A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Well, last night they won their 90th, my total number from Opening Day. Hopefully I will not be nailing it cold this year (as I did last year 🙂 ). I usually don’t read any other blog besides this one and Baggs’ but I have been poking around other sites lately and it blows my mind how negative Giants fans are to this team. There are “fire sabean” guys all over the place. The freaking team has the 2nd most wins in the National league and there are still haters out there. Unbelievable.

Baseball is a game that is linked to failure. The best hitters in the game fail around 70% of the time. It’s EASY to find a player to complain about or a manager to second guess. But now? Why now? I don’t have the slightest problem in the world admitting when I am wrong. I’ve posted several mea culpa’s here this year (Torres, Bochy to name two) and I did it early on I didn’t stubbornly hold on to an opinion that was incorrect. I guess that’s why the negativity about the team is still out there– people that want to just inanely hold on to their original perspective despite damning evidence to the contrary….

Having said all that, I am dead set against the pitching change that now has the rotation going Cain-Zito-Sanchez. If Bum takes care of business tonight we only need to win one vs the Padres but if Cain doesn’t do it do we really want to put it in Zito’s hands on Saturday? And then face a do or die must win Sun? Unappealing scenario…..

This is unfolding nicely, isn’t it? Professional, inevitable comeback win last night. And how about Mike Quade? he’s got the Cubs playing for…..I dunno, but whatever it it that’s the reason he should be named their manager in the off season. The job he’s done keeping that team together and playing hard until the end is to be honored…..

Ian Kennedy going tonight? No prob, we’ll just throw Lincecum at ’em. As I said yesterday, a sweep of the d-backs would hardly surprise, in fact I expect it. San Diego is hitting the 16th pole staggering, on fumes, as I said they would do.

I’m not sure why anyone is sweating who we play in the playoffs. Philly doesn’t scare me at all, In fact I think we match up well with them………

Tonight’s AZ line up is a joke— we should destroy them. I took the Giants at -210 because i thought it was a lock for them to win their 89th game on THE BONEY ONE’S birthday, but now I’m pissed I didn’t give 1.5 at even money. We destroy them tonight, 9-1……

Off day today but still a HUGE day for the Giants. If Z and the Cubs can beat the Padres we go 1 game up, lose and we’re obviously tied. Yesterday got us to 88 games, a watershed number over the last 4 years. 88! 74! 88! 74! Ha, those were fun exchanges back then, weren’t they?

And then as we all know, last year I nailed the win total cold with that golden number of…88. It’s been a while since I brought that up.

With 6 games to go I am dead-confident that I will miss my season win total prediction of 90 that I posted on Opening Day. No problem with that at all.

This team has developed and proven to have a resiliency that winning teams have to have beyond a bunch of stats and fantasy numbers. That resiliency is why I believe in this team. I believe in the GM. I believe in the manager. I believe in Raggs and Bam Bam. I believe in Torres and Huff and Uribe and Burrell—-4 players that no other team wanted last Winter. And if I don’t believe in jinxes I don’t believe in made-up laws so yes, I believe in Barry Zito. And I don’t *believe* we are going to win the West. I’m certain of it……

I don’t hate the team, I hate the state. I can’t even stand to look at the letters that make up the word. Every  time we go there it seems we get dealt a crushing defeat. Strangely, last night’s didn’t hurt that bad. Bochy went all in last night and I like the move. Win that game and the Rockies are DONE. It just didn’t quite work out. Plus, he knew he had Cain to fall back on today….

And thank freaking GOD that Zito’s sweet “4 runs or more” stat didn’t take a hit. Nice 4.1 innings of work, chump……

You can’t second guess anything Bochy did last night. In fact, you could argue that the Rockies won because of that catch Car-Go made on Posey–he misses that ball and that’s the ballgame……

Isn’t it amazing what one swing can do? If Pat swings through that pitch instead of blasting it into the bleachers, we would be sitting around bemoaning our crap offense trying to figure out how a first place team could get shut out seemingly every single game. And yet….One swing. Glory. Destiny…………

I never get tired of enjoying Tampa Bay paying for all of this…..

Ah, how cruel irony is. Zitman on the bump today. We win today and we basically knock Colorado out of the picture since they would be 5.5 back with 8 to play. How do you fight the inevitability of Zito’s Law? You get to bat against Jason Hammel.  The Rockies are stuck today, having to throw “dead arm” Hammel out there. If we win today that gives us 4 wins on the trip and I don’t see how we don’t steamroll this division with Cain going tomorrow and 6 to finish the season at home…..

“fucking juiced ball bullshit”– read his lips near the end of the clip..

Is it possible to get more geeked for this series? Timmy vs “The Poor Man’s Ubaldo” tonight. I love watching Chacin pitch, this is going to be a great match up. Zitman on Sat and for some unknown reason the Rockies hitters flail against him. Then Cain on Sunday.

The pitching staff continues to hurl at a record pace in September but there’s reason for concern right now. The rockies are losing but they aren’t having any trouble hitting the ball. I’m certain that our “HR or bust” mentality will continue in Colorado. We can’t panic if they put up runs just go out and match any crooked numbers they might put up.

I’ve got no feel on how this series plays out. The only thing that would be devastating would be getting swept but I just can’t see that with Timmy and Cain going. We are in control of everything, especially with 6 easy ones to end the season. At home. Magic number is 10……

If you talk with little kids or people that don’t know anything about baseball, you’ll see that they mistakenly think the only way runs are scored in baseball is by way of the home run. It seems the Giants are taking the same approach in this stretch run. I did a quick post last night about the 45 inning thing but I was shocked when I looked at the entire month of September.

When you look at how many runs were produced by position players with hits other than a home run, it will blow your mind…

9/1: Fontenot basehit produces 1 run

9/2: Posey hit produces 2 runs

9/4: 0 runs produced by a basehit (this was the 4 bomb LA win)

9/5: 0 runs produced by a basehit

9/6: 0 runs produced by a basehit during regulation. Nate tripled in the 12th to score two though

9/7: 1 hit for 1 RBI

9/8: 0 runs produced by a basehit

9/9: 1 hit for 1 RBI

9/10: 0 runs produced by a basehit

9/11: 0 runs produced by a basehit

9/12: 0 runs produced by a basehit (timmy had 2 rbi’s but I’m only looking at the pos players)

9/14: 0 runs produced by a basehit

9/15: 1 hit for 1 RBI

9/16: this was the big *explosion*– Posey had 1 hit for an RBI and Franchez had a hit for 2 rbi’s. 3 total for game

9/17: 0

9/18: 0

9/19: 0

9/21: 0

9/22: 0

So, if you don’t count Nate’s triple (and I’m not going to, it was the 12 inning and we hadn’t produced a run in the first 11 innings), by my count the Giants have 7 non-HR basehits in 19 September games for a total of 9 RBI’s. My mind is just blown by this utter offensive failure at the plate. In fact, all our minds should be collectively blown by this. We’re talking about almost a complete breakdown of one of the cornerstones of the game: a clean base hit for an RBI. 7 hits in the entire month for 9 rbi’s. And 3 of the 9 RBI’s came in the first 2 days of the month! And I’m not going back and checking but i THINK the only non-HR rbi’s came from exactly 3 players: Posey, Franchez and Fontenot. What. World. Is. This….

Over their last 45 innings, the Giants have scored exactly one run with a hit that didn’t involve a home run. That is astounding and probably a major league record of some sort. The offense should get sent to Cooperstown just on the basis of it’s unique absurdity. Our problem is that everyone is trying to be THE GUY and do something with one big hit. Walks, base hits, that’s all out the fucking window with this offense. Just swing for the fences and hope for the best— dangerous game to play at this point in the season……….

Heyward V Posey. I’m not including Garcia because I think that for a pitcher to win it he has to be dominating since he only plays in 20% of the games. Outside of the 1-off game where he carved us up in 9 innings, Garcia is a 5-6 inning guy. Hardly dominating….

Posey: .324ba, .895OPS, 15 bombs, 62 RBIs in 364 at bats

heyward: .286ba, .876OPS, 18 bombs, 9 swipes, 71RBIs in 482 at bats.

Give Buster another 118 at bats and he’d easily blow by Heyward in every category except SB’s.  And Buster is an east coast guy (sorta) so he’s definitely known across America, it’s not like the west coast bias will hit him that hard. But, in the end, I think Heyward will win it. He’s had a very strong July-Sept and he’s been hyped since Opening Day. It’s too bad Buster didn’t have a level playing field, had he been here from Day 1 I think he wins it easily…..

Ross cf
Sanchez 2b
Huff 1b
Posey c
Burrell lf
Guillen rf
Sandoval 3b
Uribe ss
Cain p

until further notice…….

Today, I don’t want to hear about Zito’s Law, or lack of run support, or how much money he makes, or the fact that he’s 112-0 when the team scores 16 runs for him or whatever.  Somehow the Giants just need to go out and figure out how to get a win despite who’s on the mound…..

That one just sucked. Uribe had easily his worst game as a Giant and one of the worst single performances of a Giant this year. He only got saddled with 1 error but he bungled at least 4 plays and did nothing at the plate….

I have to admit, I like Randy Wolf– definitely a guy you’d want on your team. Back in July he gave up something like 15 runs in 5 innings. You wonder how a manager lets a guy stay in that long but it turns out that Wolf volunteered to stay out there to save their bullpen that was destroyed the night before. He’s been pretty reliable since then and outstanding in his last 2 starts. Tip your cap and move on…….

I didn’t look at the pitching match ups when I said we could easily sweep these guys. Gallardo goes today, always a tough pitcher. We’ve had our moments against him though….

And then Sunday looms. God’s day. You’re supposed to rest on that day, right? I don’t think God is gonna be too happy to see Zito working on Sunday. I forsee a severe punishment in the offing…….

I find it doubly satisfying that the game SF wins to put me in the $ on the *over* for the season win total is also the win that bumps us into first place for the first time….all season? I think that’s right. There was a post about Bochy winning MOTY and I think that’s hard to argue when you look at what he’s done with the bullpen this year and how he’s mixing and matching the LU at the most critical time of the year. How many other managers in the league in September have to pencil in a new leadoff hitter every day? Renteria? I’ll mark that one down as a successful string pulled……

I made my peace with Bochy a couple of weeks ago with a mea culpa post about him. He’s not a flashy guy and he’s never going to argue with an umpire the way I’d like, but when it comes to running a team for the long haul and making a ton of decisions with a lot of different moving parts, it’s impossible to argue with his results this year……..

Milwaukee series coming up. This is OUR time, I’ve been talking about these Padre/Rockies road trips for weeks. I’d like to be greedy and say let’s take all 3 from the Brewers, a team that is doing nothing other than trying to pad their individual stats at this point. Sweeping them is totally doable…….

Quick housekeeping note: The esteemed Matriarch of the blog, Lady FerretHead, somehow ended up in my spam filter with some perfectly legitimate posts that shouldn’t have been zapped. 1000 apologies. Sometimes the filter zaps royalty when it should be zapping rubbish……

82 wins on the season. The next win hits the over on *the Vegas insider* spread— they set it at 82.5 at the start of the season. I have that plus a much larger wager with my A’s buddy that hits once the Giants win their 89th game of the year…..

After 15 straight innings of ineptitude, the Giants finally scored a run. Fontenot wouldn’t be everyone’s POTG but he’s mine with room to spare. Plus I read somewhere once that wide chicks need props, too. 🙂 Anyway,  he hit the ball hard all night with nothing to show for it. Finally, where so many others had failed he delivered against  a tough pitch to hit, muscling it into right field. Obviously, most of the team was critical to this win including Cain, the bullpen and Sandoval for making contact on a night that he looked like he wasn’t going to come within a foot of hitting the ball. He deserves credit for doing what he had to do in that situation. I still have no idea WTF he was doing in that first at bat with the bases loaded……….

This is going to be a very tough game to win tonight. I’m no Lilly fan but he’s a lefty who doesn’t walk too many guys– that’s the death combo to toss at our offense. Pray that Dirrrrty finds his stuff and just hope for another scratched out victory. 2-1 or so………

Man, was his Law ever in more effect than last night? Look at my 9/13 post and see how many theorems out of the 6  he had checked off:

1) “He’ll get outpitched by the opposing pitcher”: check

2) “Our bats will go silent”– double check

3) “”We will commit some dumbass defensive miscue”— ugly check. This one was the best because God (who hates Zito and the Giants) stepped into the game for just a moment to make sure Theorem #3 kicked into play: Blake hit a certain base hit up the middle–except that it bounds off the mound and changes course directly to the Uribe. We are saved, inning over. Whoops. God just wanted that inning to hurt a little more– a simple, clean base hit up the middle wasn’t gonna do it………..

4) “Opponents hardest hit balls are always in the direction of our slowest athletes”– I wouldn’t call Uribe slow or not athletic but he’s hardly a deft gazelle out there at SS. I’d give this a 1/2 check.

5) “If we ever score a run Zito will walk the first 2 hitters of the next inning”– we never scored a run but he did manage to screw up the 6th inning in classic Zito style: hit batter, walk, walk to load the bases. No check here, though. OK, maybe a 1/4 check.

6) “The opponents game winning hit will always come from their worst hitter”– substitute “most hated current Dodger” and this one gets a full check………..

Heart breaking game. Who loses when their team throws a 1 hitter? Zito’s Law, baby. You can’t escape it. Every 5th day like clockwork………..

Here it comes. Can you feel it? Right now it’s just a few leaves blowing around outside, the faintest wind is starting to kick up. But it’s coming.  By 7:10pm he’ll stride to the top of the hill in the middle of a raging hurricane of bad luck, broken promises and fake hustle. The team hasn’t won a game he’s pitched in since August 11th…….

I was surprised to look at the overall team win totals when each of the 4 starts have pitched this year.

Dirrrrty: team has won 19 times that he’s pitched

Timmy: also 19 times

Cain: 16 wins

Zito: 14 wins…..

The team has won 14 times when Zito’s pitched this year? I had to check to see if those were the team wins for his career. It wasn’t, it was for 2010. Zito is kryptonite to the “W”. And yet, somehow we’ve won 14 times this year when he’s taken the hill.

The team has won games that Zito has pitched in this year. Just keep reminding yourself of that fact tonight if you start thinking about “Zito’s Law” during tonight’s game……..

Actually, that was a trick question, there’s no way to avoid it. The only question is how it will unfold in a game…

Zito’s Law: “Whe he pitches, dumb shit happens”

The theorems (with slight generalizations):

1) Zito will always get outpitched by the opposing pitcher. It could be just barely or obviously, but he will always get out-pitched

2) Our bats will go silent on days he pitches.

3) We will commit some dumbass defensive miscue at least twice  a game

4) Opponents hardest hit balls will always head in the direction of our slowest, least athletic players

5) If we ever manage to score a run, ZIto will automatically walk the first two batters of the next inning

6) The opponent’s game winning hit will always come from their worst hitter

There are probably some others, feel free to add them into the thread. Tuesday is Zito vs Kershaw. And let the law unfold…….

There seems to be some disagreement over who are leadoff hitter will be. As many have pointed out, it’s an overrated role since the leadoff hitter usually only leads off an inning once a game. But what’s not overrated is speed and defense. And I don’t see how we can keep running Burrell and Guillen out there with anyone other than Ford in CF. If they want to go with an outfield of Burrell/Rowand/Ross I could moderately dig that. Maybe Burrell/Ross/Schierholz– in that case I was thinking they could bat Franchez first since he got some experience but now that I heard he’s limping on a bad knee again that idea is probably off the shelf. Ross has almost no experience batting leadoff…….

It won’t happen but the best idea is to run Darren Ford out there. With no book on him he could easily get away with a successful 10 game run at the plate. And his speed and defense would allow Bochy to still go “Water Buffalo Defense” in the outfield…….

I loved Baggs’ description of the strike zone yesterday: “more like a rectangle than a square”.  How could we expect to do anything at the plate when Crawford’s dumbass is calling pitches 6 inches (or more) off the plate? And today we get the ridiculous Cuzzi who went to the “How much effort are they putting into making the play” School of Umpiring.  Go google “Cuzzi blown call” and you’ll see there are countless fuck ups by this tool….

THe O/U is 5.5 for today’s game. I don’t know if I’ve seen one that low. And I think I’m taking the under……

8 percentage points out of first place. That sounds much worse than one game back…….

“Nice effort”

I have no idea how you guys decided to make THAT the thing to perseverate on at the end of the last thread. First place? Not first place? I didn’t think about that for a second after we won last night. I’m not even thinking about it if we sweep these chumps this weekend. Where they are in the standings at this point only has to do with leverage. And after the first two games I say that we have that, without question. We are % points behind, everyone can see that. But we have the psychological edge on the Padres AND we have assured ourselves of not losing any ground from where we were on Wednesday. As I’ve been highlighting for weeks now, the Padres are about to hit the road for 10 straight games with exactly one day of rest left in the entire month of September. Latos and Richard can’t pitch every game. They are DONE. If we had lost 3 or 4 we would be sucking wind and they’d have the leverage on us from here on out. But they didn’t do that. I’ll take a win this weekend, two would be divine, but we are all good from here on out. We won the division last night with that victory. Book it……

What a tone we set in San Diego last night. We didn’t just eek out a victory, we dominated them, burying the memories of their 8-0 start against us to start out the year. With their fans absent and our fans filling their seats, there’s no way the Padres can maintain their confidence……

Another chance tonight for Dirrrrty to back up his hubris against SD. Do you sit Buster? I know Bochy wants to give him a blow but I don’t think this series is the time to do it. And as bad as he looked on Wed in AZ he sure looked spry last night. He’s going to get a blow Monday and then Bochy could give him another one against the checked-out Dodgers or even Milwaukee. San Diego will be losing plenty of games next week when they head off to their 10 game roadie on Monday. Posey should sit then, not now…….

It was in full effect last night, wasn’t it? Zito’s Law shut down the bats. For the first time in a while it just felt like nothing was going to happen, no one was going to step up. Posey looked horrendous at the plate, Same with Torres, Uribe, basically every single at bat after the Franchez HR. 14 left on base–that’s another theorem of Zito’s Law–tons of guys left on base…..

Cain v Garland tonight. I hate to go into San Diego with a line up full of cold bats but that’s what we’re doing. And the bats have been cold for a while, it’s been disguised a little because of the wins. We haven’t put two good hitting games together since I don’t remember when……

3 of 4 is totally doable. For either team……

It’s a good thing this game is being played in a dome. Otherwise, anyone walking within 3 miles of the stadium would have to wear a hardhat to protect themselves from the bombs Zito is going to be giving up tonight. I haven’t checked this but I would guess that in the first month of the season Zito’s fastball was averaging at least 3 or 4 mph faster than it has in the last 2 months of the season. His fastball is gone people, at least for the rest of this year. And when you’re throwing 84-85 that just isn’t going to cut it. He’ll get a few guys out but over the course of the game he will leave several of those fatties over the plate and Arizona will punish him……

He’s had one win since June 12th and he hasn’t won a road game since the middle of May. Arizona is -130, Giants +110. How could anyone of sound mind bet on the Giants at a paltry +110 with those horrific stats to consider?

All right, I hope I’ve successfully pulled of the “reverse jinx” and Zito pitches a beauty tonight……

Look back at all three games, how did we win ANY of them?  It’s almost as if each game is just a collection of individual, separate moments. And yet somehow, each moment connects to one another at the end for a victory. Nate Schierholtz comes off the bench clearly with his head not in the game, and gets picked off. Idiot. So, of course, Nate wins the game for us. Hero.

I honestly can’t remember a season that had this many entertaining games. And it’s not just that we are in a pennant race, these games have just been unbelievable…..

There have been a lot of documented things that didn’t work out this year: Timmy, Pablo, Wellenmeyer as the 5, DeRosa hurt, Rowand sucking, Franchez hovering just above the brink of *below averageness*….the list is a mile long. And yet we’re about to take over first place. How?

This is a gutty-ass team that refuses to ever give up. The season has evolved to the point where each player knows someone on the team will step up and deliver–the only question is who it’s gonna be. That’s a very cool place to be in September…….

I was half-way listening to Marty Lurie in the car yesterday and I THINK he said that only one team in the history of baseball has ever lost 10 in a row and still made the playoffs–1951 Giants (I think). And the Padres are forced to look around the locker room and not be thinking “Ok, this will pass, we are the best team, etc…”. They’re looking around going “uh oh, this is what everyone said we would be before the season started”.  If anything, we need to worry a little about Colorado– they’re playing well and if we get hit by San Diego on their freefall down it’s totally possible that the Rockies slide right on up to the top of the division…….

Depending on the outcome of the next couple of days we could literally be in a position to BURY the Padres in our upcoming seires with them later in the week……

10 freaking games lost in a row. Amazing. 80% of the Giants fan base would have committed suicide if that had happened to us……

That’s what I did after Gibbons hit that bomb. Not a long walk, just down the driveway and up the street and back. Apparently that walk worked wonders. Cain settled down and we go on to hit 4 bombs to win the game. There are almost no words to describe last night’s win. Either you saw it or you didn’t and I have never seen a game like that–that one was an original. Uribe has to be POTG but if was ever to be a shared last night was the night—Posey, Renteria, Burrell, Ross and Uribe. And you have to give Cain huge props for settling down after giving up that bomb to the ridiculous Gibbons…….

Torre stubbornly using Broxton again. Baha. Classic look of defeat on Broxton’s face after Uribe’s hit. Broken and beaten….

Who loses 9 games in a row at this time of year and can honestly maintain the confidence to actually believe they can win their division?

There is no team above us. The only thing that is stopping us from steamrolling this division is proper execution. That, and God hating us when Zito pitches……..

It seems like every time Zito pitches something stupid happens to us—like God hates the Giants when he pitches. Should Guillen have caught that ball?  OF COURSE that hit by Lady B goes to the ONE guy on the field who is least likely to make that catch. I’d guess that every outfielder on our team makes that catch…..

2 hits? This year we have exactly 2 earned runs scored of Billingsley through 29.2 innings he’s pitched against us. Pathetic….

You can’t blame the loss on one guy unless you believe God hates Barry Zito and I think that’s an inarguable fact at this point. “When he pitches, dumb shit  happens”. It’s Zito’s Law……..

The Padres continue to lose, even at home. This is still totally doable……..

You can’t really understate the importance of the next 10 games for the Giants. San Diego is limping home but they are about to kick off a nice long homestand. If we stay around 2-3 games back for the next 10 days or so then we will POUNCE on the Padres when they fall apart on the 10 day road trip they have to stagger through starting on September 13th.  September is their month to fall apart– their young arms are taxed and spent. But we don’t need to be 6 games back on the 13th, that could leave us with too much work to do……

So it all starts tonight against the *Done-gers*. I think they’ve got a team-wide check out going on right now. The owner-divorce is dominating the headlines, Matt Kemp can’t wait for his next date with Riannah, Fucal and Martin are in their rightful spot on the DL and Broxton is not fine despite what Torre will tell you. As long as we don’t get too tight I think we take 2 of 3 for sure this weekend……..

When Darren Ford improbably took off for third, ultimately heading home as the winning run last night, the first thing I thought of was Will Clark hitting a HR off Nolan Ryan– I know, I know, lots of differences but that’s what I first thought of. That goddamn ball rolled maybe 5 feet away from Olivo. There’s no WAY you take off and make it safe to third. And how does a guy in his first freaking major league game even have the balls to attempt that play? And then it just sort of magically unfolded, ironically, in slow motion. At least to me…..

Bochy deserves credit for putting Ford in as a PR but what the hell was he even doing on the team? This guy was hitting .251 with a .680 OPS in freaking Richmond! Everyone has heard about his speed but you don’t really get it till you see a play like last night. Would he have been out if the throw had been on the money? Probably, but we’ll never know…..

I’ve got no clue if Ford will ever do anything at this level. I think I saw he had a neck tattoo. I hate guys with neck tats. And it doesn’t really matter how fast you are if you can’t get on base and that .251 ba/.315 OBP/680 OPS from Richmond is uninspiring at best.  But for one play, for one moment in time, the dude showed up with the most exciting rookie debut since Will Clark’s. I’ll never forget last night’s play……

Call up day. Bochy has to be sighing a bit of relief at the new bodies he’s getting. Uribe is in desperate need of some time off and whether it’s Renteria or Burriss who give him a blow, that dude needs to get a blow….

So who’s getting called up?

Here’s the link to our minor league stats:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/minorleagues/affiliates/index.jsp?c_id=sf

Outside of middle infield help I’m not sure what our team really NEEDS right now. We’ve got about 16 outfielders already vying for time. The bullpen has sorted itself out pretty good in terms of roles and Runzler will be taking his spot back today so I don’t know how many new guys we’re going to be seeing coming out of the bullpen. Brandon Belt? Sure, why not but I don’t know when he would play.  Couldn’t hurt to give him a view from the bench and a PH now and again…….

How about Chris Dominguez down at Augusta (not for a call up, just *how ’bout him*)?  He seems like he can hit a little, but 30(!) —t-h-i-r-t-y— errors this year. Dude might want to learn how to play 1st base or he’s headed down the same road Jesus Guzman is traveling down…….

Ubaldo vs Timmy— this is not a must win game. I’m telling myself that partly because it’s true and partly because I’ve lost faith in Tim Lincecum. If he can’t beat the #3’s of the league how is he going to beat this guy (who he’s already lost to)……