Eagerly Awaiting August….or 2014?
As the 2013 season continues to take shape as the most disappointing season ever and while we continue to await the exciting arrival of Guillermo Moscoso, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at some July stats. And by fun, I mean the opposite of that. It turns out our offense is not what we thought it was. Or maybe it is what some of you thought it was.
There’s still a couple of days left in July to *fix* this. We are currently tied with the Yankees for last place in all of baseball with 7 measly home runs. This promises to be a most exciting race to watch play out. Detroit and Seattle are tied at the top with 31 July bombs each. Are they even playing the same game as the Giants? 31 > 7?
Next stat: batting average. As I slowly peek into the next screen I see that it’s not as bad as I thought. We’re hitting .237 as a team in July. That’s actually better than 6 other teams. Shockingly, the team bringing up the rear in the A’s at .214. How are they winning so many games?
Runs scored: 65. That’s better than one team: the Marlins (who kicked our ass). 65 sounds a little high, doesn’t it? I remember about 5 of them…….
I was going to go through more stats but this thread has already gotten lame and staid.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Yankees play in a band box, so the tie in HRs goes to San Francisco. 😉
Are you recalling a bunch of deep shots by us that died at the warning track at AT&T that woulda been out at Yankee Stadium? Cause I’m not.
Check out the latest edition (2013) of the Blogticulator.
The last Yankee right-hander to hit a HR was Jayson Nix — on June 25!
Those bobbleheads for greatful dead nite looked awful prophetic. I dig Dia de los Muertos art, which is what that reminded me of, but bats were strangely muerto vs. Edwin Jackson and Cubs awful pen all night. Kind of funny that Sandoval is the guy who takes the first walk and winds up scoring.
That *positive thoughts* strategically placed sign reminds me of bob Knight every time I see it. I read a recent book of his “power of negative thinking” where he takes on the cliché ridden positivist coaches. book is not one I’d recommend, but one of the things Knight stands for is eliminating mistakes, and he is not shy about letting players know when they have not been patient enough to work for a good shot, fail to block out or react quickly enough on help defense.
And man, did mistakes cost Giants last night. Abreu unable to flag down the groundball and keep Nate from scoring. Belt running wildly on bases for no reason into an easy out. No one taking charge on the pop fly and telling their teammates it’s mine. And of course Belt unable to come up with a ball hit right at him for the last out.
One cliché I will use–it’s not how far down you get, it’s what you do about it. Play smarter ball.
On the radio Jon Miller initially said Abreu’s dive was so uncontrolled the ball shot under his stomach, far from his glove. Miller corrected himself after looking at the replay. Abreu actually managed to touch the ball with the thumb of the unusual looking frying pan in his hand.
Miller’s hyperbolic outrage didn’t get quite that bad but it was close. It’s tough to get used to that tone again 4, 5 years later but I recognize it. My God giants fans this team is so bad you have to see it to believe it. Come to the park. Prices on stubhub have never been better.
From here on out, Belt needs to play every day. As in: Every Day. The season is lost, and it’s time to find out whether or not he’s a 150-game player. That means sitting Buster on days when he’s not going to catch, since there’s really no need to put him at first and squeeze an extra game out of him for what will be mostly meaningless games the rest of the way. And that means playing Belt against every lefty the Giants face, including Kershaw. Everything the Giants do these final 60 games must be with an eye towards 2014, and determining who’s going to be the every-day first baseman would be a good first step.
Definitely down with that. Sabes and company need to find out who is “flotsam” and who is “cream.”
saw a great comment from a blogger on bags csn, I think it was at bottom of thread on Pence staying, right after Reds left. guy’s name was something like sbsf-something, and he says (after hoping reds continue their run vs. dodgers) “I am not biased against LA. I don’t care who beats them.”
Man, it would suck to see them playing Cards for the NL title, or either of them vs. Red Sox for WS.
I put my Blogticulator 2013 PRO to work this season and it found that according to Kuiper we have actually hit 214 fly balls that would have been out of “any other ballpark on the planet”…
Man, that was a bad one last night. But I’m holding down the fort or keeping the faith or whatever is to be the last Polly on the planet. Mark my words: we’re probably perhaps maybe going to win this yet…I sorta guarantee it.
This proves my point. By the by, how much does the blogticulator software retail for? Does Costco carry it?
Sorry Steve. The Blogticulator is just another of my silly virtual inventions. The software is only available at omgherehegoesagain.com
This is weird – Your link is down at the moment.
My blogticulator is telling me this season is LOST! Still, I like lost causes.
I guess the Giants have adopted the Aubrey Huff school of winning (and sucking) every other year. . . .
This season makes me long for the days of Huff and Burrell mailing it in during 2011.
What an odd year.
RIP JJ Cale. This one seems appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEJLPBgGmsk
Magnolia. That’s the one I always think of when I think of JJ Cale. Damn.
I don’t know if this looks like the most disappointing season “ever”, but it’s looking close. As in, how does a WS champ fall this far, even given these injuries? I did not expect yet another WS title, but I expected competitive. As in playing good, smart, crisp baseball, and competing. This team is not competitive against good teams like the Reds. Lookout soon when they go back east and play the Rays, etc. Yikes. Last night looked like a AAA team on Wendy’s free burger night. The defense was atrocious. No hitting, yet again. Cain, the bright spot. This team sucks balls, there’s no two ways about it. Sabean needs to get off his ass and do some trading for next year, and re-stock the farm system, because this team’s going nowhere. Bringing in some no-name reliever is like taking Rolaids for syphillis. Bring Kieschnick and other guys up that are are near ready as they’ll be in September, and play them the entire month to find out who can play, who can’t. It’s time for a major re-tool. The most disappointing thing to me is the poor play, the stupid play, the lackluster play. The yes, going through the motions play. This shows badly on Bochy and the coaches — they get credit for winning titles, so they have to shoulder some blame for not motivating this team to play. You can suck, but you can still play hard and suck respectably. This team for over two months just plain sucks…
The only reason I can see that anyone would still feel hopeful about this season is the NL West (up until now) being so dreadful that the Giants could be so far under .500 and still within spitting distance of the division lead. With LA probably about to run away with the division, that mirage is fast dissipating. Watching the product on the field is enough to say what Sabean pretty much admitted the other day: they’re done. I was at the game last night, and it was one of the strangest games I’ve ever attended, mostly because of how it felt. It had all the excitement of a double A game (meaning, none), with none of the often surprising little good baseball plays you sometimes see in the minors. The crowd also seemed quietly and eerily resigned that it’s done but what the hell, let’s try to enjoy the evening anyway. Almost seemed like that’s how the players were playing. This will, IMO, be the weirdest disappearing act I’ve ever seen a team pull off. It’s like someone flicked a switch near the end of May and the team, as a whole, minus Buster, maybe, suddenly forgot how to play the game. Just…. weird…
Snarkk– I said it’s headed towards most disappointing season ever because I just didn’t see any of this coming. I had high hopes and I don’t have them every year. Basically, this team is missing exactly 2 pieces from last year–Pagan and Voggy. And while I know they were critical to last season’s success someone is gonna have to draw out a diagram for me that takes us from WS champs to *this* minus just Pagan and Voggy…..
I’m going to a concert tonight- a benefit in San Jose featuring Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, and Jackson Browne.
The Giants game will be on the DVR when I get home, and hopefully it’ll be a Giants victory. That would be cool.
That’s the concert Pawlie really wanted to go to bad. If he still had Kershaw to trade, would you swap him the concert ticket? How about a Freeman? 😉
Mean girls.
I’ll be there with you — but not in a creepy way — not sitting between you and your wife, nothing like that.
Bad Brandon, Bad bad bad boy…
1. Andres Torres (S) CF
2. Marco Scutaro (R) 2B
3. Buster Posey (R) C
4. Pablo Sandoval (S) 3B
5. Hunter Pence (R) RF
6. Jeff Francoeur (R) LF
7. Joaquin Arias (R) SS
8. Brandon Belt (L) 1B
9. Madison Bumgarner (R) P
Does it really matter where any of these guys hit in the LU? Besides Posey, they’re all underwhelming
Yes, the season is not over, but I am perplexed and saddened by how it soured. How to compare it? You go on a few dates with a stunning babe. Smart. Sexy. Fun. All that. You make dinner together. All that. She spends the night. You wake up the next morning. She is gone. A dog is in bed with you. A spaniel. A cuddly dog. But with dog breath. It’s a lovable dog. But what happened?
“Does it really matter where any of these guys hit in the LU?”
It does matter . . . I wish they were hitting for the Los Angeles Dodgers and we had the Tampa Bay Rays or Boston Red Sox line up. 😉 😉
Pawlie, I saw this on Bewitched I think. Except Samantha’s mother turned Darren into the mutt.
Sandoval and Pence are starting to hit again, Torres is hitting .299 w/347 OBP in the lead off spot. But actually, the LU order *isn’t* a BFD. Certainly not the BFD it’s often made out to be.
We were in trouble last night well before Belt’s error. When Torres struck out swinging on a 3 and 2 count and we failed to get Prudential run, I had torturus redux Maximus.
Enjoy the game, guys. I got a tablet that I’m messing with. Ugh. Night all.
I’m thinking it would be sad, very, very sad, to be no hit by the Cubs.
Getting beat by them is bad enough.
Damn, no game (thus far) on Kos.
The good news, and I can’t believe that good news has come to this, is that this dude isn’t stretched out, they’d never leave him in long enough to no hit us.
Ugh.
Here at Casa Flavor, we take our good news where we can find it (lqtm).
Amazing! I finally got a feed somewhere else.
Our SP’s must be getting awfully tired of this limp, impotent, offense
It is so maddening that he swings on just about every first pitch.
Not to be critical of Pablo, but when your pre-at-bat routine takes longer than the at bat…
WTF Arias? Can’t anyone play this game?
Belt…Jesus. Too bad, heck of an at bat
Yeah, he battled. Frustrating.
Nice play by Francoeur in the field, but sorry – I have seen enough of him at bat. Francoeur was miserable with the Royals this season (.208/.249/.322) and hasn’t really done anything since 2011. This speaks to the desperation and undesirable options we’ve had to take a look at due to Pagan’s injury.
The Giants can still win this thing as I write this. Unbelievable but true!
Bases loaded and no one is out! Posey up!
Pablo up bases loaded!
Bases loaded now Pence tries!
Oh well…..sniff… Pence K
Thank god for Strop’s idiocy
Bases juiced. Damn, we got us an Orange and Black bunting machine.
FUCK.
BLEEP!
Unfrickingbelievable. You keep thinking it can’t get any worse and then, we sink to new lows of ineptitude.
Nice first swing by fucking Pablo again. I need to look up what that % is…
Pathetic. Must be a masochist to be watching this bleeping team.
Well that was FUBAR. I guess the 3, 4 and 5 guys should have tried bunting. Nothing says losing like, bases loaded, no one out against the Cubs and you, don’t, can’t, won’t, score.
May as well have been Quiroz, Noonan and Perez up there.
The thing I’m most tired of? Those two dumb broads in black waving incessantly every time they go CF cam
The final indignity. Holy crap is this ugly.
It can get worse. Wow.
I was never a huge Nate fan but I respect hard work, perseverance and underdog shit.
That had to have felt so good for him
I’m choosing to believe that the 2 dumb broads waving all game long caused this nightmare
Give me two broads with daddy issues any day!
The utter embarrassment of this team continues to seek new lows. Good for Nate. Normally, I don’t really care about ex-Giants playing elsewhere, but at this point, I’m feeling good vibes for him, and utter disdain for this train wreck of a so-called offense. I don’t like to say it, but Nate deserved that opportunity to punk the Giants, and he came through…
Well, along the lines of what Salty and Bozo said, it can get worse. I can already imagine the headlines and story lines that the Mercury and Chronicle are brewing up – probably something about redemption, revenge, etc.
Bring on the doger trolls, this season can’t get any more punishing.
Bases loaded again! Can you believe it?
no.
Cubs win on a double play…..BOO HOO!
This is either God playing with us or . . . fill in the blank.
God was playing with us. Pfffffft!
If we don’t at least tie this up now, well, it would be another low…
A walk is as good as a bunt?
It’s pretty funny how we load the bases these days.
Gregg is so horrible, we have to beat him
Jesus….
Eleven games below .500 for the Giants.
Wow. Just wow.
If I were Bochy, it’s time to throw over the spread table. Or, something. Whatever he’s been doing isn’t working. And, somebody(ies) need to be traded. That’s what happens when you’re this bad for this long. Time to sell. Onto the Makers and soda…
Giants driving Snarkk to the bottle!
That there is, well, not pretty? Just wrong? A bleep of a bleep time? Or, the runniest diarrhea bullshit that this fucking team could fucking stain the field with? I’m going with door number 4. Thanks for the stains.
Stay away from Prunes.
Don’t forget your bucket.
Hop aboard the Wayback machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman, where we visit July 13th, the last time the Giants scored more than 3 runs.
Actually, I was kidding – you only have to go back to the 23rd.
I’m blaming it on the WBC. Bud’s crack cocaine fucks our guys up.
Makers tasting good.
Radio says this stat: Gyros with just 13 extra base hits in the last 9 games. A little over 1 extra base hit per game. You need a microscope to see the team .slg. for that. This is an amazingly bad period of hitting, not to mention defense. This stretch seems worse than some of the dark days of 2005-2008. Like I said, time for Sabean to sell, and get some young bodies…
Think the offers have been pretty underwhelming before this and now? who the heck wants to give up good prospects for this flaccid bunch? Dave Littlefield is selling insurance.
Where to start? Sheesh, you could throw a dart and as long as it doesn’t hit Posey, you could probably be fairly certain that player needs to be dealt. Ha.
This season has been painful. As I mentioned on one of Blade’s FB posts, between last night’s debacle, and then tonight’s game (with Nate hitting the winning HR), I feel like I’ve been kicked in the nuts.
But this is not the worst ever, by far…this season pales in comparison to the ’85 season. But when I reflect on 1985, it just doesn’t do much to ease the pain of this cluster-fuck of a season.
And by a hundredth of a percentage point, our boys are in the cellar.
Weird thing is…as bad as the West is…this thing is still win-able. (But probably not by this bunch.)
What makes this season a “cluster fuck” is the fact that no one saw it coming. Sure, I think most of us didn’t expect a World Series again (snarkk pointed this out), but we did expect them to be at least competitive, which they haven’t been.
With 76, the Giants took over the ML error lead from the Houston Astros last night. First in fuck ups, well, we’ve got that going for us.
Yeah, in our Bizarro World, we are having a lot of firsts – the one you pointed out on defense, and the others that we are going to achieve like some sort of weird hit record climbing the charts (1st in lousy hitting, 1st in lousy pitching, etc., etc.).