Hold on to that Towel, It’s Not Time to Throw it Yet
Maybe I’ve simply gone insane, but I really like our chances right now. Yes, lots of injuries, everyone knows that. But look who is getting injured. Our hitting has sucked all year. The line ups always look bad. I’m not worried about our ability to score runs because we have scored enough all year, no matter who we trot out there, to win most of our games.
This team wins or loses not because of who’s swinging the bat but because of who’s throwing the ball. And when you look at that side of the game, our strength is largely still in tact. Currently, we’ve lost Zito, Sanchez and Romo. Losing Zito is actually a plus. And Dirrrrty, while pitching decent last night, has hardly been critical to the success of the team this year. Romo is a hit, but we have the best bullpen in either league, I feel confident that his single inning can be replaced.
Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Panda. These 5 guys have been most responsible for the team’s success this year. Last time I checked, those guys are rock solid (stretching it a little with Panda but he looked good to go last night)….
I admit we are thin and there’s a lot of negativity and bad luck following the Giants right now. But the strength and the core of this team is in tact. As long as those 5 guys stay healthy and keep doing what they’ve done this year I will keep the faith and believe. My knowing dude nod is in full vertical motion right now……..
Did the players look like they were giving up last night? You shouldn’t either……
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
To a man, all the announcers on post game wrap on radio said same thing everyone said here (like Pawlie’s POTD), that SF fought hard and made some fantastic plays in the field to hold the Braves off. I think games like this help to galvanize the team and make them stronger and a tighter unit. That’s a nice post, Flav, and there were a bunch of them last night’s thread.
As for the Braves, having a healthy Prado is what makes a difference. This guy is a solid player who just f-s with us.
Good post BF, like they say pitching is what got the Giants to this point and it will continue. Still plenty of time. the next 6 weeks will definitely be torture.
The only thing bumming me out is that my schedule is crushing me right now and I can’t directly follow the drama of the games unfold.
I don’t feel bad for the players for the most part*, because at the end of the day they are getting paid pretty well. And I don’t feel bad for any Giants fans – if a fan can’t enjoy a world series win followed by this kind of drama, they are frankly stupid.
*I feel a little bad for a guy like Torres. He finally gets to the top of the mountain, and doesn’t even get ONE full season to enjoy his accomplishment.
Dirrrty to the DL, Waldis Joaquin up. I hope he’s bringing a shitload of white towels with him.
Joaquin, eh? Strange move, i think. He’s a middle of the road reliever who has been up before. Nothing special at all. Why not Dan Otero, who has been effective? 40-Man roster, i spose. Idea must be for Runzler to start. He may be a slight upgrade from Zito and could possibly match Sanchez when Drrrrty is a bit off.
That 40-Man maybe needs to be shook up a bit. I really wonder why SF did not call up Surkamp while Atlanta has been bringing up its young star pitchers, two of whom pretty much throttled our hobbled offense last night.
Waldis has been at least as effective as Otero. Before his injury he threw mid to upper 90’s, don’t know what it is now.Among Grizzlie relievers, he did have the lowest ERA. It’s hardly a “strange” move..
After reviewing the stats i noticed that Joaquin has been effective in his most recent several games. Current pitching stats at Fresno are generally abysmal, with essentially only Joaquin and Otero showing signs of life. That’s for the relievers. Starters are nothing more than space-fillers. Waldis does have the ML experience, which itself is skewed as he did medium ok on his first appearance in The Show and was pretty much lit-up second time around.
The really strange element in the move as i see it is not so much Joaquin per se, as essentially he has been fairly effective lately in those two inning relief stints. What weirds me out is that Runzler, who has been up and down in his starter role, gets the nod over Surkamp. If the big lefty at Richmond is not on the 40-man, surely there is at least one chunk of dead wood on that roster who could have been removed. Runzler is regarded as having electric stuff and decent potential. Maybe he will be a pleasant surprise. But i’m not counting on that. So unless that surprise happens with this pair of moves, the fifth starter position could well remain a black hole.
BTW Twin: Could you splain to me why Brett Pill is not considered a prospect. Yes, first base is pretty effectively blocked. But with 101 RBIs for Fresno along with piles of doubles and dingers, he has had an excellent season at that level. Was he too low a draft pick to be considered ML material? With his PCL performance he does at least deserve a long cuppa coffee come September.
Stix, Runzler was recalled before Dirty went down, they were not looking for a 5 starter at the time.
As to Pill, I can’t say I’ve seen him, but it’s pretty clear they don’t think of him as a prospect. And whatever one thinks of the evaluators, coaches, and managers in the system, they’re not in the business of ignoring a prospect because they don’t like the cut of his jib. It’s a good question for Henry or Baggs..
If anyone needs a reminder of why we on the Flapp watch every game and revel in the torture, go to you tube and type in SF Giants 27 Outs. it will help clear your mind.
Or, you can watch one of my favorite videos, “27 Consecutive 3 and Outs. The A*** S**** Story.”
That comment was for Kevin. Is your name, Kevin? And don’t go telling me where I have to make any further comments just because it doesn’t meet your seal of approval. Forget you.
Dennis is on Chuck’s blog too? BLEEP to that!
Well, a few have to added as to being critical to their success. Grok is certainly one of them and his resurgeance before his injury needs to not be the usual mirage, And some pen members have to be acknowledged- Wilson ( sorry), Romo for sure, and Mota double sure. They’ve all been good but these are the three I single out.
BTW, yes, with the now comical number of injuries, the DBacks are a much greater threat than before- Plus Upton is having an MVP caliber year, and Putz hasn’t blown up yet. The real difference maker for them has been David Hernandez, though…
The pitching will need to be like last September ( it always has been about the pitching, the team was built around it)-they’ll need the experience of their vets- and a couple guys need to carry the load offensively. Like the writers, I’m out of the Beltran prediction Biz- forgetting him, I’d put my money on Ross and Panda. But it can come from a few- it’s easy to forget that there are some guys here with big time pedigrees- Huff, Miggy, even Cabrera… and Cave Boy has shown he can get hotter than hell.
Anything from Belt is gravy.
They’re going to the playoffs and those dirty lowdown Snakes aren’t..
In the words of the great Smokey Robinson, I second that emotion
Live by the one run win, die by the one run win.
If ever there was a chance to b a sf fan? nowis the time
I believe and I like that after all the bleeding we have produced two games pushing the opposition as far as can be.
This is now a team moving up, getting that magic back.
Prepare yourselves for that run that proves TF right: we win the west in a walk.
You doomers? go sit down
Well, I’m impressed with the amount of keeping the dauber up that’s happening on the Flap. I feel none of that. But I respect those that can keep the faith at this point.
It completely surprises me that you’d be one of the first to bail. Wow.
I’m not throwin’ in the towel yet. But, I don’t expect Arizona at this point to cave like the Pads did last year. Pads had no hitting, no scoring, so when their pitching ditched, it was a nosedive. Dbacks score early and often, their lineup is loaded. Beating Halladay in the 9th had never been done in 50+ such occasions. 3rd in the NL in runs and scoring at a 4.6 rpg clip. I don’t expect a meltdown from them…
Despite the improvement, their pitching is far worse than ours and also worse than the Pads last year. And it hardly requires a meltdown to catch them..and the Pads pitching hardly “ditched”, even in September it was nearly half a run better than the Dbacks now ( Pads were 3.66 in Setember, AZ s 4.01 now). They’ve certainly hung longer than I expected, but they won’t win it unless Bochy is unable to field 8 position players..
I can’t believe I had to do this but I’ve added some words to the spam filter that will no longer allow you to publish posts that have to do with the current Niner QB.
What about Denny’s circumvention with all the stars? He’s the guy who brings that shit here. I have no fucking desire to talk about “him” here.
It seems a helluva lot easier to just tell him to not bring the hated one up here..
I didn’t ban his name because of you. I’ve only banned his name in the unique way that it gets spelled using the shift-8 key. But if I have to I’ll ban the name and that’s going to trip some people up because it’s a pretty common name and some bloggers might go to spam by accident. But I’ve been clear, I do not want him being brought up at this blog…..
there are plenty of places to talk about the Niners– in the blogroll I’ve got Chuck’s blog as well as JDR’s there for the clicking and you can talk about him all day for all I care. Just not here…..
nice move, I agree totally
ted
besides, I could care less about football, basketball and who you ball
🙂
It’s really going to come down to how we play againt AZ and SD in the next few weeks as we have a bunch of games against these 2. I’m not gonna thrwo in the towel unless the giants get swept by tue dback or lose 8 of 10 to sd coming up. That’s where the giants can gain their games back especially head to head with AZ , when they took 2 of 3 from us 2 weeks ago thats what really helped them close the gap and eventually overtake 1st place
I said “Thank You” and I guess it’s going in the spam filter.
Speaking of football (umm, no, not that guy), I was really shocked and saddened to read about David Akers investment loss with some guy pushing a ponzi scheme . . . http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201108/nfls-top-scorer-2000s-loses-37-million-ponzi-scheme
The only silver lining I see in this is the fact that Akers is a kicker and probably has a few more good years left in him. No player in the NFL scored more than Akers’ 1,169 points from 2000-09. Unlike a running back or some other position player that isn’t much more than cannon fodder, Akers may have a chance to recoup some of what he lost.
Back when my Pop did the Twins and Martin was a coach, there was a local radio guy (on a very minor station), Bob Leonard. He sold Billy and Whitey Ford and maybe a couple others on “Canadian Bomb Shelters”. Got a lot of money from Billy and never delivered whatever the hell would have been delivered. Leonard did a year or two, got out, and swindled them on a new scam…like most guys who get scammed, Billy had a touch of larceny in his own soul…
Bob died a couple years later and my Dad said he was the only guy who got something out of Leonard- he had borrowed a pair of cuff links that he never returned..
Shelter from Canadian bombs, eh? Didn’t know they were even a threat.
Bomb shelters made in Canada..
per Shea: “Schierholtz in lineup, not Keppinger or Rowand.”
CSNBayArea writer Lee Siegel thinks the Giants should look at bringing up pitcher Eric Surkamp to replace Zito, Sanchez, et al. What do you have to report on this guy TF?? This is what is in the article
I decided to take a closer look at Eric Surkamp. He’s 24 years old, 6’4”, a 6th round pick out of North Carolina State back in 2008. He had a nice progression through the minors and this year in Richmond, he’s 8-4 with a 2.03 ERA. His strikeout to walk numbers are pretty solid. He has 156 Ks and 40 walks in 128.1 innings.
Plus our power is returning. I’m not a stats expert, but haven’t we picked up the HR pace? 5 or 6 games in a row? I’m sure of it. GIANTS POWER.
I am a Bochy fan
I say we go with what we got
If a call up guy can do one thing right, by helping this team
let’s just pray
Unrelated to baseball, Yahoo Sports rarely has in-depth investigative reporting . . . However, I was fascinated by this article which outlines Miami Hurricane illicit booster benefits to players and coaches. Very long article, but again, quite fascinating and a “Who’s Who” of Miami Hurricane sports.
http://sports.yahoo.com/investigations/news?slug=cr-renegade_miami_booster_details_illicit_benefits_081611
Yeah, I think the ‘Caines will be hurting for a loooooooooooooooooooong time.
If ever there was a program that has flaunted the NCAA’s so-called rules, it has been the Hurri(co)canes.
The NCAA is going to come down on them like a school of hungry pirahnas, and leave nothing but a pile of bones when they get through with them.
….
Say it ain’t so Zumie!!!
As far as the G’s go, yeah, they have overcome a TON of adversity and could have won both these last 2 games. If anything, this shit makes them stronger. In a couple three weeks, they’ll get all their guys back and be at full sttrength for the stretch run . . .
”Surkamp rarely gets even to 90 mph with his fastball, but he’s proof that velocity isn’t everything when it comes to missing bats. Tall and angular with a low 3/4 crossfire delivery that is hard to pick up, Surkamp’s deception, combined with above-average command and control, gives hitters fits, as does his ability to mix in a quality curveball and changeup at any point in the count”
Thank you sir. Sort of sounds like Zito, except for the part about Above Average Command and Control.
Wilson just got back from seeing Dr. James Andrews. It’s *only* elbow inflammation. Out 2-3 days.
And on that note, I’m off to the doc myself. Fuck our luck.
Not good, especially since he had barely any appearances during the last few weeks — not like he was overworked. Looks like, until the dust clears, closer by committee with Romo out, too. This is getting ridiculous…
Well, since no one has posted the lineup . . .
CF Ross
2B Fontenot
3B Sandoval
1B Huff
RF Nate
SS Cabrera
LF Belt
C Whiteside
P Cain
Go get ’em Giants!
BTW Flav, great closing line to your intro.
Off topic, but on Versus right now there is an excellent documentary of the Giants/Dogs rivalry.
I should clarify- I’ll definitely still watch all the games I can, but I have zero expectation of making the playoffs, given all that’s happened to the team. I would love to be pleasantly surprised. I won’t abandon the team. I’ll still follow what they’re doing closely.
That surprises me, zum. In reality, they’ve only really “lost” Posey and JSanchez. These other injuries will heel, there’s 39 games to go with 33 against teams with losing records as of today…I’m not saying it’ll be easy and I know I can be an uber-pollly but it’s more than shear fantasy to imagine them taking the division still
I just re-read this. I meant FSanchez
The big problem with catching the D-Backs is that the D-Backs are built better for the regular season these days than the Giants. The D-Backs pound mediocre and bad pitching, and the Giants hitters, of course, struggle against EVERYBODY. The Giants are built better for the playoffs than the D-Backs, but it will probaby be a moot point. And Atlanta is doing what they need to do to lock up the WildCard.
Dead on analysis. Gmen still have a good shot if they start hitting even close to 3.5 or a little better rpg, and take at least 3 of the 6 against Ariz….
home a little under the weather and watched espn, around the horn and pti. they have little use for the giants, without even mentioning the injuries. it’s all phils and brewskers. no mention of the g’s winning 2 of 3 in philly just recently. oh, the phils also have the best bullpen. ah well. at least i’m not being forced to watch the yanks and the sox.
The Giants schedule is easier, and the G’s still have 6 games with AZ. Unless this team craters, and gets down by 10+ in the next couple weeks, they should be able to stay close and pull ahead in the end. Once these guys get healthy that is.
AZ can’t ride this wave forever. They will come back to earth at some point soon.
Sorry, I missed your post when I responded to zumie above
No prob. I didn’t think we’d have to be talking Zumie off the ledge, however!
hyuk hyuk . . . wink wink nudge nudge . . .
Ahhh. Panda doubled to score Font.
Bourn didn’t run on Nate . . .
Pablooooooo!!
Yesterday he just made a mistake, THAT was dumb
The strike zone is apparently a postage stamp . . .
But a mistake in the field doesn’t excuse the 4 pitch walk- “blame” is 50-50..
is matt allergic to a god damned lead? that’s the second game where they’ve given him a run and he came right back and coughed it up. sure, pablo didn’t help, but walking the guy on 4 (5?) pitches? NIce to see fontenot get a hit, especially going the other way.
Gawwwwd. Base hit fro Jurrgens.
The Giants might have the 2nd best BA aganst, but opposing pitchers must be batting .385.
It does seem that way, but the 9 spot, including pinch hitters, etc, is hitting .164 against.
Flirting with disaster, Matty . . .
OK, time to score some runs . . .
Wow. Haven’t seen the G’s get a flare in months.
Echo
Echo
Echo
Echo
.
.
.
LMFAO!
I was all set to rip Whitey, but he worked it . . .
Matty’s due a big fly . . .
OK. I’ll talk to myself. These Brave OFers cover a shitload of ground.
Nice flies from Cain and Ross. It ain’t over till we say it is…!
Yeah, Whitey turned what was setting up to be El Stinko AB of the month into a pretty good one…
Ouch . . .
I should go to the doctor and miss the first 5 innings more often.
How the hell did we score five runs already? They must have given us four to begin with…
WTF happened to Whitey? He fucking looks like the Führer.
Face-plant slide into secondbase on a steal attempt.
Huff’s flirting with the .250 mark … woot! Uh… stay hot.
Actually, if you track his progress, you might not ridicule that. I’d be more concerned with Belt, who is not having good swings. If he doesn’t pick it up, he’ll be the guy out if/when Beltran is back.
No, I know how low Huff had been. .250 is a comparative mountain. I’m not worried (much) about Belt — 40-man expansion is two weeks away (from tomorrow).
Never seen the blog this quiet when we have a 5-1 lead. Everybody holding hands on the ledge?
Isn’t it nice to watch a game that’s in Atlanta without the “chant”? The music that someone on this list (I think) called “Jonestown music.”
Oh, spoke too soon. Here comes the Jonestown music.
18 straight by the Big 1-8. A job well done.
I should miss the first nine innings more often…No wonder I didn’t post here for nearly a year…I am a fucking jinx.
Runzler’s outting tonight, pretty much guarantees that Surkamp will get the call on Sunday…Me thinks at least.
I think they were just letting him tune-up a bit. He’s on only 3 days rest from his minors start.
Shit, even when it’s easy, it ain’t easy . . .
Did that play remind you of someone?
Now that I am back, they blow the fucking lead…If they lose this game, it’s on my back.
No, if they lose this game, the season is OVER.
oooh boy. A sure “non-save” just became … tedious.
Joe, can you run to the store and get a pack o’ smokes for a minute?
Thank Christ.
Fucking whew!
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quite sniffing glue.
D-Backs lose, too. 2.5 back now. Woot.
My main hope now is that Surkamp’s plane in doesn’t collide with Runzler’s going out…
POTD
Bochy thinks Sanchez could make his next start. Though, with the way this week has gone — if it weren’t for my lucky astrology mood watch I wouldn’t believe in anything.
Quit acting so surprised. The Dbacks are going to lose a lot of games. They ain’t the 27 Yankees. The Giants are going to win their share. Some of you act like fools. Quit it now.
BLEEP fools!
But really, last inning aside (as Runzler trys, and fails, to find his groove, carbrarra boots the ball etc.), we lost two brutally close games. and then kicked their ass. Another good butt whooping tomorrow and that’s got to get the bravos thinking. also their starter today is one of their best pitchers, albeit coming off the dl. with romo and wilson out though, the last inning may start being a bit more, sporting.
Just getting here after watching the Gwinnett Braves beat the poorly playing Syracuse Chiefs, 3-1, featuring something I do not think I have ever seen anywhere: two consecutive pickoffs at first. Plus, later, the first of those victims, former MLBer Roger Bernardina, of Aruba, I believe, got a CS. A LONG walk to the dugout. So, during the game, while flirting a la Loo w/ the college girls in front of me, with their alleged boyfriends sitting together to their left, instead of boy-girl-boy-girl, I had to take three tries to successfully take their group photo and then on the Taco Bell strikeout and win-a-Taco batter, the girls let it be known they love tacos [easy, easy now] and we all chipped in and gave them our ticket stubs, except never-met-before-divorce-lawyer Peter, next to me, had to ask for his back, because his little kids got upset; his son Henry yelled “Play Ball!” into a mic to start the game, even though I was walking in from 2nd North Street, too cheap to pay $5 while I was talking to Magnus. Highlight: spotting a father-son duo wearing Giants jerseys. The dad, a teacher, showed me pix on his cellphone of Timmy et al. celebrating on nov. 1, 2010, WS! TV screen shots on his phone! The worst-anywhere scoreboard showed Giants up 5-1 in the 9th; little did I know the torture unwinding and when I heard the Yankee announcer say it was a 7-5 final, I figured “Runzler” and imagined this was a win that might’ve felt less of a win than yesterday’s loss, but we’ll take it.
Pawlie, I went to a Mets-Nats game last year where the Nats rallied in the bottom of the 9th against Mets closer F-Rod. Bernadina I think walked moves up to 2nd, and with two out and momentum with Nats, is picked off to end the game. It was unbelievable. And again, I remarked to myself, that kind of play is what separates us from them over 162 games. We may not have been–or continue to be–the best with RISP, but we play smart and hard.
I really loved Harry and Skip Caray…I never really had the opportunity to listen to Harry that often…Sure the clips here and there, but Skip I listened to regularly back in the TBS Superstation days as a kid…In fact, I used to be able to do a great impersonation of Skip….”Ground ball to short…Out there…Out there…Braves lose.”
Back in the eighties, when the Giants or A’s weren’t on TV, the Braves were all we had…As a Giants fan, the highlights of the year for me, were when we played the Braves..There was nothing better than hearing the final out of a Giants defeat of the Braves, Skip always made every Braves loss sound like the fucking end of the world…Of course for most of the eighties, that was pretty much the case…Even in the nineties, when the Braves were “Americas Team” and had a 15 game lead in September, his calls of the final out of a Braves loss sounded just as dire.
Not sure why I am writting all of this, other than the fact that for some reason I can’t stand Chip Caray.
Funny, man. Me and my roommates used to watch them a lot too. Post-Murph they really sucked, the Andres Thomas Terry Harper Joe (leave it to) Boever days. One of those years they lost 106, so I guess you can’t blame skip for feeling down. I always enjoyed Pete Van Weeren, and hated Don Sutton as announcer.
Kinda knew Matt the Horse was gonna bear down on that plate of southern-fried chicken tonight. Sure nuff. Made a drive to a State Arts Board confab and then did a bit of shopping after so missed the game. Nice the guys could get to Jurrjens the way they did. Even in their bruised, battered and banged up state they put some wood to the horsehide. Cain now joins Timmy and Singalong as ten game winners. Without Wilson’s melt-down the other night Bumgarner would have been in decent range too. He can still pull it off as the competition after tomorrow is mostly in-house stuff.
If there was a must win on the docket, this was the one. Phillies walking all over Saunders and then manhandling the Snakes’ pen just a tad confirms something most of us knew all along, that Arizona is a bit short when it comes to mound magic. We’re a little shorthanded right now, but that’s different. Wilson and Romo are coming back and if Drrrty isn’t good to go in a few days we’ll likely get our first glimpse at Surkamp. He should be a pretty good match for that pair Atlanta just brought up. Their 2009 first-round pick goes against Timmy tomorrow evening. I like our chances.
@Stix–rocked out some leek smashers tonight to go with stuffed chicken breasts. Special meal with my oldest making a rare appearance before heading back up to SFSU in a couple of days.
Damn straight I have some leftovers to make potato cakes with in the am.
Awright Dawg. Enjoy that dutch treat. If you got a source for actual, gen you wine smoked slab bacon, not the thin-sliced pre-packaged pig-prison stuff, but the real mccoy; try cooking up those special tatercakes in the drippings from that slow-cooked pork. Would help if you too had a wood cookstove and a Griswold #10 self-basting skillet, but i guess we can’t all fit into Eden. This time of year the Northwoods of Minnesota is heaven on earth for those of us with productive gardens. Let me tell you bout my five-grain batter dipped zucchini, peppers, apple, tomato and cheese fritters some time. Worldclass bacon drippings work well there too. Try dipping em in molasses sweetened Thai soy sauce with a sprinkling of your favorite hotsauce stirred in. Yumshus.
Don’t know where he got his info from, but one of the Braves radio announcers said Romo could be done for the year.
Seems like the Braves used to have 6 or 7 announcers back in those days. I was just thinking of those broadcasts when I heard Ernie Johnson passed.
My dad is from Iowa and we used to go back there every summer for about 2 weeks. We’d park our Airstream trailer in my aunt’s backyard. Her neighbor was a cool old dude and I’d go over there and watch Cubs game with him every chance I could. I thought it was awesome that every game was on. They had 4 sons who were rough sob’s. All of them went into one branch of the service or another and were the type of guys you’d want in a foxhole with you. We had some good times with them, but they kinda looked at my brothers and I as a bunch of pussies from California. One time my mom brought out a quiche when we were all eating together. One of those guys announced at the table “I ain’t eating no egg pie.”
That was probably about 1975 and that line has been legendary in my family ever since.
Just back from Reds-Nats. Cueto was superb, although I was near the LF foul pole so couldn’t really see him work. Votto had an opposite field blast early; I’ve wanted him for us for years; he’s got a bit of attitude. When Henry ‘100 MPH’ Rodriguez struck him out in 9th they had a real nice staredown. Zimmerman made a nice grab at 3rd and long solo HR in the 9th to get them within one. No Fred Lewis sighting and Dusty didn’t leave the dugout. It was a real nice feeling leaving the ballpark knowing the Giants were up 7-1…