A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Have any of you cast even a single vote yet? I haven’t. I saw that you can cast 25 votes at mlb.com and *because I was logged in* they were ready to gift me an additional 10 ballots! No thanks. I have casually followed the leaderboard and saw that several Giants were leading about a month ago. I think most of the Cardinals have passed them now. I tried to find a current leaderboard but struck out. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere but how lame is it that I have this great bounty of votes online and yet no matter how many different ways I google for the current leaderboard I can’t find it? Maybe I have to vote and then they’ll show it to me. Oh well, that’s not happening.

I don’t care about the all-star game. And that’s ironic because it matters now and you could argue that both of our last 2 world series wins were directly influenced by all-star game outcomes. The game was more important to me before the internet. I remember how exciting it was to see all of those great players take the field together. It was fresh and new and because the only games I would ever watch on tv were Giants games, the all-star game always felt like Christmas morning before we opened presents. The anticipation, the excitement, the *newness* of it all.

Now, there’s none of that. I’ve seen every single one of Chris Davis’ bombs this year at mlb.com. I follow Starlin Marte’s daily stat line as much as I do Pablo Sandoval’s because I own him on three teams. There’s simply nothing new about these players to me anymore.

Back in the day, you earned your all star game ballot by going to the game, flagging down an usher and dutifully filling out your ballot in your seat at the game. If you were lucky she’d give you and extra 5 or so. And that was the only way a vote was logged. Now all you have to do is go to a website and you get 35 votes handed over to you. And if you feel like logging in with different accounts, you can do that as many times as you like X 35.

I don’t have an inkling of interest in any of it……

I found it rather amusing that Zito made an unintentional yet veiled reference to one of the Flap’s mantra’s last night after the game: “Who scores first, that’s a telling thing,” Zito said.

The Giants offense has been on a slow slide for a while now. Everyone likes to reference their batting average because it feels reinforcing to see them at or near the top in that category. But teams don’t compete with their batting averages, they compete with runs. And as we are just about to wrap up June the Giants find themselves at the bottom of the National League in that category with a measly 84 runs produced. In fact, they are 29th out of 30 teams in all of baseball. Their pitching, while underwhelming, hasn’t been as bad as the offense. The staff has given up 108 runs which is right around the middle of the league (they’re 9th but the two teams ahead of them have given up 109 runs).

Posey’s hitting. And contrary to what you hear from KNBR talk show hosts, Blanco and Belt are hitting, too. And that’s it. Pablo has come back to go 2-15. Crawford and Scoots can’t feel their fingers and they’ve hit .200 and .244 respectively in their last 15 games. Pence .236 in his last 15, Torres .222……

It’s all pretty uninspiring…..

So we wait and hope. Some of us pray. Last year the team added Pence and Scoots and that did wonders for our momentum as well as the ultimate results in the standings. Will Sabean break off a big turkey bone or is he just gonna have a salad? With about a month to go before the deadline, that’s a question all Giants fans are wondering. Heck, Sabes is probably wondering the same thing himself….

The semi-reliable word is that the Marlins want to acquire a decent prospect as well as not having to pay the remaining 6 mil on Nolasco’s deal this year. Since there are multiple teams interested, I’m assuming they will find a buyer. And it’s unlikely that Sabean will pay the winning price.

I don’t understand the trepidation of not wanting to over-pay. If you identify the correct need and you are trying to win this year, what’s the problem with over-paying a little bit? And it’s a double whammy against us if we don’t get Nolasco and the Dodgers do get him.

Players are commodities, you can’t hold on to every single one of them and expect to get better. If you aren’t going to use them at the mlb level then use them as currency to buy a player who CAN help you at this level. If you trade a player it’s not like he’s coming from a finite pool. The minor league system is replenished each year. If you were climbing Mount Everest and your oxygen tank suddenly broke would you head back down the mountain or pay a premium price to one of the Sherpa’s to keep the climb alive?

Timmy ran his losing streak to Kershaw to 0-5. Seriously, how does anyone ever beat this guy? How was last night the first game he’s won since May 20th? He’s 6-5? He should be 11-0. I have a vague recollection of Voggy beating him twice in one season. Could that be true? Or was that a dream?

I had a dream last night. Donnell Nixon was playing LF for us. Puig hit a sky high ball into short left field. It must have been half a mile up there. At it’s peak, San Dawg would be looking at the ball at eye level. I’m talking WAY up there. 🙂 Nixon came in, had it all the way and then all of a sudden his feet were trapped in the grass, almost like quick sand. But he still kept going for the ball, he stretched his glove arm out (in the dream he was left handed) and leaned his whole body to the right. He was totally laid out, stretching…reaching…you could see his whole arm straightened, stretched and shaking to reach the ball that was coming down. Finally, the ball hit right in the center of the glove, staying in it, but the glove actually came off his hand (he was reaching as far as he could) and it just lay there peacefully in the grass with the ball nestled inside of it. The umpires huddled together and decided to give Puig a home run since the glove technically wasn’t on Nixon’s hand for the entirety of the catch. And then Puig, who had been awaiting the ruling, ran around the bases in a full *one flap down* trot.

At that moment I woke up mumbling to myself, “fuck… this… guy…” No caps or exclamation points, too groggy……

And sparing all of us any Freudian analysis of my dream, it really is how things are going for the Giants these days. I try not to use the word *luck* and I loath the word *jinx* but the ball just has not been bouncing our way lately. Venable’s catch, Crawford just missing Puig’s base hit a couple of night’s ago, Dumb-Ass Eye Goggle Boy hitting a home run off the foul pole (or barely inside of it, I couldn’t tell) and finally Matt Kemp going *poor man’s Venable* to hand us the loss last night.

And don’t even get me started on what the fuck Dunning was doing with that pick off *attempt*. But he is another reminder of a guy who is wearing an SF jersey who isn’t a World Champion SF Giant. And we have more than a few of those guys on the roster right now….

Injuries, stupid plays, the opposition making great plays, it all adds up to…..well….what happened to Donnell Nixon in my dream. And I truly believe that this can’t go on all season. Did Matt Kemp slapping the wall break this weird run against us? I’d like to think so. Have things gotten so desperate that I need to awake Anna from her Summer slumber? Not yet. I don’t have the answers other than believing completely that the answers will come. And the only way to get through stretches like this is to collectively believe the same thing. If we can come together for a knowing dude head nod we can stay together during tough times like this one. Remember that. Because nothing should piss any of us off more than freaking Puig circling the bases with one flap down to celebrate a home run that he did not hit…..

April 29th. why is that important? It was the start of the BBOTD famine. the giants were 14-12. April was the only month where they had more runs scored than runs allowed. since then, a disappointing 23-27 where each month the gap between runs allowed and runs scored widens. coincidence?

“This guy Puig is gonna be a problem….” –San Dawg

I forget when he said that, probably during Puig’s first game up. It was a simple line, yet foreboding, and it gave us fair warning of what was to come….

*This guy Puig* is grinding on my patience. It’s not just the constant media jack off session that bothers me although that’s part of it. I thought it was complete BS that he was throwing sucker haymakers in the brawl with AZ and managed to get exactly zero days of suspension. Calls for him to be named to the all star game, after 60 at bats, was definitely irksome. And while I’m not doubting his talent for a moment, I was looking forward to Bumgarner knocking him down a few *puigs* in the game last night. So it was quite easy for me to go quickly and loudly into a full blown “FUCK THIS GUY!!!!!!” after Bum inexplicably threw him a meatball away that he blasted into the right field seats in his first at bat.

Here’s what Scully said after the home run:

“Puig has done it again. If you want to pitch him away he’ll go away…he got the pitch right out over the plate, I mean that was a pitch begging to be hit..”

Even a casual observer like myself knows that you don’t throw strikes to him on the outer side of the plate. Greg Louganis dove with less intent and purpose in the ’88 Olympics. Puig is doing a freaking forward flying one and a half somersault to cover the outside part of the plate. Bumgarner couldn’t have walked up and placed the ball any better into his wheelhouse…

Here’s Puke’s hit chart at Dodger Stadium this year (blue: hits  red: outs):

The hit chart speaks for itself. I haven’t seen all of his at bats, obviously, but some of the pitches that opposing pitchers are throwing this guy are almost too bad to be believed. After Paul Maholm gave up a bomb to him earlier this month he said this: “On the home run, honestly I missed by about 3 feet.”

So the pitchers are either making mistakes or just not thinking about how to pitch him. He’s walked 3 times so far in 77 at bats. “Hmmmmmm, jeez, we just can’t figure out how to get this guy out. I guess we’ll just keep throwing him our brain dead lemming pitches right into the strike zone and see what happens……”

I had hoped that a bad ass like Bumgarner would bust his ass inside, maybe knock him off  his diving board a couple of times. Didn’t happen. And I have little faith that a kid like Kickham, who’s probably gonna be shaking in his cleats, will do anything different than his predecessors…..

I should call this “Sandy’s Thread” since he’s the one who inspired me to do these…..

Non-Game Thought:

Which former Giant would you most prefer acquiring at the break? Nate or Cody Ross. The answer should come to you rather quickly if you’re following their seasons.

Really looking forward to Puig’s first at bat tonight. Bum don’t play around with the inside of the plate.

The deadline isn’t for another month+ but Bochy is already getting asked about what the team *needs*. It was weird to hear his reply to Pav at the Merc. When asked about deadline acquisitions he responded, “You look in the bullpen, that’s where we need help.”

Uh, look again.

Casilla and Voggy are both coming back relatively soon (SC obviously before RV). Casilla rejoining the bullpen will have a huge stabilizing effect. And when Voggy comes back some time after the all star game, that sends Gaudin back to the pen. Kontos is expected back by then, too (although if Rosario keeps pitching so effectively there won’t be a spot for Kontos).

That’s all the reinforcements that are needed in the pen.

After Pagan has his surgery I think it’s safe to count him out till the beginning of September. No way he makes it back in 6 weeks. And don’t even get me started on the 4 weeks he’s already missed dickin’ around with this. An outfield of Torres, Blanco and Pence (with Perez spot starting assuming he can stop himself from swinging at every pitch thrown his direction) is an intriguing plan. Blanco did some very nice, non-statistical things in the playoffs in 2012 to help us win and he seems to be running with this opportunity to play every day at the top of the line up. And if Torres has gotten rid of those weirdo little league gaffes then I would tacitly support a no-add at the trade deadline in regards to an outfielder. With Perez as a 4th guy, we might be able to roll deep with the trifecta of Torres, White Shark and Pence all the way through the Summer….

If the Giants are going to add at the break I hope it’s a starting pitcher. They are always coveted and for that reason the price is going to make Sabean do a slow burn, but there will almost certainly be a spot to fill in the starting 5 even after Voggy comes back. Remember, Voggy pretty much sucked all year until the game he got hurt. I think it’s fair to assume this is a lost year for him. He might surprise me, but pitching like shit for 7 out of 9 starts and then getting hurt is not exactly the definition of a charmed year waiting to unfold. It’s quite possible we’ve seen the last of Voggy’s magic.

While he’s the first guy I’d discard in favor of a *Bud Norris* or a *Rickey Nolasco*, there is a very high likelihood that Timmy or Zito will need a *break* (or total replacement) at some point this Summer. Right now, both are pitching well enough to keep their spots and Cain and Bum are obviously in no danger of losing their spots. But if you asked me TODAY the role Sabean should be targeting at the deadline, purely based on need, I’m shouting “starting pitching!” way before a starting LF or a set up guy…..

I didn’t get a chance to properly honor what Barry Zito did yesterday. After losing his mom (last year or so?) he lost his dad on Wednesday. I know all of you knew this but it was still impressive and even uplifting to see him not only pitch yesterday but pitch very, very well. There’s a good article at the Merc by Purdy today detailing Zito’s dad’s role in his life. It must have been so hard for him to work yesterday. Two flaps up to Barry Zito and the life and memory of his dad…….

Who makes the most and does the worst? These guys!

LF: Vernon Wells. The Yankees thought it would be a good idea to trade for Wells. It was not a good idea. He started off ok in the Bronx but quickly spiraled down to the batting average he totes today: .221. That’s a little better than 2011 when he hit .218. It’s a little worse than last year when he hit .230. 2013 cost: $21,000,000

CF: Matt Kemp. I tried to do this list without any DL guys but I’m not missing a chance to dog a Dodger. He’s hit 2 bombs in 191 at bats. His bold claim of going 50/50 is laughable. 2013 cost: $20,000,000

RF: Josh Hamilton. This dude was MVP in 2010 hitting .359. He’s hitting .207 this year. And it’s a soft .207, if that’s even possible. He’s *only* making $17,000,000 in 2013 but in the final 2 years of his 5 year deal he’s making $32,000,000 each year! That’s freaking awesome.

1st base: Albert Pujols. He’s been better than any of the guys listed above, hitting 13 bombs in 2013. But he’s batting a pedestrian .265. His bomb totals over the last 5 seasons: 47, 42, 37, 30 and on pace to go under 30 this year. Meanwhile, his salary is $16,000,000 this year and here’s what he makes each year over the next 8 seasons: 23mil, 24mil, 25mil, 26mil, 27mil, 28mil, 29mil, and finally, at age 41 (that’s probably closer to 44) he’s making 30mil! The Giants get crap about the Zito and Rowand deals but that is NOTHING compared to the spectacularly bad contracts the Angels dole out (or take on in the case of Wells).

2nd base: Rickie Weeks. He’s hitting .217 and making 10 mil and he sucks and the Brewers still owe him 11 mil next year…..

shortstop: Stephen Drew. Disappointment, thy name is Drew. The amount of dough that Stephen and his broken down brother have coaxed out of teams for pathetic production is staggering. Boston’s paying him $10,000,000 this year to suck and hit .225.

3rd base: Michael Young. He’s been ok this year, hitting .285 but he doesn’t hit for power or steal (3hr’s/1sb) and he’s making $16,000,000 in 2013. At least the Rangers are paying 10mil of it for the Phillies.

Catcher: Brian McCann. People talk about McCann like he’s one of the best catchers in the game. He’s not. He hit .230 last year, .235 this year and he gets hurt all the time–usually with ticky-tack physical problems. He’s one of the highest paid catchers in baseball at $12,00,000

The Pitchers:

Joe Blanton: Joe’s only making $7,000,000 this year but he’s making 7.5mil next year and I love picking on the Angels and their mindblowingly stupid spending ways. Blanton is 1-10 this year and he’s pitched WORSE than his record indicates, if that’s possible.

Dan Haren: The Nats decided it was a sound idea to pay him $13,00,000 in 2013 to pitch to a 5.72 ERA and everyone knew he had a bad hip. Idiotic.

Tim Lincecum: Yes, he’s pitched a little better than he did last year but for $22,000,000 in 2013 (and 20mil in 2012) you expect more for your money.

Matt Cain: Again, there are worse starting pitchers out there. But for $20,000,000 I’d want more than the 4.53 ERA Matty is dragging around…….

Cole Hamels. Wow, where did it all go wrong? Lots of people predicted he’d win the NL CY this year. He’s 2-11. 2013 salary: $20,000,000

Closers:

Between 2010 and 2011 Carlos Marmol saved 72 games. The Cubs are paying him $10,000,000 this year to literally dump gasoline and light the match on the score of every game he enters this year. I’m sure Dodger fans aren’t too happy with Brandon League down in LA and the $7,500,000 he’s making to lose his cler job to Jansen.

Anyway, this is a fairly subjective list and there are countless others who probably belong on it. Who do you think I missed?

Bored at work today, me and a buddy put together our “All Overpaid/No Production” team for 2013. DL guys didn’t count. 6 SP’s, 2 closers, and one position player for each position. No DH’s since they don’t count. That’s tomorrow’s thread. Now, just as Sisyphus did so many times with his boulder, we prepare for another great battle against these titans, The Miami Marlins. I don’t know how we’re gonna do it, but facing 9 straight losses to this dynasty should provide at least a little motivation…….

“Eight in a row against the world champs…”

I know it’s the first time we’ve seen them this year, but they finished 29 games below .500 last year so it’s not like we were facing a better team last season. I didn’t really sweat Affeldt’s pitch to Ozuna when he had him 0-2. It’s not like he threw the ball over the plate. The maddening issue with the game was the impotent, putrid at bats we had against a pitcher that’s been bent over by the rest of the National League hitters.

And while we should be getting The Panda back (I’m setting the o/u at 3.5 pounds gained since last game played) we have likely lost the Crazy Horse for a long, long time. Strangely, for me, the news of his collapse  on the way to first base in Stockton last night didn’t devastate me. I mean, of course I felt badly for him. But Pagan hasn’t really been here all year even when he was playing. And the flip side is we get to find out what Perez can do for us long term. It’s going to be a tough balance for him, his electricity is infectious but he’s got to take his foot off the gas pedal in his at bats a little. Otherwise, he’s never going to see a strike to swing at again.

But whatever we lose at the plate with Pagan out and some combo of Torres/Perez/Blanco we certainly gain on defense in both LF and CF. So Pa-GONE for the next couple of months doesn’t equate to devastation. Yet. Let’s see how it plays out, who steps up, etc…..

Gaudin…..

We were a Will Venable miracle catch away from sweeping San Diego. The Padres worry me…..not. They got hot like all teams in baseball do and won 8 in a row. They have a fantastic manager but they aren’t a very good baseball team. It seems like all their batters are hitting around .235 and it’s not that far off since they have a team batting average of .249. Their pitching is underwhelming, they don’t have an ace on the staff and while their bullpen is solid their team ERA, supposedly a strength of the team, is 4.18. I’ll give you one guess of who the team is right in front of them in team ERA. It starts with a *C* and they play, apparently, in another country. Huston Street is always a slight human movement away from another DL stint. The Padres will find their rightful spot at the bottom of the division as the Summer rolls on….

The benches clearing was amusing and it was fun to see MadBum show some emotion. But it was another reminder that baseball players take themselves way too seriously. He threw behind Guzman because he got fired up after he hit a bomb the night before. Was it that bad? I sure didn’t think so. And can someone tell me why it’s ok to retaliate against a player for what Guzman did but it’s perfectly fine for Romo to storm off the mound every game a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’ and a-pointin’ and a-whatever else he’s doing? How come no one retaliates against a team the next day when their closer does that?

This is one of the best pictures I have ever seen (sports or otherwise):

After this great game, I converted it into my screen saver. And after looking it at it over and over for a couple of weeks, I’m starting to see different things in this photo.

For instance, Pagan is no longer celebrating his epic bomb, now he’s screaming, “Ow!!!!! WTF just happened to my hamstring?!?!?!!?”.

The look on Torres face is priceless. It’s a combination of shock and unbridled joy.  But now I’m imagining that being the look he gets whenever he sees one of those strange, white sphere’s come hurtling at him in left field. “WTF is that?!?!?!?!” he screams….

And while we see Scoots emphatically pointing at Pagan and saying something to the effect of “You da man!” we now know that he was practicing the position one of his fingers would soon have to be splinted in order for him to avoid surgery and keep playing.

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This pic is a great reminder of why we all love this game……

I admit to bailing a little early last night. Stuff came up. I watched the mlb.com replays this morning and was blown away by Perez’ throw out at third base and Venable’s catch in CF.

I know Perez was in short CF when he made that throw, so the fact that he threw it on the fly wasn’t unusual but the location he threw it to was absolutely perfect. It literally carried just over Forsythe into the glove of Arias who was in perfect position to let the momentum of the glove lead right into the diving base runner. Incredible. Forsythe is fast, he couldn’t believe that Perez made a play on him.

And when Venable makes a catch like that you just shake your head and go “not our night.”

Tough loss though, no matter how you cut it, after two bummer L’s in Atlanta and a long flight back that didn’t have them touch down in SF until 4:30am.

Hope they got their Z’s last night, go get ’em tonight…….

Zito…..

Timmy threw a *quality start* last night. Really? Cause I thought he wasn’t very good. There are few things more inappropriately defined than a “quality start”. 6 innings, 3 runs or less? Pfffftttttt. What about if you walk 5 guys, does that still make it a “quality start”? If they changed the name of it to a “qualified” start I don’t think the name would bother me as much. So please make a note of that. It’s called a “qualified start” from here on out. I gotta remember to change that at wikipedia…. 🙂

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Wil Myers just got called up by Tampa Bay and as usual, it will be exciting to see how he does. It’s always fun to see how these guys do when all eyes are on them. It’s a tough situation they’re bringing him into. The Rays have a bunch of vets clogging up various different positions. Myers is going to get playing time but if he doesn’t start hitting right away you can bet he’ll start to feel the pressure. And his first two series at this level are at Boston and then New York. Nope, they are not easing him into this.

Speaking of phenom’s, Zach Wheeler is making his major league debut tomorrow. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s listening to idiot KNBR callers who STILL call in trippin’ on us no longer having Wheeler. Relax. Let it go. He’s gone. We have won a World Series since we traded him. Anyone who looks back on that saying Sabean screwed up doesn’t understand the concept of trading in major league baseball. Sabean pushed all his chips in and I applaud his efforts. We needed a guy like Beltran to make a push that year and it almost worked and probably would have worked had he held up his end of the “deal” and played well from the start of his time with us.

It’s great when guys like Zach Wheeler are brought up through the system and turn into guys like Cain and Timmy. But he hasn’t done that yet and easily may never will. Again, we’ve won a World Series since we used him as currency. We didn’t get what we thought we were paying for but that’s no reason to say Sabean screwed up. He didn’t.

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Pop Quiz: what do the White Sox, the Blue Jays, the Angels, the Dodgers, the Phillies and the Nats all have in common?

A: well, probably a lot of things. For starters, none of those teams are any good. They have a combined payroll of 867 million dollars. Together, those 6 teams are  37 games under .500. And not one of them is playing .500+ ball this season (the Nats are best at .500). That is staggering futility for so much dough. Why are those 6 teams 37 games under .500? Any ideas?

What kind of return does Brian Sabean get on his investments? Let’s take a look at some of the bigger contracts he’s consummated since the Zito fiasco (which was P-Mags and not Sabean). I am going to do this chronologically, at least from my memory. Not looking anything up, just one fan’s *recollection*. So if I’m off by a few mil or I forget someone, don’t have a cow. Argue with the grade I give instead.

Aaron Rowand: 5 years/$60 mil. Grade: D. Rowand was marginally productive in the first 2 years of the deal so I can’t give this signing an F. He went downhill quickly, Bochy stuck with him for too long, whether it was because he thought he’d snap out of it or he just didn’t have anyone else to put in there. Regardless, he was bad in 2010, he sucked worse in 2011 and he was finally paid to go away for the totality of the 2012 season. He made a catch to save Dirrrrrty’s no hitter though so I’ll bump his grade up to a D+

Glass Sanchez: 2 years/$12 mil. Grade: F. He played 20 games or so in 2011 and 0 games in 2012. Even though he was injured, Sabean had to know that Glass was held together with rubber bands and cement tape. Dumb money spent.

Aubrey Huff: 2 years/$20 mil. Grade: F. Still mostly drunk of the 2010 title, I supported this deal. That doesn’t change the grade. Bad deal. And when you suck, it’s quite annoying that you’ve got the first name of a girl. At least to me.

Pablo Sandoval: 3 years/$18 mil. Grade: F. I’m not talking about Pablo’s production, he’s played well since the deal was given and he was MVP of the world series. But he would have done that anyway if the Giants had kept going year to year with him. The grade is for how stupid he made the Giants look after he slimmed down, they gave him a deal of faith that they didn’t have to give him, and he promptly ballooned up again. We’ll see how the next season and a half goes. If he keeps on eating, my guess is he’s going to see a lot of DL time.

Tim Lincecum: 2 years/$40 mil. Grade: D. He had the worst ERA in the NL last year for qualified pitchers (by a country mile) and he’s been largely underwhelming this year, too. He did step up hugely in the world series last year but overall, he didn’t and hasn’t come close to pitching to the worth of this deal.

Buster Posey: 8 years/$180 mil. Grade: B. They’ll move him off catcher at some point and that will be a good thing for his body. Whether he produces at what that position is worth remains to be seen. he’s only going to get better as a hitter though and he won the batting title last year so I’ll be optimistic about this deal…..

Mad-Bum: 6 years/$35 mil. Grade: A+. I’m not sure what Bum was thinking here. He got some financial security for his family, I guess. But he’s going to win a CY or two over the course of this deal–a hugely, home town friendly deal.

Matt Cain: 6 years/$127 mil. Grade: B-. Sabean HAD to pick one of his big two to lock down and he probably picked right one. But that’s determined more in comparison to Timmy’s suckitude and the belief that he’ll never be the same Lincecum again. Will Cain start pitching like *Cain* again? Probably, but not for the life of this deal. Sabean still gets points for *not* picking Timmy.

Marco Scutaro: 3 years/$20 mil: Grade: A-. He’s hitting .332 right now, raise your hand if any of you saw Scoots hitting .332 this year. The *-* is for the next 2 seasons. But who knows, maybe he keeps it going. Can he just cut off his pinky ala Ronnie Lott? It’s on his non throwing hand. I guess it would screw up his swing a little. Too bad. I wish he could lop that bad boy off…….

Angel Pagan: 4 years/$40 mil. Grade: C-. I posted more than once last year that I thought Pagan was a contract driven guy. Whether I’m right or wrong remains to be seen but even before he was injured he was having a pretty underwhelming season. And more years of this doesn’t make the deal look too good. But who knows, maybe he turns it around when he comes back healthy.

So, as can be gleaned from this list of 10 deals, more often than not, things don’t go too well when Brian breaks out the big pen to offer a deal to a player. He’s much better at everything else a GM is responsible for doing…….

Thank God, it’s Chad Gaudin Day. The sinking ship he rights every fifth day (well, it used to be in long relief but whatever). It also used to be  (uh, like a week ago) that a Gaudin start meant a certain victory to stop a string of underwhelming pitching performances. But all that’s changed. We’ve got two starts in a row that saw Cain and Bum at their finest. The Giants haven’t give up a run in 18 innings and with The Great Gaudin taking the mound today we can probably mail in another shutout, right?

Honestly, I can’t figure this Gaudin thing out. Nothing about his career suggests he should be anywhere close to 2.32ERA/1.12WHIP. He says he’s *attacking the zone*. In past years, that would have hitters salivating. This year? Not so much. So what’s he doing to support this unexpected chain of success?

Pfffftttt. Nothing? Is that a good enough answer? He’s walking less hitters and giving up less hits per 9/innings but his pitch selection looks about the same. One interesting thing about Gaudin is that he’s throwing harder now than he did when he was younger. His fastball has about 2mph more on it than it did when he first came into the league. (Timmy looks longingly in the direction of Gaudin….)

So maybe attacking the zone with one of the best fastballs of your career IS a good thing. Pitching at AT&T probably helps too. Hey, I think half the league is on steroids so don’t rag on me for suggesting Gaudin is as well. So that’s what I’m going with. The juice. Anyone got a better answer?

This is a thread that needs to be carefully worded. Since I’m writing it, that’s probably not gonna work but I’ll give it a go. 🙂

The Giants should be commended and honored for the support they have give Bryan Stow and his family up to this point. From my memory, they created a Bryan Stow fund and raised money for him at a game. Tim Flannery and his band have done at least 2 or 3 benefit concerts. I remember Tim Lincecum donating $25,000. And I’m sure other players contributed as well. I saw a pic of Barry Bonds with Stow and I am positive that Barry wrote them a big check.

So from an outsider’s view, it does appear that the Giants have done a lot for Stow. Especially considering that this tragedy didn’t occur on their property. I might be wrong about this, but I don’t believe the Dodgers have done a single thing to help Bryan Stow. I know the Stow family has filed a 50 million dollar lawsuit against the Dodgers for inadequate security and I’m sure that will be tied up in the legal system for 10+ years. McCourt must be positively giddy about the prospect of a new lawsuit to fight. He is  disgusting scum. And while I recognize the new Dodger ownership didn’t have anything to do with this, I am assuming that they haven’t tried to help aid Stow or his family in any way. But I could be wrong about that.

Now we find out that Stow has returned home. His insurance company stopped paying for services. Here is the blog post from his family this week:

It’s too general to just say “our pitching is the problem.” It’s certainly not ALL the pitching that’s the problem. So, what’s working?

The back end of the bullpen is fine. Lopez, Affeldt and Romo are all good.

Chad Gaudin has been magnificent. A starting pitcher who’s attacking the zone? It’s almost unheard of from Giants starters this year. But he’s been the model for them. They just refuse to model him.

Cain, despite one horrendous inning in St Louis, has been fine, too. He’s getting through 7 or into the 7th in most of his starts since the beginning of May. It might not be 125 million worth, but it’s still something we’ll take if it means he’s handing the ball to one of the back-end 3.

Now, what ISN’T working?

We all know what isn’t working. Bumgarner has been shaky lately but still better than Zito or Timmy. Zito hasn’t made it through 7 since May 5th. Surprisingly, Lincecum has made it through 7 in half his starts. It’s the *other half* that have been the problem.

And with Gaudin now in the rotation, it seems to me that the most critical indicator of success needs to be NOT handing the ball to whoever is currently posing as our “long man”. And that would be Ramirez, Rosario, Kontos (he’ll be back, you know it) or Mijares. I trust none of them to stop an inning from getting out of control. Each of them could be nicknamed “Gas Can Man”. I know J-Mij has a sparkling ERA but he gives up a lot of hits. Starting an inning is one thing, but bringing him in with men on base is not a pathway to success.

And it’s hardly rocket science to say “avoid the long man”. If you’re calling on him it’s because the starting pitcher is sucking. Mostly, we’ve had adequate long men over the last couple of seasons. Mota was great and Gaudin was super. Sadly, we now have suspect long men.

And I *suspect* that most long men in the league are suspect. They aren’t like a 6th man in basketball. They are pitchers who, typically, aren’t good enough to crack the starting 5. So this is a problem that most teams have. We just haven’t had to deal with it because our starting pitching has been so good for so many years.

Bottom line: this bedraggled group of long men isn’t going to suddenly get any better. They are, at best, mop up men. Asking them to keep a game close, consistently, is going to be a losing return.

The way to fix this:

Trade for another starting pitcher NOW. It can be an innings eater, it doesn’t have to be Cliff Lee. After this mythical man is acquired, send Timmy to the bullpen immediately and have him do that *super reliever* thing he did so well in the playoffs last year. He did it then, he can do it again.

“Old Man Strength” was on display last night at Dodger Stadium. It felt like a fight straight out of the ’80’s. Mattingly throwing Trammell to the ground, Gibson glaring at everyone, McGwire and Matt Williams locked up in a tussle (that Matty wanted no part of). There was even a Steve Sax and Don Baylor sighting in the middle of the scrum near the seats. Sax tried to throw a right hook at someone but it missed so badly no one took offense…..

So much for the coaches modeling calm and reasonable behavior for their players. And what was Puig screaming about? He uses a translator and doesn’t speak English, I’m assuming most of the players he was yelling at didn’t know WTF he was saying…..

For the fantasy league guys, my friends Drew and Sarah were at the game. Here’s a pic of the scrum from their seats. I love the dude bottom left who looks like he’s rockin’ out at a Dokken concert with his horns held high:

Sarah and Drew, both Giants fans, noted before the game on facebook: “Decked out in our neutral gear.”

After the dust up Sarah said, “I’m pretty sure no one in the stands saw what happened as they were too busy keeping beach balls in flight.” Anyway, now you fantasy players can put a face to the team that’s beating most of you (“DrewWho?”–current standings in the widget to the right)…..

Did anyone catch Grienke winking to his catcher after he hit Montero? It’s in one of the videos on mlb.com. What a d-bag that guy is…..

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To our own bean ball game, I’m still having a hard time understanding what possessed Kontos (or the Giants) to start throwing at Pittsburgh players. Because Scoots got hit? If so, L-A-M-E. The Pitt pitcher wasn’t taking aim at Scoots. And since Kontos did it after his POS pitch got blasted into orbit by Alvarez, it sure makes him look like nothing more than petulant, vindictive puss. With this series just underway, and the Pirates probably pretty pissed off at Kontos and his impromptu target practice, this could get ugly tonight and tomorrow—and it’s not like we have a bunch of extra guys to fill in if any of our remaining healthy players get beaned and injured or ejected for fighting…..

Our team officially has a *man-down* problem going on right now. Can Kontos serve his upcoming suspension in Fresno? Time for some Hembree action…….

I don’t know why, but I woke up wondering who’s on the juice this season. Canseco said 80% of the players were doing it back in his day. Since Selig *cleaned up* the sport I’ll say that 32.7% of the players are still taking PED’s. That’s a highly accurate number, I can’t share the formula I used to come up with it. Top secret shit.

Anyway, I thought I’d go through each position and give out my annual All Star Melk-Shake Awards for 2013. I used 4 scientifically proven metrics:

1) a player hitting or pitching at an unusually high level (for them) that can’t be explained by hitting a peak age

2) anyone who’s totally yoked out

3) my intuition

4) my discretion

So, to the Melk-Shake Awards:

First base: Chris Davis, Baltimore. This dude was a monster in the minors but never seemed to translate his power to the next level. Until last year when he blasted 33 bombs. He’s hit 20 (twenty!) so far this year and he definitely fits under category #2 (yoked out).

Second base: Marco Scutaro, SF Giants. I changed this one after reading some of your comments. He hit .339 after the all star break last year and he’s hitting .332 so far this year. At 37 years old he started doing this? He’d never hit .300 for a season before last year. As Melky proved, you don’t have to bang out bombs to be juiced up.

Shortstop: Johnny Peralta, Detroit. He hit .239 last year. He was a career .275 hitter in the minors. So naturally, he’s hitting .339 for the year.

Third base: Miggy Cabrera, Detroit. Melky, Miggy, same last name, too. Plus he plays right next to Peralta so that’s easy access to the goods….

Outfield:

Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado. Where did THESE splits come from? Car-Go is hitting .348 on the road and only .260 at home? Isn’t that the reverse of what he’s done in the past? Clearly Melk-Shake driven and he needs to start powering them down at home, too, if he wants to take a shot at NL MVP this year.

Carlos Gomez, Milwaukee: After nearly a decade of failed promises, Car-Gom had a break out year last year stealing 37 and hitting 19 bombs. The Melk-Shake tasted so good  he decided to keep drinking it in 2013. He’s hitting .322 (.260 last year).

Nelson Cruz, Texas: I needed a RF and Cruz is connected to the Biogenesis investigation plus he’s banged out 15 bombs already this year so he’s the big winner.

Catcher: Evan Gattis, Atlanta. He’s a total hacker who has burst on to the mlb scene in 2013 with 14 bombs in only 156 at bats.

Starting Pitcher: Bartolo Colon, Oakland. He’s been busted before and he’s always smiling, which means he’s brazen and he doesn’t give a shit. Plus, no one except Rick Reuschel is allowed to be that fat and that good. I’m smelling a 100 game suspension coming soon for “Two Slices” Colon…..

Closer: Jason Grilli, Pittsburgh. So after a dozen years of bouncing back and forth from the minors to the majors, at age 37 he leads the league in saves with 23? And he’s been absolutely dominant with 46 SO’s in 27.2 innings. He started drinking the Melk-Shake last year when he struck out 90 in 58.2 innings.

That’s it. Who’d I miss?

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life that I don’t care to share on the internet. But one thing safe for internet consumption is the day I deleted the blog oneflapdown77.blogspot.com. That was the blog I started on a lark when The Splash shut down for a couple of hours one day back in 2009.  After the url got out, my new blog started to get some traffic. Even after the Chron rebooted I decided to keep the blog going because it was cool having a place where you could speak your mind and not worry about a blog czar zapping your post for no apparent reason. I really wish we could still access that blog, there were some fantastic words composed there……..

That blog grew in popularity and I stopped posting at The Splash. Back in *the day*, when I didn’t know what a blog was, I stumbled upon the Splash looking for an article. Suddenly, I found my way to the *comments* section.  I fired off a few opinions, tangled with Twin for a bit, and I was hooked. It was a great way for me to vent my thoughts/feelings/opinions/frustrations about the Giants. Back then no one monitored shit, we said whatever was on our mind. There were probably about 12 of us who filled up 400 comments a day, lol. Even in the darkness of Winter…..

Anyway, after bailing on the Splash and starting the blog at blogger.com I grew tired of the limitations I had as the blog owner. Too many trolls started showing up and I couldn’t zap them.  It was irritating.  So, after a year at blogger, I moved the blog to wordpress.com, and while wordpress has it’s issues, I’ve had no problem running the blog as I like and kicking out dipshits who show up for no other reason than to irritate and annoy.

I made that move on May 30th, 2010. Here is my first post. It was a video of me at Posey’s first game of the 2010 season. San Diggity Dawg had invited me to the game a month before and we got lucky to hit the Posey-2-the-Show game (2010). He “announced his presence with authority.” That was a fun game, I met Diggity for the first time (and his sister), I ate a broken hotdog left over from the Candlestick days, and Buster Posey did this in his first at bat of the evening…..

Diggity told me before the game that his favorite seats are at the top and it was the first time I’d ever sat up there. It was quite awesome. And I made that video my first post at the new blog. The same blog you’re reading now…..

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It’s important to do things in your life that make you happy. I know that sounds obvious, but as I got older, I forgot how to do it. When I was young, happy came easy. As I aged, it came harder. Life got harder. And while the greatest and most important happiness in my life is raising my 10 year old angel, I recognize that there are other things that I need in my life to be happy. I’ve shared them before, no reason to list them off  here. One thing  I’ve discovered, as it relates to this place, is that waking up at 5am with a cup of coffee and some Pandora in the background, with darkness and no sounds except the clicking of my keyboard, is the best way I’ve ever found to start my day. So don’t think this blog has anything to do with any of you. Haha.

But of course, it has everything to do with you. For starters, while this is *my* 1,000 post, it’s the 1,134th post at the blog. When I nearly dissolved the blog last Summer, there were 12 of you who came to it’s rescue. The Stable Boys were born and shortly after that they were re-named The Un-Stable Boys—one of the great nicknames of all time, courtesy of Pawlie Kokonuts, one of the most stable, un-stable of them all. Those 12 came together and blogged their asses off all the way to another World Series Championship.

So today, we (12) publish post 1,134. I’m an anniversary guy, super symmetrical, I killed the last blog a year to the day I started it, and I threatened to kill this one at post *M*. Sometime last January, I decided I wasn’t going to do it. Still, here we are at 1000 (for me) and I wish to take a moment to observe and honor all of the words that I wrote and that you all wrote to make this blog what it turned into. There’s a widget to the right that counts up all the blog hits and it’s gonna hit 1 million later this season. When I look at the wordpress stat sheet there are a bunch of fun stats to process. Here’s the blog post with the most comments:

https://oneflapdown77.com/2012/10/11/citizen-cain/

Here are the stats for most pages view over 2000+ times. I can’t tell you how much it makes me smile to see what’s listed at #2:

The blog is quieter nowadays. It still gets a lot of traffic. I have always, intentionally, never placed an ad here. I never wanted the blog to look like a big blinking dumb ad, I wanted it to look like Giants baseball. Nothing but orange and black and hardcore Giants fans. And despite the constant offers I receive from WordPress, the monitory payoff is never going to outweigh the clean, undisturbed look of Giants fans talking about baseball. Our fans, the best fans *I* have ever known, make up a legion that grew from the 2 recent trophies but never grew in terms of the collective size of our heart. That heart has always been as big as it’s ever going to be. There was nothing like the first time I said to someone, “I am a Giants fan”.  And every time I say it, I get better, I get stronger….

This is The Flap. WE ARE GIANTS FANS. And no group, regardless of its size, can give a *knowing dude head nod* any fucking better than we can…….

This morning we had a practice swim meet to try out the *new* technology. The timers don’t use timers anymore, we use these blue boxes that we are supposed to press ONLY when the swimmer hits the wall—the result goes right to the computer (or whatever we’re sending it too. A cloud? I can’t keep track). Anyway, this new gizmo has done away with the details of timing a race. Instead of clicking start-stop and then turning to a human recorder all we do is click stop once, when they hit the wall, and our job is done. With no more recorders hanging over my head awaiting my time, it’s already better. I never liked that, it felt like they were always just looming, waiting to consequence or doubt me…..

There are 2 timers for each lane, my lane was #5.  I turned to the woman I was working with to start up the required mindless bull-chat that you always have to do since you’re sitting there together for 3 hours or so. She was older and unattractive and I was bummed since I often get paired with a nice looking MILF who likes to flirt and remember her better days. But whatever, I can get my bull-chat on with anyone so I looked at her name tag and it said “LeMaster”. I thought “Booyah, that’s a built-in conversation starter!”  Then I started thinking that I’m not working “booyah” into my daily venacular often enough and I wondered how I could change that.  Sensing the need to interrupt this brain cloud moment, I shook my head twice, re-focused, and said “You know, you’ve got a fairly famous last name for this area if you’re a Giants fan.”  I’m bad at guessing ages of older women but I put her in the neighborhood of 60 and was hoping this was Johnnie’s sister or wife or something. What a fantastic story this would be for The Flap!

“Yes, I get that a lot” she said. “I’m married to one of his cousins but I’ve never met him”.

Buzz kill…….

She prattled on about how he was a *great* defensive player but couldn’t hit, how he used to wear “Boo” ALL the time on his jersey (I just let her keep going without correcting that one) and how her son could have played college ball but he quit after high school because he wasn’t passionate enough to take it to the next level…she said other things, I started ruminating to myself about how I’m still not saying “Booyah” enough to verbalize exclamation points in conversation, then the meet started and I had to start clicking that timer-stop button over and over for 3 hours……

So, all in all, kind of a let down, at least in terms of the rad post I had planned about timing a swim meet with Johnnie LeMaster’s wife….

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Pawlie left me a voice mail today saying that last night’s loss was devastating to him and that he was taking a few days break from the blog. I was surprised, I didn’t think last night’s loss was that awful. One of the best hitters in the NL took one of our pitchers deep. He was 0-5 against him, I had no problem with Bochy sticking with him. He threw him a poorly placed strike, he knocked it out, we only scored one run, end of game. To me, this was just another game where we didn’t hit and they beat us late. Stay with us Kokonuts, they get a lot worse than that one!

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Here’s a great pic that I’ve posted before. This is what players looked like before they took steroids. I bet one or two of you were at this game or knew someone who was.

The Giants drafted two really smart guys….

And that’s all we really know. Two high school kids who blew the bejesus off the top of their GPA’s, both are verbally committed to going to college—Christian Arroyo to the University of Florida and Ryder Jones to The Farm.

The only thing I can surmise about these 2 picks is that the Giants didn’t really like this draft. There is NO other reason to take a guy ranked 102nd with the 25th pick unless you’re pulling a coup on the rest of the league–and there was no secret coup, the Giants don’t have an agreement in place with Arroyo. If either fails to sign we get a compensatory pick the following year.

And super smart people tend to want to go to college and do something with their brains other than bash baseballs around. Of course, they could also knock college out in a couple of off seasons, too.

Ryder is headed to Stanford so I’d be totally fine with him snubbing us for them. Of course, I’d be fine with him signing, too.

The Giants have had some pretty spectacular drafts since Sabean started paying attention to the process back in 2006. I have to trust and believe that they know what they’re doing with all of this and I pay very little attention to who Keith Law ranks in his top 100 draft prospects. It’s the first high school position player they’ve taken in the first round since they tabbed Tony Torcato in ’98. And we all know how that turned out.

So Arroyo is no Tony Torcato. Or maybe he is, and he’ll be playing for Florida next year……

Three in Arizona then we get a day off Monday. That’s the easy part. Then we fly to Pittsburgh for 3 and then to Atlanta for 3 and I’m guessing it’s going to be hot as fuck in both those cities. Still no day off we fly home for 3 against San Diggity and four against the Marlins. Coming home off that brutal road trip, I don’t think we can count on any gimmies from The Diggity’s or the Marlins. And Chad Gaudin can’t pitch 19 straight games so the other guys need to step up hugely.

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The draft is today, time to replenish the farm system and hope we hit on something good that pays off in 4 or 5 years…..

The Giants have the 25th pick in the first round. Here’s what recent 25th picks looked like:

2010:  the Cardinals took Zach Cox 3rd baseman (note: the Giants drafted Brown with the 24th pick in that round).

2009: Strasburg went first. And with the 25th pick the Angels took……Mike Trout

2008: Posey went 5th to us. The Rox took a pitcher named Christian Friedrich with the 25th pick. I think he’s up now as a reliever.

2007: We snagged Bumgarner 10th. The White Sox took someone named Aaron Poreda with the 25th pick— a pitcher.

2006: Timmy went to us with the 10th pick (Kershaw went 7th and Scherzer went one pick after Timmy at 11). Hank Conger (catcher) went to the Angels at pick 25. He’s kinda fiddled around as a back up catcher for them for the last couple of years.

2005: The first 8 picks were wild. It went Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Jeff Clement (miss), Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Ricky Romero, Troy Tulo. that’s some serious talent. The Twins took Matt Garza at 25.

2004: The famous Matt Bush failure at #1. Verlander went 2. Kyle Waldrop, a pitcher, was taken by the Twins at 25

2003: a joke first round with like 6 or 7 names that I recognized. We took Aardsma at 22. The A’s took Brad Sullivan at 25.

2002: with the 25th pick in the first round, the San Francisco Giants select……Matt Cain

2001: Mauer went #1. We took Hennessey 22. The A’s took Bobby Crosby at 25.

2000: A-Gone went #1. We took Boof Bonser at 21. The Rangers selected Scott Heard, a catcher, at 25

1999: Hamilton went #1. Beckett went #2. Ainsworth went to us at 24. Mike MacDougal went to the Royals at 25.

1998: ah one of my favorite drafts to look back and spit on. Pat the Bat went #1. After thoughtful consideration, the Giants took Tony Torcato at 19. The Indians took CC Sabathia next at 20. We snagged Nate Bump at 25…..

I think the main thing to take away from this trip down first round pick lane is that 1) Sabean has gotten a lot better at doing this and 2) You can find something good at pick 25…..

SanDawg said, on June 4, 2013 at 9:22 pm (Edit)

“This guy Puig is gonna be problem…”

Well, he could be my man, he could be. But to all the LA fans out there I would say “Don’t start suckin’ each other’s Puig’s just quite yet”….

I mean, he sure does back spin those balls out of the yard with shocking ease. And he’s got a beast of an arm. And he did, uh, hit .517 in Spring Training with a 1.328 OPS. Hmmmm…..Well, he was at double A this year and only hit .313 so he’s obviously overrated, right?

There’s no doubt he *could* be a problem. But I don’t think he’s going to be. He’s being compared to Mike Trout and what he did to jump start the Angels last year. Well, in my *expert* opinion, LA’s gonna need a little more to get their season jump started. The Dodgers are a soul less team, always have been and never more so after guys like A-Gone, Beckett, Grienke and Crawford joined the team. Puig might get the drunken Dodger fans going but it’s gonna take a lot more than a nice throw and a couple of bombs to kick start that dump truck.

Puig will be like all other hitters who get called up. Once he proves he can hit a major league fastball (Ok, ok we believe you!)  the rest of the league will start throwing him specialty stuff that he’ll corkscrew himself into the ground trying to hit.

At least, that’s my *plan*. You guys got a better one? 🙂

This is really a fascinating 2 game series vs Toronto if you just look at the pitching match ups. Tonight it’s Josh Johnson vs Timmy. JJ was 15-5 in 2009 and then led the league with a 2.30 ERA in 2010. Alas, he couldn’t keep his arm healthy. If I’m not mistaken, he took the *rest-route* instead of surgery. Anyway, if this were 2009 you’d be seeing a real showdown……

Dickey goes against Zito on Wednesday. Dickey is probably the weirdest pitching phenomenon to literally come out of nowhere only to flame out nearly as fast as he arrived. Last year, at age 37 and after pitching since 2001, he won 20 games and the NL Cy Young. I watched a couple of his games last year and was like “how has he not been doing this since the beginning of his career?” Last year he had an ERA of 2.73. This year it’s 5.18. Has it all been due to the move to the big, bad AL East? He’s had a couple of nagging injuries but nothing that would explain the drop off from last year. Although nothing really explained last year so who knows what’s going on with him.

Barry Zito pitching at ATT is clearly the most likely pitcher of the four to pitch a great game in this series. Although I do think Dickey getting back to an NL park might energize him a bit. JJ is +120 to get injured before the 4th inning. And Lincecum will do the things he normally does to *buffalo* his coaches.

And The Melkman returns to SF. How will he be received? My guess is that he’ll get a nice, polite applause. He contributed to last year’s title. We won the World Series and he’s moved on to what he was before he took steroids: a journeyman outfielder. I don’t wish him well but I’m not pissed off at him the way I was last year. Time to let all that go…….

Well, it could be. Here is the Dodgers LU tonight:

It’s shocking how little 220 million buys these days. And that’s not counting the 42 million they gave Puig (7 years).

Injuries, ah, (L)Ame has them. Good. I celebrate their injuries as awesome and fantastic. I’ve got no problem facing the Dodgers at their strongest but I’m *gleeful* at seeing them at their weakest. Injuries are part of the game and if big money free agents go down, so be it. It happens to all teams dumb enough to hand out 9 figure+ contracts. And with Dodgers ownership just now finding out they’re gonna be paying out an extra billion in revenue sharing from their sweet tv deal, um, oops. I find that perfectly delicious, too……..

I’m not sure I can tolerate an L(A)me thread up longer than 12 hours or so but that LU is a crack up and I  just had to laugh long, hard, and loud at this fucked up franchise that’s been marveling at us for years…….

It barely got a mention from his fellow Flappers, but at 11:16am yesterday, Bozo guaranteed victory. Fed up with Anna’s absence as well a Giant malaise hanging over his preferred team, he took matters into his own hands and dug out that ‘ol St Loooo-E ash tray. He took a bunch of deep breaths, coughed a few times, and started fillin’ her up:

Nice hat, by the way. That’s my favorite one. And well done bringing that victory home. Give your lungs a break though, bro. Try chewing gum instead. 🙂

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Chad Gaudin has arrived as the second coming of “Ryan Vogelsong” and it has created a fair amount of uncertainty in the ranks of the pitching staff. First of all, it’s pathetic that Gaudin had to be The Stopper for such an accomplished group.

“I tried to minimize my pitches and get outs as quickly as possible,” Gaudin said.

Hmmmmm. Fascinating approach. I wonder if Timmy was listening.

Speaking of Lincecum, according to the rock-solid reliable Andrew Baggarly, an unnamed source within the organization said the Giants would send Lincecum to the bullpen “in a heartbeat” if they had someone to replace him. It sounds like that someone has calmly and confidently raised his hand to volunteer for the job and his name is Chad Gaudin. Unfortunately, that’s a switch that can’t happen until Voggy comes back. But it’s an intriguing idea, especially if Timmy can re-capture his magic from last post season when he was The Secret Weapon out of the pen. There is the unfortunate issue of the calendar. Far too many Lincecum starts will litter June and July before Voggy returns. And I don’t know how to fix that.

Gaudin stepping up and showing the other 4 how it’s done was a nice surprise. But his ascension to starting pitcher just fills one gap– the 5th starter spot. It doesn’t do anything for the other struggling four and it leaves a gynormous hole in the long-man role; a role that is significant on the team the way this current motley crew is throwing the ball these days……

How far Gaudin can go will become less of an issue if the Giants continue with their limp hitting ways. With Pagan and Pablo down, Belt 3 for his last 19, Posey 2 for his last 20, Blanco AND Torres in the LU at the same time and way too much Nick Noonan……it makes it difficult to muster up much confidence in the offense.

And Bochy DOES have options out of the bullpen today. He managed to not pitch Affeldt and Lopez yesterday so they should be good to go for 2 innings each, if necessary. And Romo’s pitched 2 innings over the last 10 days so save-op or not he could go 2 innings easily. If Gaudin can hand the ball over to those 3 guys after 4 or 5 innings there shouldn’t be much to worry about on the pitching side of things.

Whether the bats can produce something above the 0.5 runs they averaged yesterday is a total unknown right now……

This thread is written by Edd. I don’t understand the title either. 🙂

As most of you know, I am mainly a fan, the minutia of insider understandings or statistical solutions are a bridge too far for this Giants’ fan, a Polly Anna fan that loves this team and this game. I do know baseball fairly well with decent gut feeling (can I self-promote by saying I am reigning champion of the Flap Fantasy League?). Mostly I get great satisfaction out of watching my team play. For the last 3 years there has been wonderful surprises in watching this team win-win-win; most recently the inside-the-park home run win by Angel Pa-Gone. Basking can be had by all.

With a great manager and some crafty moves by the front office I have a team that can win, especially when that team is firing on all cylinders. The complete domination of Detroit during the 2012 World Serious proved that they can beat any team anywhere.

But for the last recent weeks (my god, it’s been going on for too long now) those cylinders have been going phut. Spark-plugs (hitting), errors (timing), delivery (the petrol of pitching) and a general in-cohesiveness makes this team play like Houston on a bad night. And yet, my heart and hope clings to the thought that this is truly an anomaly; still the same team, like cream, ready to rise to the top.

Today we are in the Archway City playing a disdained rival who wants our ass and may well feed it to us. This year I feared the Braves more, but, thanks to the Upton brothers, Saint Louie may be the team I would really love to beat.

Yadda, yadda, it is only one series, what the fuck is up with Cain, how many errors can a good fielding team make, where do we go from here? If ever there was a miracle additive that could make those cylinders fire all at once I want to see it now.