On to the 2nd half…..
So who had “Bumgarner, Posey and Ishikawa” in the pre-season pool as the 3 guys who would be leading the way for us at the break? Obviously you can throw Huff, Torres and Uribe in there too. But without those first 3 guys we’d probably be stuck at .500 or less right now……
Henry tweeted out something about personal issues for The Panda. I’m not going to spend a second wondering about what they are or how they are affecting him since his *issues* aren’t my business. Everyone has *life* to deal with. What I’m wondering about is, if these issues are so substantial that they have ruined him at the plate, why is Bochy running him out there every day? Christ, put him on leave or something. Get him into therapy. And maybe this is happening already and we don’t know it….
But at some point something needs to be done FOR Pablo and ABOUT Pablo. Either that or he will be nothing but a liability for us for the rest of the year……
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I have a brand new Apple MacPro 13″ laptop, but my Dell Dimension 8400 is circa 2002/early 2003 . . . Held together by proverbial duct tape and baling wire (video card and SRAM upgrades 2 years ago), so that desktop sounds enticing.
Well, Blade, you’re still in it for tomorrow and an even better desktop: the Quad Core.
Twin, have you ever heard of http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/default.asp ?
They do performance tests of PCs. Or, do you know another site that is even better than PCPitStop?
Finally heard from Bea and her daughter, they had a minor accident. We’ll go up to Philo tomorrow.
Blade, with you on the ethical considerations of prior prognostication. At 94-68 (uber-Polly zone) my chances of winning are not very probable by most current accounting. The numbers are interesting, though. Half of 94 is 47, which happens to be the current victory total. However, more than half the schedule is already in the books, so the team will have to go 47-27 after the Break. Should this occur, of course they would go to the playoffs.
To rack up another 47 wins several good things will need to happen. Cain, Zito and Sanchez will need to get back in synch with their talent level as demonstrated in the early part of the season. Pablo will need to rediscover his inner Panda. Those position players and pitchers who have had good seasons to date will have to keep up the magic. No key injuries can occur. If Sabean engineers a trade or trades, the moves must succeed. Finally, the Baseball Gods must smile on the Giants.
Should the Giants match their 47 wins to date, their momentum may be such that we could be viewing the Halloween Machine in late October action.
Blade, PCPitstop used to be pretty cool, I hate it now. Try downloading PerformanceTest
http://www.passmark.com/download/pt_download.htm
After you install it, go to “Tests”, then “run all tests”. Have a disk in your DVd drive, any disk. Let me know your score when you’re done.
dumbest HR contest ever. As uninteresting as it was, I can’t help but wonder what a rush it must be for a 5 year old kid (or whatever he is) watch his dad compete and win in a contest like that…
there’s no one who thinks Marty Lurie is a chump more than I do. But he DID raise an interesting point of sending Pablo down for a few weeks just to try to get his swing straight. I’m tired of watching him fuck it up at a level that matters. Lots of guys get sent down mid season and get straight. Recently, Brantley did it for Cleveland. Davis did it for Texas. Iannetta for Col. None of them have done much since they got called back up (Davis just came back up) but at least they got some confidence and didn’t continue slumping and failing at the mlb level……
OK . . . Give me a few and I’ll forward the results.
MC Hammer just went yard in the celebrity softball game. You can guess what song they played as he circled the bases.
I’m going to guess that Blade’s score is about 250..
this celeb softball game is already a million times more interesting than that HR Derby
It is 449.7 Twin. Do you want the breakdown?
Dang, Flav. Talk about cruel and inhuman punishment….I wouldn’t wiish two weeks in Fresno in July on anyone. As Sabes told us, AAA pitching in that league is the shits anyway. Imo, Pablo would rake it and then come up here and face the guys that know what they are doing, and have the same issues, which are patience and pitch selection.
Plus, whatever the personal side of it is, being away from his buddies might actually make him feel worse. Not to mention that he basically gets replaced in the lineup by Rent, with no days off for either he nor Uribe. Bad move all the way around.
Blade: sure, give me the full breakdown. That’s not too bad. My “work” PC, the one I’m using now scores 1075. It’s probably 20 percent or so *under* the PC that is the prize tomorrow.
PassMark Rating – 449.7
CPUMark Rating – 523.0
2D Graphics Mark Rating – 382.6
3D Graphics Mark Rating – 223.3
Memory Mark Rating – 502.6
Disk Mark Rating – 261.9
CD Mark Rating – 537.8
confidence goes a long ways, WillieD. And he’s not building any up here hacking away at bullshit day in and day out. we don’t have anyone to replace him who would be better so I’m not really wanting to see it. But he’s not figuring it out up here. We are winning despite him, how long can that last?
Are you sure those aren’t Chuck’s SAT scores?
Uhh . . . I didn’t say that.
Twin, you’re right though regarding Performance Test vs. PCPitstop . . . It is better. I could tell that immediately by the number of 2D and 3D tests that were run (and their complexity) . . . PCPitstop is still using the same tests today, that they were a few years ago and they aren’t as complex. Also, they don’t test your CD either.
Here are the marks for the PC that is the prize tomorrow:
PassMark Rating – 1106.5
CPUMark Rating – 2837.2
2D Graphics Mark Rating – 210.1
3D Graphics Mark Rating – 506.3
Memory Mark Rating – 673.00
Disk Mark Rating – 1685.3
CD Mark Rating – 194.4
No idea about the CD rating, probably because this one has a Blu-Ray drive. The huge gains are CPU mark, disk, and 3D graphics..
2D graphics are insignificant anymore. I’m happy to see that disk mark-these are dual Solid State drives in a RAID-0 for the O/S, that is a total ass kicking score, easily the highest I’ve ever seen. With the CPU score, the winner tomorrow is getting a killer machine.
Unfrickingbelievable . . . Those dual core chips with each Core 2.93 GHz “cook.” Question – is there room to upgrade the 2 GB RAM (let’s say 4 or 8)? Also, if someone wanted to upgrade the video card at a later date too, would that be possible?
Yo, SanDog, wasn’t today the Don Coryell memorial? Madden talked about it last week on radiio, said he’d be there, along with a number of others who learned under the great innovator Watching him run around the sidelines all fired up during those Charger-Raider games that were usually won by whomever had the ball last was a special treat.
As Madden put it, you love to see everybody again, just not under those circumstances.
Tomorrow’s is a Quad, Blade. That’s not the one for after the season, I haven’t even built that one yet. The one tomorrow is a Quad AMD CPU (3 GHZ per core), 4 GB RAM ( takes up to 16 ) , the dual 40GB Solid State drives plus a 1 terabyte drive, Blu-Ray, a GT220 graphics card. The graphics card is really the only component you might want to upgrade. it’s not a high end gaming card, justy “World of Warcraft” caliber..
Nevertheless, that PC would probably suffice for at least a decade of use (an eternity for a pc).
Solid state drive . . . Just guessing here – they are more reliable than the 7200 RPM drives due to non-mechanical moving parts, right? Any speed increase insofar as accessing data quicker than the 7200HD?
Flavor, download that Performance Test and run it on yours, send me the results.
http://www.passmark.com/download/pt_download.htm
Blade, really the only disadvantage with the SSDs has been price per GB. That’s why I have two iin the RAID-0. It gives you 80GB, more than enough, for the O/S and applications.( there’s the 1 terabyte 7200 SATA II for storage) Read, write are both significantly faster. And of course, you’re right about durability, no moving parts and low heat.
42-32. Fuck off, Dennis, or yer getting that 40′ Christmas tree up your ass . . .
I like that idea of Pablo goin down to work on his swing. Better yet, whats the league where he can bat every inning to get it right…
Confidence for Pablo is more of the problem, imo. He is confident he can swing at anything he can see and drive it, because he’s done it before. I’ve seen him swing at a pitch barely above his shoetops and drive it into the OF for a basehit. Same with the high and away one—he can drive that off a wall.
But you can’t make a living doing that, going out of the zone on a consistent basis and trying to hit the pitcher’s pitch. I think an hour with Barry Bonds would fix him. Dodger youngsters all talk about how watching Manny approach a game and even BP is such a benefit to them. He knows what he is doing out there; I can’t get out of my mind the opp field single he got before Blake fucking homered that cost us.
Bonds is the same way. Maybe he could get Pablo to think about what pitcher X is trying to do to him, and help him figure out what he can do about it. Situational hitting also, so he is more effective/selective in RISP. Get him to think about what he himself is looking for when he goes up there, and what he has to lay off at all costs, at least until there are two strikes. Pablo took 2 BBs the other day (one other was intentional) and had RBI single to RF to score a run. He can do this when he is in right mind with right thought. But not otherwise.
You didn’t quite put it in those specific words, Willie, but it appears to me that you are indicating that maybe the Giants should hire Bonds as a personal trainer/coach for Pablo. Damned good idea. And damn the consequences if MLB (Seligshit) has put #25 on ice. Giants ownership/management should cut the Gordian Knot if that’s the case, give Selig the finger and get BB working with Sandoval asap. A World Series victory could depend on it.
FP just made the prediction that Pablo will carry the team in the second half. I’m really hoping Frank Paul will be right this time, it’ll be his first.
Ok, putting it in one post:
Stage 1 Prize ( pick season W/L record and Yes or No for Playoffs): Intel Pentium Dual Core PC/2GB DDR2 RAM/160GB SATA II HD plus 1 Terabyte External Hard Drive/DVDRW/512 MB HD4600 Graphics Card/Windows 7 Home Premium/InWin Fanqua Computer Case
Stage 2 Prize ( NLDS)- to Desktop PC add Mini HTPC/Dual Core Atom/2GB DDR2 RAM/500GB Hard Drive/DVDRW/External USB Blu-Ray Drive/Integrated Intel Graphics Controller PLUS 22″ LCD Monitor
Stage 3 Prize (NLCS)- to Stage 1 and 2 Prizes add Asus Eee PC 1001PX-MU27-BK Seashell 10.1 inch Atom N450 Netbook and Wireless Router
Right now all you pick is the W/L record and yes or no to playoffs. Get those to Flavor or me ( twinfan1@hotmail.com ) by Friday 5 P.M.
Here are the contestants for tomorrow. If you win, send your address to Flavor and your new PC will ship before the end of the week. Has to be a street address and an adult available to sign. If Flavor and Zumie tie, ( or Flavor, Zumie, and Blade) the tiebreaker will be first guy with a hundred bucks in my Paypal account… alright, alright, I’m kidding. Uh, tie breaker will be…………. how many runs the NL scores. If it’s still tied, how many HRs in the game total. Get the picks to me. twinfan1@hotmail.com
Sandog looks REAL good with me out, BTW.
3Bagger: Wilson, Lincecum/AL/14
BLADE: Wilson, Lincecum/NL/11
Flavor: Wilson, Lincecum/NL/9
Zumie: Lincecum, Wilson/NL/9
SANDiggityDog: Wilson, Lincecum/NL/8
And 3Bagger best of all. He’s the only guy with the AL.
And finally, as I get ready to cuddle up with Zeke, Mickey, Bea, and Pilar in a wild and crazy interspecies 5-Way, uh, cuddle fest, this from Corey Hart after he talked to
the Giants’ players last week:
“I want to make sure they like me.” Then on yer knees, honky swine…
Classis…LMAO, Twin.
Uh, “Classic” that is….
George Steinbrenner has died. 80 years young
I will never have a heart attack. I give them.
—George Steinbrenner
Just like George, he had to do both. RIP
Speaking of odds . . . You can’t get these odds in Vegas or any casino for that matter. Flappers have an unbelievable GOOD chance of winning one of the “Twin” contests and frankly, you don’t even need to know too much about baseball.
Yeah, I just saw that this morning . . . Rest In Peace George . . .
I disliked George as much as I do his fucking club, but regardless, RIP.
Remember when folks were bagging on Sabean for dealing Tim Alderson for Freddy Sanchez? Well, here’s the latest on Alderson the “Pittsburgh Post Gazette:”
“The Pirates made two surprising moves in the minor leagues Monday, demoting pitching prospect Tim Alderson from Class AA to A, and reacquiring shortstop Brian Bixler.
Alderson, a 21-year-old right-hander, has mostly struggled since being the only player acquired in the Freddy Sanchez trade last summer: In 17 starts for Class AA Altoona, he was 7-5 with a 5.62 ERA, with opponents batting .307 with 10 home runs in 89 innings.”
To read the entire article: http://tinyurl.com/32njdeo
There are some interesting post steroid stats in a Sac Bee article. Check it out
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/13/2885889/pitchers-stage-a-throwback.html
Yankees for all their money didn’t win enough during Steinbrenner’s tenure. But he changed baseball that’s for sure. It’s purely big money now and some teams have no chance at anything. Most of baseball just plays for entertainment and nothing more.
It is big money to some degree, but not entirely. Case in point, here are team payrolls (out of 30) for this year:
SF – 10
Minn – 11
Bums – 12
StL – 13
Atlanta – 15
Rox – 16
Tampa Bay – 21
Texas – 27
Dago – 29
So, clubs can be competitive with smaller payrolls.
eggs actly, Chi, Although George is/was a baseball icon I still think his success is somewhat magnified.
He should have won about twice as many times as he did. The Mattingly years were a black hole.
Smaller payroll teams like the Braves won a few championships without George at the helm (or cheque book).
True, the Yankees won more WS (4v1), but the Braves never went in as wild cards (6 more division championships) and kept a close pace to the super heroes (4 league titles v 6).
I prefer the spirit and feel of the Cubs history, losers that they are, than the Yankees as great as they are.
sorry, new post finally.