A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Now THAT was a ballgame. Of course, I wasn’t able to see it so I won’t comment on the details. But with Torres and Ross both going deep,  with no one hitting the DL, Bumgarner’s stud outing in a very difficult place for visitors to play, I think that might have been our best overall game played this year. Again, if you saw it and had a different opinion than I do, I’m willing to share your opinion….

Hitting bombs, that’s gonna have to be the way it is for us if we want to score runs. We don’t have enough speed or enough OBP to manufacture runs. In fact, I think it is entirely more reasonable to expect the offense carries itself with power instead of “little ball.” That’s one reason why I think Panda and Belt (should he ever get off the bench for a few games in a row) could end up carrying us for long stretches this season. Neither is going to ever lead the league in HR’s (that’s for the Bruce’s and the Stanton’s of the league) but they will hit for a high enough average AND OPS to provide the big hits we need to score runs.

And I agree with Twin, the 6 spot would look awfully nice with Torres in it. Adios Pelota. You know that’s what he’s always wanted to be anyway, not a gnat at the top of a line up……

And for your daily dose of “Jose Reyes” talk, riddle me how in the hell this dude has a slugging % of .493 with ONE (1) home run. That’s pretty hard to do. The dude is a doubles and triples machine……

Because of how bad they’ve been lately, it’s hard to see it but yesterday was just “one of those games.” The Brewers got a lot of those bleeder bloopy bulls-hit(s) and the Giants hit the ball hard many times getting nothing for it. That’s just baseball, some games you get the breaks some games you don’t….

But there is a larger issue that needs to get dealt with and there aren’t too many options to solve the problem. Last year the Giants had MANY players to turn to for offensive help. Any number of the following guys provided huge hits to help win games (in order of studly-ness): Uribe, Huff, Burrell, Torres, Posey and Ross and Renteria in the playoffs)…..

This year there is maybe one guy on that list still producing and that’s Torres. And he’s pretty far off last year’s numbers but I at least have some faith in him that he’ll get back to them. The other guys? Huff is proving he might really be a one year on/one year off guy. Posey is done for the year. Uribe and Renteria are gone. Burrell is completely done. And Ross, as I wrote about last Winter, isn’t going to give you what he gave you during the playoff run–he’s a streaky guy who got hot at the perfect time. But that’s who he is and it’s probably why Florida released him and no one put in a bid on him except us. Think about it…..Then you’ve got the “Anti-List” guys like Tejada and Rowand and Whiteside who didn’t help us win games consistently (or at all) last year but who clog up this year’s LU with 0-4’s and double plays……

So with The 2010 Stud List pretty much crossed off, who will step up and do it this year? Obviously, getting the Panda back will be huge. He didn’t make last year’s *list* but he was #1 on the 2011 List before he went down. How he will do when he comes back is anybody’s guess since he’s going to be coming back with a ton of expectations and we all know what his swing looks like when he’s pressing.  There’s also the slim possibility that Belt will step up and be the guy. That’s a bit of a long shot with all the pressure that will be on the young man to be one of THE GUY’S but I could see it happen…….

After that there really isn’t a guy on the squad that I could see stepping up  consistently the way the guy’s from last year’s list did (except Torres)….

So that leaves Sabean with the task of signing someone who’s been DFA’d or a trade. Again, hitting on guys like Ross and Burrell is like nailing 35 black back to back. But it could happen. The Angels just signed Russell Branyan after the D-backs discarded him. He was having an awful year but he was *ok* last year. The Rockies just DFA’d Lopez and Amezaga. I wouldn’t want either of them but that’s an idea of what’s out there for free…..

Trades. Probably a fresh round of “Reyes to SF” talk will get going again. I don’t see it and I also don’t like it. Bad fit. For starters he’s producing at his peak right now, he’s headed for a downturn at some point. He’s also an ass.  He’s also not a guy who drives in runs which is what we need.

To be honest, I’m not really following who else is available. It’s too early for most teams to give up and start shedding payroll. But make no mistake, despite having an ok record and playing in a totally winnable division, we are in a desperate situation right now. Bochy is stuck with a bunch of pieces that don’t add up to much……

At Bagg’s blog he raises the obvious question about a lack of offensive identity. And you can see what he means– we’ve got no go-to guy (with Posey and Panda out). We’ve got no speed. We’ve got no power. Who are we? How did we get here?

The ’95 Rockies had the Blake Street Bombers. The ’27 Yankees had Murderers’ Row. I humbly submit the 2011 SF Giants indentity: “The Golden Gate Geezers”….

I don’t need to wait till June 1 to say it: Pat Burrell and Miguel Tejada are DONE. Finished. Careers are OVER. I don’t mind Pat the Bat coming off the bench and swinging for the fences late in a game. Hell, he’s doing that right now anyway and he might run into one every now and again–but watching him fail miserably from the clean up spot on almost every at bat has me doing a slow burn. And Tejada? Ugh, let him play third base till Panda gets back but this guy is less than worthless right now…..

And Rowand at lead off is another thing to nix immediately. Just leave Torres out there against lefties. He can find a way on base and do what he normally does, “make things happen”. A team with no offensive identity can’t have the least likely leadoff man in baseball leading off. Oh wait, maybe that’s another example of how we have no offensive identity….

Over the last 3 games, the Giants have been shutout, then a random call up accounts for 4 of their 5 runs scored, then an error allows them to score their grand total of two yesterday. Pathetic. And sure you can argue that losing a ‘Posey’ will give your team a hangover but that’s not what’s happening. This is who they are. Pretty much every guy who comes to the plate feels like  the same guy…..

Sit Pat the No-Bat, Play Burriss somewhere every day and put Rowand on Zito Detail with Torres taking all the starts in CF. I’ve got no idea what to do with 3rd base…..

And how about Dirrrrrrty’s luck? He gives up two earned runs and I have a pretty hard time calling those runs “earned”. The first one was the lamest inside the park job I’ve ever seen, Ross absolutely should have had that. And then Whitey throws a ball into CF with Braun ultimately coming into score on a sac fly. Boom, 2 earned runs. Why isn’t Whiteside’s throw an error? I’ve never understood why catchers don’t get errors for crap throws into CF……….

Dirrrrrrrrty Goes Today……..

Over the long haul Brandon Crawford can’t hit….

Would rather see Burriss in there…..

Belted out a very loud “Fuck Yeah!” after Whiteside tagged Fielder and flipped the ball in front of him….

It’s 4am and I woke up wanting to bash Scott Cousins head in with a 2 X 4. I’ve watched that replay like 40 times.  I’m sickened by it. There’s something about the immediate finality of his season ending that bothers me. Makes me not want to watch the game. No idea why. It’s like a death or a divorce…..

Anyway, I’m taking a break from the blog for a while. Maybe I need to go out to a game or something. I’ll try to monitor it but I’m not interested in managing it or updating it. Peace out……

Mike Stanton has a pretty imposing swing, doesn’t he? I don’t find Gaby Sanchez to be the force the broadcasters do. He’s having a nice little streak to start the season. But Stanton, that dude is a Man-Child. When you look at Florida’s LU, it’s a big reminder to us of what we DON’T have. We don’t have a single player who offers the type of power that several of those dudes do…..

And if Nolasco can shut us down like that I shudder to think of what Anibel Sanchez will do on Thursday. At least we get a break with Volstad. He’s a big son of a be-atch. but he’s a pretty below average pitcher…..

Look, Fuentes is an extreme *P* for going to the press with his Geren tirade last night. Just suck it up and take your 7th loss like a professional. But he did disclose some interesting info about Geren and it amazes me that Beane’s best bud can keep a gig like this for so many years. At some point the A’s have to upgrade that job, right?
Florida is a tricky team. Stanton might lead the NL is hr’s this year. Morrison is the real deal, too. HanRam is having the worst year of his career. Luckily we miss JJ who’s on the DL but Anibel Sanchez., when he’s throwing strikes, is almost as hard to hit as our own Dirrrrrty Sanchez. He’s almost dirrrrrtier……..

Should be a fun series. I’ll say we sweep going  2-1, 1-0, 5-3……….

We scored 5 runs? Of course we won. 5 runs is like batting around 6 times in the first inning for this team. I don’t know if I’ve seen a cooler embrace than the one Ford and Burriss gave each other at the end of the game. Two Fresno Grizzlies finally get to get some and when you watch those guys motor around the field you just think “there has to be a place on the team for them.” Some people have argued there’s no room for a guy like Ford but I would argue how could you NOT have a guy like Ford? If he wins a game for us ever 2 to 3 weeks I’d say that’s an invaluable guy to have on your team. No player in baseball scores on that hit yesterday. Oh, except one……

With Tejada holding down 3rd base fairly well (I said last Winter he belongs at 3rd now, not SS) I would like to see Burriss get some starts at SS instead of Fontenot. Font is a nice little player but Burriss has, oh I don’t know, ELECTRICITY that has to be tapped. He’s bunting and hitting opposite field now–2 things he didn’t have a clue on how to do before. He’s turned a corner and if you don’t watch closely he’ll turn another one and be gone…..

He calls himself safe.

It’s too bad, the last one was one of my better ones. Oh well, new gold is alway but a click away…..

I want to know if any of you have a lead with one of the Elias Sports guys. I need to know if this has ever happened before in the history of major league baseball. I’m guessing it has not…

The Giants have won 8 straight home games. These are the runs they’ve scored in each game: 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 3, 2, 3. Grand total: 23 in 8 games. There opponents have scored, get this, 11 (E-L-E-V-E-N) runs. In 8 (E-I-G-H-T) games. I find that…wait for it……ASTOUNDING!!!!!!!!!!

There has to be something historical there. First guy who hears back from an Elias guy about it gets a bobblehead of me taking a dump (in fact, such an item truly does exist–a 40 year old birthday present from The Boney One, one of the great b-day presents in the history of time)….

By the way, XOOT and BOZO tied in the voting for POTVP. I’ll post it later today. How it will pain me to take down “All things Molina”…..

I’m having some technical difficulties with the snipping tool, that’s why you aren’t seeing the Flap Fantasy Standings posted lately…….

I don’t know how they calculate a  *WAR* number but Nate’s should go up a tick or two after that performance. I don’t know many other players in the league who make that catch and NO ONE makes it without the shallow OF positioning. I’m certain that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a Giants game end like that. And I’m surprised no one has mentioned it, but he didn’t just dive for the ball, he had to move his arm out well to the left—I don’t think there was too much more *left* he could have gone to haul that bad boy in…….

Everything Wilson missed was up. That tells me that his ankle WAS bothering him since he was having trouble planting and finishing off his pitches. But in the end, who cares? Despite the unusual ending, it was a typical save for Bee-Wheezy….

Baggs noted another bomb by Belt for Fresno and wondered again if a call up was imminent. Listening to Sabean on KNBR, he didn’t sound too keen on bringing him up right now but he could have just been trying to diffuse the questions about it. Sabes also made it clear that Zito was several weeks away from returning. Really? From a sprained ankle? He’s obviously throwing because Raggs has him working on his delivery to re-capture the velocity that he’s lost. It’s actually the perfect scenario. They can warehouse him without any of the drama. Something tells me Zito is fine with it. He pitches scared and fearful of contact. Voggy pitches with focused determination. He’s been an unbelievable story this year and has developed into “This Year’s Torres”. In many ways he’s a savior of sorts. With all the fretting we’ve done about what to do with Zito, Voggy just comes in and poof Zito is gone and practice a new grip on the ball far away from a real-life game situation that he would normally be screwing up. Gotta love it………

It bothered me last night to see the posts that made light of DeRosa going down mid at bat last night. It made me wonder why I don’t share the same feelings when I see a Tejada, Rowand or Zito dig. In fact, I lead the way on many of those *roast posts*…..

Watching DeRosa flinch in pain and leave the game, without even taking a swing, just magnified, for me, the pain and the struggle and the hard work that guy has put in over the last 2 years. So many set backs and how frustrating must it be for him to be forced out by something as peripheral to the body as a wrist? For a baseball player though, it’s a key part of the body.  It’s obvious that DeRosa loves the game and wants to be out on the field. It’s also obvious that his career is over and wouldn’t you rather end your career because you chose to rather than have it chosen for you? Watching him throw his helmet into the dugout was just sad to see.

I don’t doubt the effort from guys like Tejada, Rowand and Zito. And their is ultimate honor in effort. I think I just get so tired of watching them fail that I finally can’t take it anymore and vent my frustrations with blog posts making fun of their failure. With DeRosa, I never had to watch him fail (at least, not as many times as the other guys) so instead of getting tired of him I just feel for him that it all came to end end so quickly…..

But when it finally does end for guys like Miggy and Rowand and Zito I will force myself to take a moment and honor their commitment to this game. I often get focused with the results on the field, the box scores, the underlying sabermetric numbers— but there is no metric to measure how hard you work in the gym, or how many times you see a doctor, or how much it hurts to get injured and have to watch your friends play on the field without you…..

They’re saying DeRosa just has a strained wrist and who knows, maybe he comes off the DL and gets a few more at bats. But I think it’s obvious that it’s over for him. And right now I can honestly say that I regret every Noah Lowry post that I ever made especially the ones after he got hurt……

Hate a player’s performance, it’s part of being a fan, but don’t ever forget to honor their effort or their commitment to the game……..

Dirrrrty pitched a great game yesterday, he deserved that win. For some reason in Colorado, weird stuff happens. This is now 2 games in a row that Bochy will get second guessed for when he took his starter out. Had his pitch count been higher than the paltry *80* that he started the 8th inning with, I think he might have gone to the ‘pen. But Dirrrrty was dealin’, he didn’t walk a batter all game. I’ve got no problem with the way Bochy managed that series…..

On to LA and how the Hell does a 23 year old already have  a deep resume of domination over us? Kershaw has thrown 50 innings in his career versus the Giants. His ERA is 1.07. Uh, he good.  Tejada and Burrell actually have the best numbers off him (Tejada is hitting .417, Burrell .308 with a bomb. Torres actually has hit him better than Rowand so I hope we don’t see the Gamer out there in his place. Torres, despite his 0-5 yesterday, is essential to this puss-hitting line up right now……

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(Cries of foul play and collusion ring out on the message board! Is anarchy around the corner? Ah, but I am the commissioner and I have spoken,  move on my friend it’s just a game, one that you are playing quite skillfully at the moment…. Dennis holds the top spot but I creep ever closer as FH’s bad day gets worse with a 4 point drop and a looming Edd waiting to catch her fall……..)

I thought that MacDog nailed it at the end of the last thread. No matter what you though of that play, Tim’s bad throw took the possibility of the double play out of the equation. I thought (and still think) that was a catchable ball. But it really had no bearing on the outcome of the game. Tim was terrible and I would also agree with Macdog that I haven’t seen Tim lose his composure like that since…..maybe the time he got pissed off at the Rockies for the “humidified” balls. But he was really more irritated than anything else and he seemed to feed off it that game. Last night, he fell apart…….

And with Dirrrrrty going tonight, I would be happy if he could just walk less than Tim did last night. I’ll take that and hope we have our hitting shoes on…..

For the Bochy detractors (and they were all over the airwaves last night and this morning): Are you serious? Calling out Bochy for leaving Tim in is uncalled for. The same people who are questioning his decision to leave him in to face CarGo need to also stand up and say they had complete faith in Jeremy Freaking Affeldt to get him out. Affeldt? He’s been horrendous lately. And Tim didn’t pitch that badly in that inning, with a good throw he already out of it with the double play. And the ball Tulo hit was almost caught by Franchez. It’s idiotic to rail on Bochy for taking Tim out to early (which we hear all the time) and then rail on him when he leaves him in a hitter too long….

And to Vin Mazzaro: Dude, I feel for you. The manager of the Royals (who is it? Yost?) should be disciplined for leaving him in the game that long. Letting him throw 78 pitches in 2 innings could easily have caused him to injure his arm (not to mention what 14 ER’s did to him psychologically) and then promptly optioning him to AAA shows how much they care about the arms of their pitchers. If I’m a KC pitcher I don’t trust one freaking person in the Royals organization, at any level, this morning…

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(Chuck makes a bold move and storms his way to a first place tie! Plus, Edd makes a desperate plea at the trade desk for, lol, pretty much everything. See below. Go Ed!)

I know Timmy is going tonight but I am haunted by what could happen tomorrow. Dirrrrty Sanchez is pitching in Colorado. He’s actually had some moderate levels of success there— 4-2 in 7 starts. His ERA is 4.91 (not awful for that place) and he’s held opponents to a .220 batting average. But that was back when he still knew how to throw strikes. I honestly think that past history of success or failure  applies less to Dirrrrty than to any pitcher in the history of major league baseball. Anything could happen tomorrow night.

I have Dirrrrty in two teams (not in the Flap, that draft is automatic so it’s luck who goes where). In my NFBC league I have to set my line up on Mon morning and then you can’t change it till the following Mon (which sucks if someone in your starting LU gets injured early in the week). I’ve agonized over whether to start him this week (I’m wondering if he feels the same) but he’s a 2 start pitcher this week and he gets Oakland at home on Sunday. Ugh. I’m inclined to start him and pray to God for strikes…..

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(NoTalent pushes Pawlie to an unusual third place standing, Dirt and FH continue their see saw battle for who gets to take a dump on Edd and Ed, well, god love Ed…..)

First off, Voggy is pitching over his head and even if you don’t know this, the Giants brass knows it. Voggy is a #5, a guy who is going to give you decent starts with an implosion and a shutout thrown in for good measure. We all love Voggy now and that’s why this is so hard to swallow, but Zito will get his spot back when he’s healthy and Voggy will go to the bullpen as THE long relief pitcher.

And actually, that’s the right call. Forget the idea of Zito going to the bullpen. Zito couldn’t pitch out of the bullpen successfully if you offered him a 126 million dollar extension and you forced the opposing batters to use bamboo baseball bats. He’s just not suited for it…..

Voggy can do the long relief thing, he’s done it before. And whatever Raggs and Gardner are feeding this guy, he’s eating it. I’m confident that he’d handle the role well.

And this is the main reason why Voggy takes that job when Zito comes back: it’s a role we need to have filled. Mota is the long guy right now but frankly, Mota should be pitching the 8th inning. He’s been our best, most consistent reliever this year and some combo of he and Romo should be taking the 8th inning job. If that starts happening we really won’t have  a long guy (Has Runzler been sent to Fresno yet?). That guy is Voggy……..

Besides, with Zito imploding in the 3rd inning of every game we are going to need a long guy more than ever. Voggy…….

Everyone is saying there will be a phantom injury to fix the Zito problem but it really doesn’t apply here unless the injury is to one of the other 4 starting pitchers.

So let’s enjoy Voggy pitching over his head while he continues to do so. Like the rest of you, I appreciated that start last night in the freezing cold without long sleeves. Think Zito could have done that? Ba ha……

Voggy is a man of the people. He’s a blue collar guy, a cap tipper. And pretty soon, he’s gonna be our #1 long relief guy…….

If you’re still having trouble accepting this just think of it this way. Once Zito takes back Voggy’s spot and starts turning in multiple crap performances, it’ll just allow you to hate Zito just a little bit more than you do right now. Who doesn’t enjoy themselves a good “Hate Barry” session?

Man, 14 strikeouts? F-O-U-R-T-E-E-N???? Remember when Fontenot was our hitting savior? That was last week right? He’s hitting .206 right now. And Miggy Te-nada has a .501 OPS. That’s pretty hard to score that low. I think you get three or four hundred OPS points just for putting on your uniform right…..

Several of you noticed Torres limping around the bases yesterday but I wasn’t able to find any follow up with that from any of our crack local scribes. I hope he’s ok……

Voggy goes tonight. National audience under the lights at Wrigley. As much as I felt like he would pitch well in his last home start I have the opposite feel tonight. If we throw a bunch of 0-4’s up there, tonight’s game will get ugly…….

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(Yours truly takes a 6 point leap, Pawlie is free falling and the bottom of the league is seeing nothin’ but red)

No one seemed too interested in commenting on it when I noted that I was ASTOUNDED that the Giants scored 18 runs in 6 games and yet won all 6 games. Then at ESPN this morning, the Elias Sports Guys said that the Giants are the first team in MLB HISTORY to sweep a home stand of 6 games or more without scoring more than 4 runs in any of the games. Something tells me that if Elias dug a little deeper into those last 6 games they’d find some other MLB *firsts*. Assuming that we are going to start scoring runs at some point this year, I can’t see us doing anything BUT winning this division by 8-10 games. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the Giants are the first major league team to ever win a game without scoring a run. Not sure how that would happen, but this crew would probably figger out a way to do it…….

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(The 2 heavy weights (Pawlie and DENNIS) continue to reign blows down upon each other and Edd scratches out another point to get himself not-so-nearly to 13th place!)

It’s impossible for me to pick a POTG– Tejada was huge. Dirrrty was gritty and fought through 6 innings–getting him that run in the 6th was huge to get him the win. Huff’s bomb. The bullpen was magnificent, as usual. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t been out to a game yet this year. I can’t remember the last year that it’s been mid-may and I still haven’t seen a game. The last game I went to was Game 1 v Texas and I think about that night every day. It’s like I’m still feeding off it or something. Anyway, got to hit a game one of these days……

To answer Willie D—Darren Ford went to high school in New Jersey. His fastest 440 was 4.44 and I find that hard to believe. He looks like a sub 4.3 guy. I’d like to know what I could run a 440 in. I might have to do that this weekend. Of course, no video. Just me, a stop watch and the wind……..

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(There’s a new sheriff in town……..)

I didn’t care for the tone of the last thread. Some comments were getting deleted, some others probably should have been deleted. Anyway, didn’t feel like going through everything so I’m starting a new thread.

I hope you all have a fabulous day……

Seems like we’ve talked about this before. I love The Bat but it’s hard to ignore the looming presence of Brandon Belt who continues to blast the ball all across the PCL. But when you look at Burrell’s numbers it just doesn’t make sense that he’s the guy who sits down right now. He’s still leading the team in HR’s, he’s 3rd in runs scored and his OPS is still over .800. That’s not a guy who you sit down for a guy who is still a *maybe* at this point in his career. It’s frustrating because our offense needs a kick right now. Mike Fontenot can only carry a team so far (batting him third was a cute little side story, and it’s worked up to this point, but this is all going to end soon, and not in a good way)…..

Basically, The Bat hasn’t done anything to lose his gig and he’s producing at a much greater rate than many hitters earning the same dough (and he’s certainly producing at a better rate of return than MANY players making 10 times what he makes).

I’d love to see Belt get a 2nd go-around. I just don’t see it happening at this point in the season. Maybe after June 1. Now, if only Belt could start taking some games at short stop 🙂

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(Me and tizzle share the daily gas mask as we drop 3.5 pts each and….OMG!…rarer than a double rainbow, Berra’s Bombers gain the most daily pts of any team with a 2 pt jump in the standings. He’s at 19 pts and about to start picking off teams faster than Arazi picked off horses in the Breeder’s Cup Juvenile low those many years ago)…..

Sweeping the first place team? How are they in first place? Like half their starting line up is hitting a buck eighty. Looming question: If Voggy keeps tossing starts out there like yesterday’s what do we do with him when Zit-Rod comes back in a couple of weeks?

Short and sweet today, not a lot of time for a thoughtful blog thread. You guys do all of it anyways……..

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(Denny explodes with a double digit green tsunami, The Clown tumbles and Berra’s Bombers stays the course with a solid 17)

Obviously Ford will be going down when Torres comes off the DL but who goes for DeRosa? Burriss? And does DeRosa get an immediate shot at 3rd base? Then where does Miggy go? With Fontenot playing the way he is I can’t see Bochy sitting him. Casilla is also reportedly coming back soon and Zito is going to start throwing off the mound soon. Too many players, not enough roster spots. Has Nate *Wally Pipped* Ross?

I don’t think either Nate or Font are season-long replacement ideas but it couldn’t hurt to ride them while they are hot. The roster spots tend to sort themselves out with a phantom injury or two….

Voggy going today. De La Rosa usually dominates us. Pitching at home, I bet Voggy gives us a solid performance before handing it over to our epic bullpen in the 7th…..

And while I’m not posting the Flap Standings do to some technical shortcomings, it should be noted that Berra’s Bombers reeled off a 2.5 pt EXPLOSION bringing his team total to 17. This could get REEEEEAL interesting if he keeps that up 🙂

I’m posting this from a phone so don’t expect much. And I can’t cut and paste POTD’s or POTG but if I could the POTD could have been a slew of comments from last night and the POTG was Nate for a hit that could only be described as *perseverance*. He tried going to left the swing before and just missed it and then he finally got it right  (or *left*) with that *forehand* beautifully placed into left field. Just a great piece of hitting. Side note: What is up with Betancourt? He’s a steroid-guy so I’m more suspicious of him than others, but he is a twitchy-sort, isn’t he? Did anyone notice that he kept sniffing his right underarm over and over? Anything planted in there to give him a *boost*? Maybe he’s just insane, I’ve seen guys down at the park who do that. Either way, it didn’t work…

Derby Day. My favorite of all the days. The Oaks hit me hard but I’m taking another swing today. This Derby is IMPOSSIBLE and for the first time in years I’m not doing a trifecta or a super—just trying to hit a Pick 4 and a Pick 3 into it. Picks coming soon in the widget to the right….

Who wouldn’t be excited about coming home? Unfortunately, I don’t think this will be a magical cure for what’s ailing us these days. We were unbelievably lucky to go .500 on that trip. We played bad teams and hit against bad pitchers yet we still managed to scratch out a win here and there. But counting on Eli Whiteside and Mike Fontenot to carry you to victory is probably not the blueprint for a return to the World Series. Ubaldo v Cain tonight. Ubaldo is pitching awful this year but he’s still got three wicked pitches so I expect tonight to be another *scratcher*…….

It’s Oaks day and I’m assuming most of you aren’t interested in me breaking it down. I’ll create a page to the right for it. One note: I left Beyer speed figures behind a long time ago. I am a Sheets disciple to the core. That’s the back bone of my analysis……..

The Flap Fantasy Baseball Standings

(Dirt falls, GH continues his schitzophrenic ways and Edd discovers that the loneliest number is actually *14*)

This *season-long* road trip will be finally coming to an end after today. I must say, I am really proud of how the guys persevered on this trip. After losing The Panda, they’ve been playing with literally no offense and yet every game someone does enough to put them over the top a little more than half the time. I’ll take that. The offense will only get better from here with Torres coming back, potentially Belt, and the rest of the vets snapping out of their season long slumps (they won’t all snap out of it but they won’t all stay in it either).

I was ASTOUNDED to see Lincecum set the franchise mark for most double digit strikeouts. He’s twentyfreakingsix. He did it in his 129th career start. It took hall of famer Christy Matthewson 551 games to get to 128. Tim Lincecum is a video game…….

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(FerretHead explodes with an 11 pt jump while Edd continues his decent into the  nether reaches of despair and oblivion)…

d

and just for the hell of it……

We’ve played 8 games on this trip though Pitt/Washington/New York. It feels like we’re 0-12. Yet that can’t be since we’ve only played 8. Hmmmm. Looking it up, we are somehow playing .500 ball. That’s insane to me. If we can throw up .500 ball playing like *this* then I really like our chances once we get this thing right.

DeRosa is excited about his wrist and that all but assures that Tejada will start to see a lot of bench time once he comes of the DL. I’m fine with that, let’s ride DeRosa till that wrist snaps clean off. I’m going to hate to see Ford go back down. Despite my strong bias against dudes with neck tats, I really enjoy what he brings to this team…..

I could barely make it through the KNBR morning idiots this morning on the way to work. They seem to think it would take a kings ransom to acquire Reyes. That’s simply not true. Any player in the final year of their deal isn’t going to cost as much as the same player who is locked up. We could pick him up for a couple of prospects. the only thing Mac and Idiot got correct is that Reyes is a brittle player who could hit the DL several times this year with not much more than a hang nail. No thank you……

They also felt that Sabean would give Tejada till the end of June to prove if he can still play or not. Again, wrong. Tejada’s time might be up as soon as DeRosa shows he’s healthy enough to play……

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(Pawlie bumps it back over 100 just to show us he’s still paying attention, GH and Tizzle free fall and Ed’s not seeing red for yet another day in a row…….)

It doesn’t get much bleaker than this. My days of basking have been replaced with game long cursing. It’s tough to wrap your brain around this type of offensive failure. I agree with many, when Torres returns Rowand has to stay in the line up. I doubt he’ll hit for much longer but if we could squeeze a few more weeks out of him before his slide back to mediocrity that would give Belt a little more time to keep crushing the ball down in Fresno. It would also give The Bat some time to clear his head on the bench. Once Rowand starts rolling balls to the shortstop again Bochy can either bring Belt up to play LF or give The Bat one more go at it.

When I look at Burrell and Tejada I see two guys slumping but I view them differently. Tejada’s slide could be seen in many different underlying saber numbers that I highlighted last Winter so this isn’t really a surprise to me. Burrell’s numbers, excluding one month last year, were still strong and not indicative of a guy who was washed up. Therefore I see this more as one of his normal career slumps. But, it’s also quite possible that Burrell is done, too.

Unfortunately we can’t ditch Tejada as easily as we could let go of The Bat right now. We simply don’t have anyone else who can play third base every day. And I hope Baggs was kidding about the Giants acquiring Jack Wilson from the Mariners. I’ve never understood why anyone likes him. He can’t hit. At all. And he’s on the downside of a very pedestrian career as it is. What would be the point of bringing Tejada 2.0 with even less power into the mix??????

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(kinda a slow day with an incomplete schedule playing. DIRT and DENNIS were the big movers while Pawlie dipped below the hundo mark for the first time. We’ll see if that psychological blow affects him at all)

Friday night we get shutout by a journeyman pitcher, Saturday our lone offensive hit was an Eli Whiteside bomb, and yesterday we score 2 runs on a bloop that should have been caught. The talkshows are abuzz with what to do, how to fix this, etc. There really is only 2 viable plans that I can see:

1) Leave everything the way it is and hope the vets aren’t all collectively finished with their careers at the exact same time. Remember, we got to the playoffs last year with almost this exact same offense. Pablo and Renteria did very little to GET US to the playoffs. So we are really only missing Uribe and he alone couldn’t be responsible for making up for this this type of offensive failure.  If The Bat, Tejada, Huff etc… have anything left then they will hit their way out of this like all baseball players do.

The other option is to…….

2) Call up Belt and install him as the starting LF. This isn’t Burrell’s fault but he’s contributing to it and if he’s not going to even be hitting home runs then there’s zero reason to have him out there. Belt is crushing the ball in Fresno and is playing the outfield exclusively. It’s a bit of a risk because if he comes back up and hits .150 again, not only does that not help our impotent O but the kid is going to start dragging around a pretty big question mark on his back.

But Belt is the only new face that can impact this LU. There are some stop gap guys to throw in there for a day or so (Ford, Burriss, etc) but that’s going to fix nothing. Having Belt play LF, Torres back in CF and Burrell and Rowand to the bench would be the best way to infuse some  necessary newness to this rather stale 1-8 that we have been tolerating this year……

Or just leave it all the same and hope for the best……

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(Blade hunts Pawlie from 2nd place, GH takes another punch to the gut and Orbo says “F-this” and puts up a green number. Well done my man!)

I think Jon Miller used the word *pouting* to describe Jonathan Sanchez 6 times in the 2nd inning. I only had radio yesterday so I couldn’t tell if that’s what it looked like. He definitely had some major brain farts. Marty Lurie and his crew seemed to want to focus on how Sanchez pulled it together and was able to stagger through 5 innings on no-earned run ball. To be honest, I’m disappointed in Dirrrrty this year. I believed him when he said he was going to cut his walks in half. Well, maybe I didn’t think he’d cut them in half but 20 walks in 33 innings is a joke. Something is going on in this guy’s head that Raggs et al just can’t touch…….

Eli Whiteside?

It’s a miracle that the Nats didn’t score 7 runs yesterday and that we somehow won yesterday’s game….

Time for a *Post of the Week* vote. It’s not really weekly but that’s the name so I’m sticking to it. On the right side of the blog you’ll see a tab that says “This Week’s Posts of the Day!!!”. Click on that and you’ll find 6 esteemed nominees. Please vote for your favorite. My apologies for screwing up the numbering. Snarkk is 2 and Ed is 4 but I excluded numbering them. Probably one too many Pliny’s…

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This version of the standings show each players ranking in each of the 10 categories. It gives a broader perspective to the numbers Ed is producing overall. If it weren’t for the 3 and the 4 I’d say he’d be working on a one-sided binary system. Quick side note: I love Ed. This is a guy who traded Texieria for Hughes (bad move), recently banishing Hughes to the waiver (necessary move). But if you read his mesage board posts he’s probably having the most fun playing in the league and that’s what it’s all about. Ed’s rad.