Zito: The Next Chapter.
Am I the only one who’s starting to get fascinated with this guy? He’s got a 1.54 WHIP (bad) and a 6.23 ERA (awful). And yet he’s only given up 1 bomb this year and opponents are only hitting .245 off him. How is that possible? Zito is throwing 81 mph fastballs. That’s right around what a middling high school varsity pitcher throw them at. So you’re telling me that a guy throwing high school fastballs to major league pitchers has only given up one hr in 13 innings? I find that astounding….
And now he’s hurt.
I’ll save all the “blessing in disguise” talk, though I think we can all feel reasonably confident that if he doesn’t get hurt we lose that game. And it’s jut an ankle, he’ll be fine. The dude survived a pretty substantial car crash without even incurring a scratch, I doubt an ouchy ankle will keep him out too long. But when he comes back, what then? More 81 mph fastballs? More 6+ ERA’s? He’s still got the single win since last July 16th……
A…..B…..Z
The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings (Pawlie extends his lead)….
| 1. | PawliesPandas | 106 | 2.5 | 1 | 10 | |
| 2. | Clowns R Us | 102.5 | 5 | 5 | 8 | |
| 3. | NO Whitey | 94 | -2.5 | 10 | 9 | |
| 4. | Bladerunners | 92 | 0 | 8 | 15 | |
| 5. | Unca’s Army | 90.5 | -1 | 6 | 8 | |
| 6. | Flavor | 86.5 | 0 | 14 | 10 | |
| 7. | Tizzle | 80.5 | -3 | 9 | 7 | |
| 8. | IrishGiants | 71 | 4.5 | 3 | 8 | |
| 9. | CrazyDiamonds | 67 | 1 | 13 | 5 | |
| 10. | Giant Head | 64 | -1 | 4 | 22 | |
| 11. | NoTalent | 59.5 | -3 | 7 | 11 | |
| 12. | Dirt Bags | 55 | 2.5 | 2 | 18 | |
| 13. | Ferretball | 50 | -2 | 12 | 3 | |
| 14. | Berra’s Bombers | 31.5 | -3 | 11 |
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Well that fucking sucked. Brutal loss heading into Mile High country. We got a total of 6 hits in 12 innings off the Snakes pitching staff — fugly.
If we don’t homer, we don’t score. Stop hitting home runs goddammit.
Well hell.
4 GB heading into Colorado. We cannot get swept. Doing so would put us in Silky Sullivan mode in mid-April.
Even the great Silky can’t catch the Rockies if we allow them to run the first 1/4 in 25 and change.
BLEEP IT!
We’d be hardly iin Silky Sullivan mode, my man. I told all of you 15-18 to start the season, then we turn it on. It’s a long season…..
I’m not drawing a line in the sand on what we need to do in Colorado but I am definitely interested in how they stack up against them AT THIS POINT IN THE YEAR. Rox have their hitting shoes on, no doubt. But we face Esmil Rodgers (extremely average pitcher), Ubaldo (coming off the DL) and De La Rosa (can be tough but can also be hit or miss). We go Timmy, Dirrrrty and Cain. I’ll take our chances with that crew and we could score a lot of runs in Colorado this trip………
To me the story of the year so far is poor defense. Bit SF in the ass again this game. I don’t think the Belt 1B and Huff RF will continue much longer. Balls that did not find the defensively challenged last year are already finding them. Burrell, Huff, and today Tejada — he is inconsistent in the field, one inning a nice running backward catch, the next he boots a routine grounder, plus lots of balls thrown in the dirt so far that Belt has saved. Runzler to me looks sometimes like he’s scared to use his stuff. Unless he was tiring there at the end, he walks two guys that are batting not far above the Mendoza line. I wouldn’t cry if he went down, and Kroon came up…
” told all of you 15-18 to start the season” Well, so far you shouldn’t have done that.
I said it then and I stand by it. By the end of game 33 that’s where we’ll be. You’ll have your work cut out for you to get to 98……
Belt is almost assuredly going down, unless they DFA Burrell…
Belt is just not hitting the ball hard right now. Yet who is going to field *Steve Sax Runzler’s* throws to first? Man, that dude needs to go see a sports psychologist or something……
Travis Ishikawa.
i’m down with Ishikawa, there’s just no room for him. But if they brought Ross up and sent Belt down and then DL’s someone (De Rosa) I could see Travis coming back up. And Bochy would love it, he’d get a legit PH to bring in (not to mention late D)
Burrell’s not going down. Belt will. Belt stayed up because Ross was hurt, he’ll go down when Ross comes back. Ross will solidify RF, they’ll move Rohand to LF once Torres comes bac to CF. That’s a pretty decent defensive outfield. Burrell comes off the bench, starts a game here and there. I think Huff will start hitting better when he goes back to a comfort zone at 1B…
Burrell “down” meaning cut…
absolutely correct across the board. In fact…..POTD!
You’re fucking kidding. No queer jokes from Loo? Oviously Stix has to smoke your pole for a POTD.
well he could start by writing something in less than 1000 words. I appreciate Stix, he knows that, but you have to be in for the long haul to make it through one of his posts……..
And I have honored him in the last with something I never did with anyone else, I made one of his posts a main thread topic last year………
You people are fucking delusional if you think Burrell is safe. As *I* said, Belt is the most likely to go down, but Pat is on thin ice.He’s had no clue.
As I said weeks ago, Burrell looks like Mark McGwire in his very last at-bats: HR or SO. nothing in between. [Curiously, that was true of Steve Carlton too at the very end: he either struck you out or gave up a bomb. Baseball is symmetrical like that.] Which means, he occasionally guesses right. He looks lost, timing is off, maybe even lost his verve, or nerve — take your pick. There’s no justifying him as a starter, sadly — despite what my wife thinks of “Bait” — Burrell’s nickname in college, for his chick-magnet-ness, according to a Tweet from Baggs.
On the bright side, the Giants are just 1/2 game from FL in the wild card.
But so are the Nats.
G’night, gurlzzz.
God, you’re off on this. They’re going to cut the guy who is tied for the team lead in HRs? This isn’t some bumpkin kid who just fell off the turnip truck. Burrell is a known quantity and Bochy loves him. He gives you power and OPS when he’s right, nothing when he’s off. Everyone knows this and they’ll ride out this little slump he’s in.
BTW, if Burrell was in your inner circle of players (Tejada, Panda, etc) you would be yapping about that hard hit foul ball that missed being a double by an inch…..
I don’t think anyone, ever, has addressed me as “God” before [not even lowercase and not in quotes], esp. not while disagreeing.
I was talking to Twin but you know how much I think of you Pawlie (insert gay ass…..oh whatever, that joke is done to death)
even in the midst of this terrible stretch, Bat’s OPS is .796. You guys are right, leading team in HR’s, .796 OPS, that’s horrendous, cut him…….
After the initial stumble out of the gate that is 3 series in a row in the bag. I listened off and on on the radio today and Bumgarner seemed to fight through. Sandoval is just a manimal out there right now. The pundits continue to ignore the defending world champs but I like what I’m seeing.
Ross returning and Torres to follow. Belt is the obvious choice. He’s just not hitting the ball with authority. With the Burrell/Huff/Bochy/Sabean bromance I just don’t see Burrell losing out.
another thoughtful post, thank you….
wait a min, Torres has no HR’s and an OPS 30 pts lower. Plus, he can’t run right now. Cut him!!!!!!!!!
Actually, Flavor has hated his success, even suggesting that adderall was responsible. Pathetic.
adderall is responsible dipshit. He’s got ADD
and don’t fucking tell me who I hate. You are posting out your ass on this subject so kindly shut the fuck up…….
You inferred it was a bogus diagnosis, fuckwad.
of course I did, and it was a perfectly legitimate thing to wonder. Lots of players are taking adderall right now as a replacement for performance enhancing drugs. I’m surprised you didn’t know this.
After reading about it and watching the trailer for his movie it’s obvious that he has this disorder and is benefiting from medication. I’ve mea culpa’d several times, including very early last year on the guy, I owned him on every team I had last year, and to say that I “hated his success” is ignorant, short sighted and uninformed……
“of course I did, and it was a perfectly legitimate thing to wonder.”
No, first you do as I did-research it instead flapping your gums.You were out of line.
i did research it, I read all the same shit you did. The trailer for his movie was the kicker though. Look, there are 150 players or whatever taking adderall. How many of them have ADD? 10-15%? They’re all saying the same shit to get it, all of them finding the right doctor to give them the prescription. And this happens across the board with adderall, people try to get it across all walks of life. It’s a very powerful prescription drug……..
Obviously, Belt goes. No one else is even being considered…
I’m not down on Burrell in the sense of lacking in appreciation for what he did or tries to do, team chemistry, or anything. My doomer self has merely concluded that he is much more in the Late Tampa Phase than the Early to Late SF Phase of his hitting. I’d gladly be wrong. And I don’t think I declared “cut him.” Maybe he just gets relegated to the bench role we really envisioned for him anyway this year. Fuckwads.
Torres actually concerns me a bit but why worry when Rowand is en fuego.
Dirrrrrrt: Agreed. Ride Rowand as long as you can. Torres will be fine, I think he might have been trying to live up to that contract a bit too much. He needs to relax and go out and play although come to think of it if Rowand keeps hitting *relaxing* is the last thing Torres will do. Oh well, pop a couple more adderall, he’ll be fine 🙂
The stat for the lead off guy is OBP. Torres is at .375. And you people thinking Rowand has changed-too funny.
Rowand is just doing the same thing he’s always done but somehow the bat is hitting the ball. I can’t remember seeing someone looking exactly the same in their approach through success and failure. By the same I mean “Dude, pinch that loaf already!”.
Damn, Granderson just crushed that ball. Fucking figures, I just p/u Ogando in my ESPN league. Curtis is a very engaging and intelligent ball player. I like his interviews; smart, witty and poignantly expressed. He’s one of my favorite non-Giant players.
My inner circle? I was fully in on Burrell’s signing- Flavor reluctantly, Snarkllefuck said he was no improvement on Bowker… but they got the best they’ll get from him.
Just discovered this via Twitter:
http://bit.ly/gYv6Pd
BattingStanceGuy. His week in review is fun, though limited. As kids, my brothers and I always did stances. (His bat is too light.)
He’s loads of fun on Twitter.
We can argue back and forth over who’s up, who’s down, who stays and who goes, but one thing brooks no argument: Six hits over 12 innings, including no baserunners over the last 6 is simply not acceptable. As far as A.B.’s go, Belt’s were generally better than anyone else in the bottom of the lineup. Tejada looked positively foolish on some of those down and outs.
Was it Kruk or Kuip, didn’t catch the voicing, who said that the Arizona bullpen really did a good job? A couple of em seem pretty decent. Hernandez and Putz, and the newbie game winner succeeded as an unknown quality. But to be shut down by the bunch of them…
Team is gonna be dragging, tomorrow evening in Denver. After Buster’s marathon we may even see you know who behind the plate. It may pretty much come down to Timmy. Lincecum being completely on his game is exactly the remedy for today’s fiasco at the plate.
BTW, Burrell is indeed tied for the team lead in HRs.And he has 4 RBI…tied with, uh, Belt…
And as you’ve pointed out more than once, RBIs are a contingent stat. The fickleness of the game also cost him a “clutch” double today.
He’s struck out 39 of his last 86 AB. That has cost a few more RBIs than a fickle line drive or two…
I got my ticket for the game on Saturday vs. Atlanta. Last year I was at an early season game vs. Atlanta, the game that had the long rain delay. Hopefully better weather this year. (grin)
One of the more memorable games I’ve attended at McCovey Cove.
Have fun, Z. I’m trying to remember my last one. Just can’t. I wanted to write of it. Night all.
you can write about the time Big Flavor dumped a beer on Zumie’s head and that kicked off a section wide brawl that ended up with you bailing all the flappers out of the slammer several hours later. It would be priceless…..
i’d even kick in $50 towards a ticket that brought Sweet Loo out here (no gay ass smiley face, I really am attracted to him)………Wait a minute, did…I…just…type….that…..out….uh….oh…….
well let’s all go to a game then. I’ll set it up let’s talk via email. I can’t tell you the number of people who email me wanting to take you to a game. It’s been over 20……..
Hey, I’ve always been into the idea. Let’s do it.
my experience with meeting Flappers has been 100% positive, though obviously guarded. I met Dirrrrt in Reno, SanDiggityDawg for the Posey game and Pawlie for a pre-World Series Game 1 bonanza.
But it’s up to twin if he wants to go for it.
I just sent you an email. And I forgot 2 things: I’ll promise to get you there and you never responded to my question about the snipping thing…….
which I am doing a slow burn over……
I had misinformed you about the snipping tool ( in error) Just google it. I am not close to being able to attend a game. I have trouble watching them.
Night again,
well just don’t take it off the table. Or maybe I should say, put it on the table. I can buy 10 tix for a game in Sept and easily get 8 other core Flappers in on that. If you can’t make it I’ll take Katie. Probably for the best, no hangover the next day. Sleep well……..
Burrell and Huff are tighter than two polecats in heat. No way the braintrust dumps Burrell less than a month into the season — it’d piss off Huff no end and put his Dauber down. He just needs to play 1B, and his mood and BA will improve…
I hope they won’t be making a decision on Burrell based on his friendship with Huff. The 39 Ks in 86 ABs TF cites are certainly not a good sign of things to come. As for the significance of his RBI to K ratio, you can probably pick out more than one month like July 09 where he hit .213 over 89 ABs w/ 4 home runs, 32 Ks, yet had 15 RBI.
Of course Huff’s preferences will prevail. What do you think this is, a serious business? Christ. You must be sober tonight.
There’s magic inside
Burrell will always have value as a late inning pinch-hitter; someone who can change a game with a late homerun. They want Belt to play everyday. Could be a trip to Fresno in his near future. Hey, it was worth a try; it hasn’t worked out fully yet. Great D, draws some walks, but is having a hard time squaring up the ball. He can get it worked out at AAA. Rowand has worked his way into extended playing time.