for most years, but a couple years have 4 20 game winners…interesting to see the game change. But this year may be the return of the 20 game winner…we maay get 4-5 this year…
“the scouts were warning us before the Giants drafted Posey that he’s “pear shaped.””
That made me laugh. Baseball SPECIALIZES in the pear-shaped athlete. I often laugh when I see Texiera. His lower body is so ridiculously out of proportion to his upper body. It seems to be a physique that works for baseball.
better get that mojo back tonight…the road beckons.
Right now the Giants aren’t impressing me very much. Inconsistent is the order of the day for them. Lincecum will right the ship, but it needs to happen sooner than later. The Giants just haven’t been able to put everything together so far this season. If they can win the next two, they’ll have put together a nice homestand.
Jimenez? He’s having one of those once-in-a-lifetime runs and he’s making the most of it. And he has a team that can actually score on a regular basis. Thankfully, the Rox don’t have a whole lot after him.
willie – The name was kind of a play on the Cajun band Beausoleil. Or was it something to do with clown sex? I can’t remember.
DaddyO – We had two 20 gamers in 93. Swifty Bill 21-8, bowling Burkett 22-7.
Flavor,
I guess I should qualify that my stats were for National League only. You were correct up front about Welch winning 27 in 1990 as a member of the A’s. Good call.
Is there a preview feature on here? That came in real handy.
“It seems to be a physique that works for baseball.”
Certainly not a problem for catchers. Berra leaps to mind.
Well, the pitching resurgence coupled with the post-steroid era is certainly having its impact this year. Just heard Jon Miller on KNBR say it’s been 17 years since the last time teams have avg. < 2 HRs/gm as they are this season. Same kind of stretch with teams avg. < 9 runs/gm as well. Lower scores = closer ballgames. All the more reason we need our pen to get its shit together real soon.
Not sure the term ‘physique’ appliers to a few of the players. $M buys you a lot of BigMacs and Whoppers I suppose. It’s truly amazing just how out of shape some of these players appear to be (kind of like some of the cops you see walking around with big ass bellies). Never ceases to amaze me in a profession where you need to be physically fit, they aren’t, and the apparent lack of self-care to this regard.
TWIN/and others: It looks like we’ve got 23 signed up for the June contest. I have the list saved on “private” right now and will release it to all you guys after the first pitch of the game today. Still time for more entries…
“big ass bellies”
Now we’re talking trash.
Plenty of pudge to poke jokes at in baseball, from Tony Gwynn to some of the behemoths we’ve got bending the benches today. Pablo’s somewhat unique, belonging to that Overeaters Unanimous club but playing 3B. The pear shap belongs at 1B or C, or, sometimes, pitcher.
I watched Prince Fielder race around 3rd base at full speed the other day. He was rollin’ with AT LEAST a double D cup. It looked like two big dogs fighting underneath his shirt….
Baseball Almanac’s stats are wrong. While I too did not like Welch, he won 27 in 1990 with the Fucking A’s. I like Baseball Reference for stats.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/
Flavor, adding me as an author saved my screen name and email address. Thanks. Will register through WordPress and gravatar later.
Who ended up winning May’s contest?
Flavor – you did get my June contest numbers, correct?
i did get them. TedSpe won the May Contest. DPaintings won the Mini and MrBillBill came in 2nd.
“It looked like two big dogs fighting underneath his shirt…” LMAO on that one…paints quite the image.
Well, I like the match-up tonight. Zito is 5-2 with a 2.00 ERA in 12 starts against the Rox.
Hammel is 2-3 with a 6.93 ERA. He did have a nice outing his last start (at home) where he had 8 Ks in a 8-2 win. The flip-side? It was his only start this year in which he gave up less than 3 runs.
Flav, did you ever get my suggestion that we have a third tie-breaker for June to include stolen bases in order to see if we could keep a rolling count for the full season to see who would have the closest score at the end of the year?
Would be nice braggging rights….
Craig, have you heard from Ted?
twin– No. But he hasn’t been to the new blog yet either. Give him a day or two. What do you think about 23 players (maybe a few more trickle in). GH– that’s up to twin but I’d vote NO since I don’t want to have to deal with everyone sending in random SB emails. It’s hard enough to keep track of and itemize all these predictions….. 🙂
Sent my ###’s to you, Flav . . .
Let’s see if this gravatar thing works….
If there is a tie in June’s contest, you could do a one game “playoff.” Each contestant would pick number of Ks for the next game or number of hits, etc. for a pre-chosen game. 23 isn’t too shabby for June. We had 27 for May. Maybe a few more stragglers stagger in before tonight’s first pitch.
Chuck – you’re wasting you time…I sent Craig the winning numbers yesterday.
Well, IMO the pretenders drop out after the all star game. The Giants will be fine. listening to KNBR this morning and one of the guys says that he thinks Rowand should be benched. He doesn’t like the double standard for the young guys to sit when they aren’t hitting but Rowand gets to start every game.
try that again….
Oh well, I am pulling a Dennis and the gravatar does not seem to be working for me…
GH– try signing up with wordpress.com or the gravatar site. It took me a couple of times to figure in out….
Some of you are coming up with some pretty strange HR numbers based on the number of runs you think they’ll score….
23 or so is enough. I’m offering Ted his choice of the HTPC or netbook. So whichever he doesn’t select will be the June prize. There are already two tie breakers. If it’s still tied, let’s go with Chi’s idea. We’ll do something with the July 1 game at Colorado. We’ll decide what the tie breaker is when we get there.
it just hit 24…..GH I just made you an *author* that might help…..
My gravatar is showing up on the profile page, but not when I post…
voila….
I think that was the trick…danke..
So the May final contest number was 144? With all our struggles in May, our combined runs/homers/sbs were 5.14 per game, which was higher than our April numbers of 4.88…go figure…
Even given Rowand’s recent slide, the fact that we can’t replace him with someone who is hitting significantly better, i.e., Nate or Bowker, is just as shameful. I dunno at this point, maybe a quick call for PB and hope for the old lighting in a bottle trick. Seems kind of desperate, but we’re running outta options.
“He doesn’t like the double standard for the young guys to sit when they aren’t hitting but Rowand gets to start every game.” God, that’s strictly Room B. And it’s not diferent anywhere else. I’ve explained this dozens of times. Look, a Willie Mays, or today, a Posey , or Panda , they get he kind of time a veteran does. For guys like Nate, or Bowker , whoever: as marginal prospects or AAAA players, they just don’t have “forever” to get it together. They produce when the window opens for them…
With that said, Rowand is not going to get much longer, especially now: Bochy will have other vets to go to. Could see Torres, Huff, Burrell or Torres, Huff, DeRosa. Nate and Bowker HAVE had that window, they failed to capitalize… if this wasn’t a contender, they might get longer. Bochy and Sabean have tacit mandates to win this year, as Bochy said, “this is not a test”…
Bochy is staying with Rowand because that’s what he does with “his guys”. But it’s a little easier to tolerate when you look at the alternatives. I am 100% down with the entire Bowker Gang. NONE of them have kept anything going for longer than a couple of games. When you throw in Rowand’s defense and leadership on the team I’d still rather have him playing CF that any of those other chumps…….
I read one of those Bleacher Report articles last night on SFgate suggesting Rowand and Molina could be moved the Yankees, RedSox or some contender. Molina definitely seems to make more sense in the AL as a DH / backup catcher although his numbers lately sure leave a lot to be desired. Of course nothing would happen with these players until Posey really cemented his place here and proved the pitches could feel comfy throwing to him but does this seem like a pipe dream or the inevitable?
bleacherreport.com/articles/398682-giants-might-have-more-moves-in-mind
From CBS Sportslien Power Rankings: more east coast-AL bias:
16 Giants · Trends 18
It doesn’t matter how badly the Giants bungled the Buster Posey callup — how they started his service-time clock ticking late last season for no appreciable reason, how they’re jerking him around defensively, etc. What matters is that, a mere two months late, the Giants finally recognized that he’s the second-best bat in their organization. That qualifies as a rare Sabean-era triumph of common sense … Pat Burrell can’t hit or play defense. He’ll be a perfect fit in San Francisco … Juan Uribe and his 240 pounds of finely sculpted “muscle” at shortstop? That’s so crazy, it just might work!
They have the Padres ranked 10th and thye have the best record in the NL. They had the Dodgers falling from 3rd to 8th… How the Fuck did this idiot have the Dodgers ranekd as the third best team in MLB. They even have the Rockies and Marlins ranked ahead of us even though we swept those Malrin idiots at their home park…
Billy– my rule of thumb on whether or not a deal like would go down is that if we don’t want them why would they?
You explained why Bochy is staying with Rowand in the latter part of your post. As I said, Bochy has to win, if there really were a better alternative, Aaron would be on his ass on the pine, meat…
I have zero doubt that Bengie will eventually be moved or even released if all else failed. Presuming Buster doesn’t go “feet up”, that is. Again: Buster at first, Huff in left, Molina catching makes all three positions weaker than they can be. Posey needs to catch nd the sooner the baton is passed the better. He’s here, and he’s the catcher for the next ten years, get it done…
no one and I mean no one is taking Rowand and his contract or Molina. If anyone wanted Molina, they would have made a move for him two years ago when he was rock solid or last year if they needed a catcher. What would be in it for the Yankess to add Rowand when they have Granderson starting again in center and Gardner and Swisher have put up solid numbers? For Rowand’s bat? If it is for his glove, are they going to eat two more years at $13.6 mill? Hell no.
Yesterday was an aberation with Jimenez, no need to mess with the lineup. Torres in right, Rowand in center and Huff in left. Give Burrell the week or two he needs and then see if he is ready to join the big league club and if Renteria is ready to go. If Rowand is still slumping then, then assess whether it makes sense to put Torres in center for some starts and Burrell in left. Huff can play left, but I dont see him playing right well. I think Nate and Huff and Torres should start against righties and then give Burrell a start against lefties with Rowand and Torres in right…
I dont see how DeRosa’s wrist is going to be miraculously healed enough to cotnribute offensively…
It’s doubtful whether the team is particularly down after yesterday’s loss. Everyone’s a bit bummed about Timmy being off-key lately, but between his own efforts, words from his dad, a bit of smoothing from Righetti and a lot of video analysis on the part of team associates; some ideas should emerge. As for the hitters, now that they have faced the 2010 Spring model Ubaldo and Halladay already, not too many other hurlers should faze them a bunch.
Most encouraging thing about the hitters yesterday was the fact that Pablo was being the Panda against the dude who is at the moment the most dominant pitcher in the game. .Doesn’t too much matter what kinduva physical shape the dude is in just so long as he keeps tatooing that horsehide. After contending with ML Reality 101, Buster should be fine. Sanchez chipped in with a hit yesterday and steady presence Huff did draw a BB. Torres is the serendipitous swatman of the season and though stymied yesterday, should continue to contribute mightily. So it would appear that heading into June the team has four guys who could start in the field for most ML teams. That is one of this year’s major improvements. Uribe too, has been an excellent producer, so between him and RentMan returns, the Giants are looking at 6 guys who will hit in most games against most pitchers.
Problem guys at the dish are the Rowand and Molina Laugh Team. Aaron may pick it up on the trip out East, but who is to say about Bengie. I really do wonder what’s going on there.
Staff ace is on a break, so to speak, but Matt the Horse has stepped it up just in time. Zito should be okay most games and Drrrty puts out quality starts more often than not. We all know Wellemeyer has been a decent pitcher at home while stinking it up on the road. MadBum looms. Will they pull the pin and drop him into that second game at the Ohio River bandbox, or will Madison, like Buster, be reserved for the delectation of devotees at China Basin? My guess is the latter, with Todd getting one more SP shot on the road and emerging outta Riverside as one shellshocked soldier.
Questions about the BP? Sure. Affeldt has been shaky and Medders is in nowheresville busy recovering or whatever. But Denny Bautista and Santiago Casilla have been very pleasant surprises. Romo may have settled down a bit. Runzler alternates between flashes of brilliance and a wild streak. Mota has been better than expected. Wilson has been pretty much as advertised.
So going into the Summer months the Giants are 50 games into the season with a mild winning record despite a fair slew of injuries, slumps on the part of the two leading RBI producers from last year and an Ace who’s in a bit of a hole. June schedule does not look daunting, even though it includes some tough teams. It is very likely that the low point so far as hitting goes was that most recent road trip. Torres’ emergence and Buster’s appearance as well as Sanchez’ re-appearance have energized the sticks. MadBum should be the real deal when he gets the call. Wellemeyer could prove to be a good longman for the pen. Giants are in reasonably good shape after the Spring shakedown cruise. The swing into summer begins tonight. At home. Against a pitcher who should be no match for Zito and the re-energizing bats.
stix…thanks…You made me feel a little better.
Has Pat the Bell shown up in Fresno yet?
The Power Ranking sounds right to me. It’ll go up once Lincecum finds his mojo and they win a few games against their division rivals, until then, they aren’t very powerful.
It’s too bad about Rowand and Schierholtz, they were both hitting well before injuries set them back.
Stixster is always good for a tonic.
Nevermind. Burrell has 2 games played – 3-7 (.600), double, HR 4 ribbies . . .
Yeah, it’s AAA.
Still, Rowand better wake up soon, or he’ll be the right-handed bat offf the bench . . .
I guess Gringo provides the calonic . . .
Test again
I’ve been away for a couple days so I apologize if this was brought up in a previous thread and I missed it catching up but did anyone hear that guy call KNBR after Sunday’s game calling himself “twinsfan”? With an s?
Screw that shit, Ted. You’ve just been named MVP for the May Flap Contest, where you going?
Test….Is this motherfucker working?
It wasn’t me. I don’t call radio shows. Did once, went mute, and never again…
Ted, I just E-mailed you.
James: Ted has declined a prize, you are the winner. HTPC or Netbook?
twin I *knew* it wasn’t you. That’s what I’m saying. There’s an imposter out there
Ted, yeah, all I heard was Urban(?) say Twinsfan. Didn’t hear what he said.
I had just walked out of Best Buy and turned on the radio.
If the guy was an idiot, it was probably one of the Splash dipshits trying to besmirch the twinfan brand…
I’ve been in touch with James, he will be taking the HTPC so the Netbook is the June prize. Craig, I will ship the HTPC to him directly from here…
alright, I wanted the Netbook all along…
If the guy was an idiot,
—
He was. I don’t remember his comment because he spent about 12 minutes praising Urban’s show. But he wasn’t an asshole so if he was a Splasher, I couldn’t guess which one