A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

I just took my “LostAgain” facebook profile pic down. It’s pretty hard to mock the Dodgers with that as my profile pic when we are the worst team in baseball. And we are. The shitty Rockies took 3 from us at home. Fucking San Diego took 2 of 3 and the only way we got even one W was the no hitter. And now the Reds, a good but not great team, sweep us in 4 IN OUR OWN FUCKING PARK!!!! It’s madness I tell you….
I think they need to go on the road, let the dudes get drunk together, miss some curfews, maybe bang a slump buster or two. But whoops, that’s not going to happen. We stay banished in “Hell’s Phone Park” for another series against the Cardinals who, for all their struggles, are a much better team than we are.
It’s times like these that I’m glad to be able to immerse myself in fantasy baseball and distance myself from the misery that is my home team…..

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In these dark days, I turn to my elder statesman for guidance. Here’s the email I got from my dad this morning:

I barely have the interest to change the thread. I can’t remember a worse homestand. I don’t think I can remember a worse June considering we had so many home games this month. No runs. No hope. No more Romo. Please. This Flapper’s dauber is down about as low as you can go…..

“We Don’t No Hit You, We Don’t Win.”

It’s probably too long to put on a sign and it doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Leake was lights out and Cueto has shut pretty much everyone down this year. But now we are in a pickle as the possibility of getting swept (again) at home is a real possibility. Alfredo Simon has been surprisingly good this year. Matt Cain has been surprisingly bad. And then “No Hit” Bailey gets to feast on us again tomorrow.

If I’m coming across negatively, it’s because I’m reacting to reality. If our reality changes, I’ll adjust my mood and attitude accordingly…..

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Should be a great duel. Big game for both teams.

Like many Giants fans, I was at work during Timmy’s masterpiece. In the 6th inning I started rummaging around for that old radio I used to listen to the NLDC game vs Cincinnati in 2012. I couldn’t find it. Had a co-worker bring a radio in. It didn’t work.

So I called on the only other reasonable option I could think of:  I left work.

I bee lined it to the closest bar about 2 miles away: The Dutch Goose in Menlo Park. They’re known for their deviled eggs which are devilishly delicious. I got to the Goose in record time but was devastated to discover that every single tv had the stupid World Cup game on. I tried to explain to a worker about the pending Timmy no no but there was a bit of a language barrier and I don’t think he cared much about baseball anyway.

I left the Goose but not before powering down this:

Not wanting to risk going to another establishment where my pull was limited, I headed across town to my buddy’s bar in Los Altos. Thankfully, it was the bottom of the 7th (a long inning) so I made it in time for the top of the 8th. As I enter I realized all was right with the world as every single tv had the Giants game on. No pull necessary except the bar stool I *pulled* out.

There weren’t a ton of people there so I had to make small talk with the patrons. Normally I hate that shit but all 6 of us had the commonality of the game so it wasn’t totally irritating. We made a few $1 side wagers. We promised to each slam a beer, in unison, if Timmy finished the Pads off. We never followed through on that promise….

After Timmy got the final out and we’d finished high fiving each other, one of the guys declared us “No hitter buddies!” I was in a reflective moment, and, quietly to myself, declared that kind of a gay thing to say. 🙂  But it got me to thinking, I can remember everything about the other 6 Giants no hitters that I watched (or in the Count’s case, listened to). I remember who I was with, what we were eating, the color of the walls.

Around 4pm we all wandered away from the bar, and each other, likely forever. Six brand new no hitter buddies, off to live the rest of  their lives separately, but bonded forever…….

WAR is one of those stats I observe but don’t really use to evaluate a player. For starters, it factors in defense and that’s not really on my radar when it comes to building daily fantasy teams. Secondly, I don’t understand how to calculate it and that’s another reason I’m probably cooled to it. Thirdly, what I do know about it I don’t like since I think it emphasizes defense too heavily and I think the sabermetric community has a LONG way to go when it comes to perfecting defensive metrics.

As I drove into work this morning, I was thinking about Pagan and his obvious impact on the team (both when he plays and when he doesn’t). Is there a player out there who defines “replacement player” better than Gregor Blanco? I decided to look up their WAR numbers and see how they compare. For those of you who know nothing about WAR, consider this: The WAR number tries to quantify how many wins a player is worth to his team when compared to a replacement player (ie, someone from the bench or the minor leagues).

In 2013, Blanco’s WAR was 2.8. Pagan’s was 1.3. In 2014, Blanco’s WAR is 0.4, Pagan’s in 1.7.

And then I looked at the wild splits the Giants have the last 2 years with Pagan in the line up and without him in the line up. And that’s actually a lie, I didn’t look it up. But I know the Giants are like 20 games over .500 with him in the LU, and significantly under .500 when he’s not in the line up.

So I’m gonna take the liberty and adjust Pagan’s WAR from it’s current 1.7 and bump it up to like 40.6. Sound good?

Imagine if the great WAR machine Mike Trout went down and he was replaced by a healthy Angel Pagan. Would that team go into the tank?

Just another way to look at it.

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I changed out the BBOTD again. Dumpy only had so many wins in that ass. I went a little sideways with the current pic–kinda like how it feels this season is going………

I’m not going to look up that dude’s minor league stats (mostly because I can’t spell his name) but I recall some twitidiots saying he had a problem with control, walked a lot of dudes (also k’d a lot). So what do the Giants do? They go up like brain dead lemming hackers. It’s like they didn’t even bother to read a scouting report. Whatever, losing to that pathetic offense is inexcusable. And Matt Cain sucks. And the Giants have some “Desplainin'” to do….

Question for you all: Does anyone care if any Giants make the all star team? Are any of you voting? I could care less about the all star game. I’d rather have my team rest instead of engage in all that bullshit. I think I cared more about Giants all stars BEFORE 2010– it was the only way we really got recognized nationally. But after you win 2 world series in three years you stop caring about what the rest of the country thinks. The all star game, especially the home run derby, is pretty underwhelming for me at this point. Additionally, voting has become a joke. Back in the day, you earned your vote by going to the game and freezing your ass off waiting for the usher to bring you some punch out cards. I don’t vote these days but I think all you have to do is point and click from the comfort of your home. 25 votes max. Every day. Is that correct? If so, it’s lame.

Here’s how to fix the HR Derby: Fire Chris Berman immediately. And just make it one round. You get 30 swings. That’s it.

Stix wrote something last night that covers it better than I could. Here ya go:

Will the league figure Panik out? He strikes me as the cogitative type. Student of the game type. Into the culture and perhaps a bit of the magic already. Second Base is pivotally key to the poetry of an acute infield. Panik could be the homegrown fit. He more than fully realizes his role is not that of busting down the barn door. Today’s RBI double tells us he’s not strictly punch and judy. Does he choke up on the bat? Inquiring minds could almost envision this kid as cut out from the type of baseball which probably peaked in the 20′s, just at the time when Babe Ruth made the homer King.

Poetically again, Panik almost represents a mythological character. 2nd base has been a long-running sore for SF. Robby Thompson kinda set a pattern. He too was a bit of a throwback to a vintage form of baseball. Retro. That monicker would fit a playmaking, glove-flipping contact hitter who aims to hit em where they ain’t.
That’s my read of the new kid in town. Hope he hangs around for a bunch of while. Last couple times the Giants had a sparkplug playing and batting second they won all the marbles.

Course we don’t know for sure yet. Baseball tosses a topsy-turvy turn of events at the darndest times. But it is just possible that the keystone has just been set into the arch. Got a feeling about this kid. Steady Eddie Bressoud played for the original version of the S.F. Giants. Some players have a level of inner harmonics which has a positive influence on the entire rest of the team.

Sandoval, Crawford, Panik and Belt. Mark that down. That could be some infield.

Last night was sweet although my celebration is a bit muted with the ongoing Pagan back problem and the new oblique problem (that’s what it looked like to me) that Mcode38 incurred in an at bat last night. He’ll be off today and with Pagan set to hit the DL, we aren’t coming out of the injury woods, we are still wandering inside of them….

We can only hope that the strong powers of DumpyAss can shepherd us through this injury riddled season. She did her job last night and I expect her to dutifully perform again today…..

Panik start today. Should be a lot of fun for the kid as well as his family and his glove that, hopefully, finally arrived in Arizona…..

Not much to say. Closed door meeting did nothing. The fresh new BBOTD was useless. Another day, another loss. And Voggy leaves me wanting more….

But still….”Panik Time!!!!!”

Don’t get too psyched, this dude just has to be a little better than the shit-duo of Hicks and Adrianza. At this point in his career, he should be able to at least do that…..

The headline has nothing to do with the thread. I just couldn’t think of a good headline for today and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” popped into my head and that was just a classic scene. I haven’t been able to look at a fountain since I saw that movie without thinking about those 3 damn coins…..

Today’s Giant related point:

With Casilla back and Belt on his way, the Giants look about as “whole” as they’re going to get this year. The obvious other “hole” is at 2nd base and Sabean has to do something about this growing problem. While I would prefer that he get Utley it is far more likely that he gets Gordon Beckham. This irritates me because the only reason he’ll target Beckham is because of money and I get irritated when one of the wealthiest teams in baseball tries to “dime store” their way to another title. I know that’s always been Sabean’s plan and maybe his hands are tied by ownership, but Chase Utley and Gordon Beckham are not really comparable.

But Gordon Beckham and whatever cobbled combo of Hicks/Adrianza you want to put together are not comparable either. So you pick up G-Beck and you’ve plugged in a competent big league 2nd baseman. An underwhelming 2 thumbs up from this corner……

The other hole is center field. I think we can now safely assume that Pagan’s horrible defense last week was directly related to this now ominous back injury that has required an epidural. As we know with these shots, the first one often doesn’t take and he’ll need a second one. And there’s a guy moving around Arizona rather gingerly right now who knows all about that.

If Pagan goes down like Scoots I don’t see much coming to the rescue on the trade front. Maybe a “Ben Revere”, something like that. Hey, he could get packaged into a deal for Utley and……nevermind.

I’ll start the “Gordon Beckham Come On Down!” thread now so I can just paste and plug it in when it finally happens……..

“……thrown by 3 hopeful lovers…you know this one? No?”

The Giants have lost 9 of their last 10 and now Kershaw is throwing no hitters for LA. It’s definitely grind time if you’re a Giants fan and now they get another day off. I’ll be sprinkling nails on top of my Frosted Flakes this morning….

Pagan has been sent to Arizona for tests on his back. You already know this. And this is ominous news……

It feels like this season is hanging in the balance, doesn’t it? How did this happen so quickly? Falling off the top of the world, Ma!

That was about as uninspiring as you could get. A day off to clear their collective head from the sourness of the weekend and they showed up flat. And what else can you say about Matt Cain? You can talk all you want about the win stat and how it doesn’t matter but we’re closing in on July and he has 1 win. That’s decidedly un-horselike.

And it doesn’t get any easier with Sale set to mow through our lineup. They’ve lost 7 of 8 and while we also had streaks of losing 7 of 8 in 2010 and 2012, this one seems to have a darker hue to it. But maybe I’m still just bent about those 3 unreal losses to Colorado…….

I’m not sure if Bochy could have filled out a shittier final 4 in today’s line up. Sale’s gonna strikeout 36 today

Do middle relievers ever get Cy Young votes? Holds are about the dumbest stat out there so I’m assuming they don’t. But Jean Machi is quietly putting together a set up pitcher’s dream season.

He’s given up 1 earned run in 31 innings this year. His ERA is a microscopic 0.29. But check out his ERA+. That’s his ERA adjusted to the ballpark. Average is 100. His is 1180. I decided to compare that to some of the great relievers of the past.

The Eck: His best ERA+ was 603.

Mariano: His best ERA+ was 316.

Bee Idiot: His best ERA+ was last year (562) but he only pitched 13 innings. His previous high was 2010 when he checked in with 217.

Greg Minton: His best ERA+ came in 1979 with 196.

I could do this all day and not find anyone with 31 innings who hold an 1180 ERA+.

That’s just incredible.

He has a 95% LOB rate. What? How could that be?

There are other stats that say he’s not having one of the greatest reliever seasons of all time. And he’s 32, I get it. But still, if the bullpen continues to waiver, it’s nice to know that Jean Machi is having a career year to calm the waters……

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San Dawg had Gwynn sign this for his son many years ago. By the way San Diggity, I really enjoyed your post about Gwynn in the comment section of this thread.

One thing I never bought into: that our best record in baseball meant that we were the best team in baseball.

Another thing I’m not buying into: that we are so bad that we could get swept by the Rockies at home.

The only thing I really care about is that this doesn’t end up creeping into the minds of the players. They’re saying all the right things. “That’s baseball.” “Turn the page.” All that jazz.

I hope they really mean what they say.

None of it changes the sick feeling that we all probably have. Those were 3 galling loses. A day off with the team heading to Chicago is not what I need right now……

Everyone needs to continue to not freak out. Look at the FACTS. Romo hadn’t blown a home save in….18 hours.

Pagan is patrolling center field the way a homeless, schizophrenic man from the pier might do so….

Last night, I wondered if there was something in his personal life going on that might be contributing to his recent stretch of bad play. I watched the interview he did with the softball tossing scribes and he couldn’t have seemed more at ease with everything. Maybe that’s the right way to publicly approach it, I don’t know.

Pagan said the ball spun strangely and I’ll take his word for it. But it sure didn’t seem to be hit hard enough, even spinning unpredictably, to get by him. Like so many of his recent routes lately, I think he just took the wrong angle from the start.

He had the chance to redeem himself in the bottom of the 9th, he scorched a ball that unfortunately was hit right to Rutledge. And I don’t care what the mysterious man in New York said, he was safe. Tie goes to the runner.

But hey, that’s baseball, right?

Romo gas can’s the game and Flapper Nation mires in disrepair…..

While painful, I’m not really sweating that blown save. Henry Schulman pointed out (on Twitter) that Romo hadn’t blown a save at home in 11 months. For a closer, you take that all day long.

He then posted Romo’s career save percentage: 88.9%. For reference, the great Mariano Rivera will punch his first ballot HOF ticket with an 89.5% all time save percentage. All closers fuck up games in the career. If they fuck up a lot of games over a long career it probably means they were very good at closing (otherwise, they would not have had a long closing career, right?)

I think we are naturally a little biased against Romo and his frisbee slider. We think he’s gimmicky and are conditioned to want to see closers heaving gas with every pitch.

I was skeptical of Romo early in his career and certainly when he took over the closer job after Bee-Idiot got hurt. But he has more than proven himself to me. I trust him in any closer situation and, like him, want to see him out there sooner rather than later to put the ugly memory of last night behind us all as quickly as possible……

Two years ago today The Horse, Matt Cain, pitched the first perfect game in the entire 130 year history of the Giants baseball franchise, and only the 23rd (22nd at that time) perfect game in major league history.

I remember vividly sitting at my place in Diamond Springs with my son Zach as we watched the entire game. What a magic night in not only SF Giant baseball history, but in baseball history overall.

Here is a short video that encapsulates all 27 outs. Check out the catches by Cabrera in the 4th and 6th…not bad, but then check out Blanco’s dive for the first out in the 7th. It is nothing short of spectacular. And then Arias’ play at 3rd for the final out doesn’t come without just a little bit of torture.

Really happy that Huddy stopped the bleeding yesterday. There were way too many “not since ’75 have the Giants…..” stats popping up on twitter.

It’s “feast time” as the Rockies leave the comforts of their lair and are forced to play at sea level. As long as Timmy throws the ball in the general direction of Buster Posey I think we take care of business tonight.

Did anyone see Evan Gattis get hit yesterday in the 9th inning of the Rockie/Braves game? Dude, Gattis is a man-child. He got hit but the ball took the brunt of that collision. He stuck his nose down and headed briskly to first base, he knew what was up. I’ll try to find the video of that.

and, here it is. Gattis gets hit near the end.

http://tinyurl.com/mrugye4

These Nats are more than a little annoying. But there’s really not two ways to read this, they are kicking our ass, straight up. Outscoring us 17-6. And in our home park, that’s a little embarrassing. It could just be a bad stretch of games that all good (and bad) teams have over the course of 162. But it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence since it’s coming vs a team considered by many to be one of the top teams in the National League.

Today is a fairly big game. Getting swept at home in a 4 game series should not happen. We’ve got Huddy going up against someone named *Treinen*. So, we *steal* one, right?

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Ugh, is hockey over yet? And now soccer is starting? Where’s the fast forward button?

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Where were YOU 20 years ago today?

Another disappointing loss to a team that seems to have our number. At least we don’t have to play them in oppressive Washington heat but even with conditions more to our delicate liking, we are having trouble with them. Cain? We’ll see……

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If you want to see an unbelievable throw, check out Cespedes from last night:

http://m.mlb.com/video/v33614681/oaklaa-cespedes-throws-out-kendrick-at-the-plate

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Not sure how this has happened, but the Tampa Bay Rays have the worst record in baseball. With all the talent they have on that roster? Wither Maddon? How could that team have THE WORST record in baseball?

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Got any random Wednesday thoughts you want to kick around?

I was saddened to hear about the passing of Bob Welch. I always like him and that’s surprising since he played his entire career for the Dodgers and A’s. The 27 games he won in 1990 is burned into my brain for some reason. It seemed like a lot then and it’s almost inconceivable in today’s game. And it came in his 13th major league season. He never really did anything after that magical Cy Young year. Four seasons of mediocrity with his career finally ending in 1994.

Cause of death wasn’t announced, that’s usually not a very good sign. Ha, I guess any “cause of death” isn’t a good sign.

Anyway, sad.

The Mets were cute but now a real team comes to town. Washington is hot right now although beating up on the punchless Padres is a little like, well, beating up on the bumbling Mets. Still, of you are a good team you take care of business against the bad teams and that’s what both the Giants and the Nats have been doing of late.

Strasburg vs Voggy tonight and it’s hard to be confident about this match up. But the way this season is going, we’ll probably win easily….

And I don’t believe that for a second.

Should be a fun series……

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Chi posted a link to trade rumors involving Chase Utley. Of course, he would be the perfect fit in SF, the question would be the booty required to secure him. I don’t see Sabean pulling a big enough trigger to get an *Utley.* He’s a California boy though and he and his wife live in SF in the off season so you never know……

I’m hard pressed to remember a Giant who has ever more enjoyed being a Giant than this guy does right now:

The Mets are not very good. They bumbled the game away last night. But as Pagan said, you have to take advantage of your opponents mistakes. Advantage: Giants.

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Regarding the Belmont Stakes yesterday: Kudos to DJ Loo who called out the owners as jackasses over a week ago. Yesterday, Coburn did a “slowburn” on national tv giving everyone a taste of what Loo had already told us about. People talk about winning all the time, how important it is, how great it feels. But one thing I learned at the youngest of ages was how to lose with dignity. Coburn and his cohorts showed they don’t know how to do that.

Did he have a point? Sort of, I guess. His trainer, Art Sherman, has been getting interviewed by Sam Spear every Sunday morning on KNBR for the last 12 weeks. I’ve caught most of those interviews and just 3 weeks ago Sherman was saying the same thing that Coburn said yesterday. Now, he didn’t say it in the loser way that Coburn did, but he was lamenting the fact that horses shouldn’t be allowed to skip certain triple crown races and target others. So I’m not sure if Sherman got it from Coburn or the other way around, but the connections for Chrome have been doing a slow burn about this for a while………

But here’s the deal, there are a lot of things about the triple crown I’d change before Coburn’s half-baked ideas. For starters, they should space the 3 races out to at least a month between each race. Maybe more than a month. I don’t want to hear about “history” and messing with “that’s always the way it’s been.” It has ALWAYS been irresponsible to force three year old still-developing horses to grind out 3 races in 5 weeks. It’s like asking a 12 year old to start lifting weights every day. Spacing the races out better would give the Derby winner (and/or the Preakness winner) adequate time to recover. I don’t have a problem with horses skipping races and looking for the best spots. If they’re laying in the weeds waiting for a vulnerable horse like Chrome, so be it. You can’t force a horse to run all three races, that’s ignoring the health of the horse and it’s the right of the owner and trainer to find the best race for each horse. Distance, location, current health and quality of opponent all factor into that. These animals only have so many bullets to fire in a career. If the connections for Tonalist thought the mile and a half Belmont was the best of the 3 races for them to try to win, that’s their right.

In summary, I see where Coburn is coming from, it’s a little unfair that a horse that doesn’t have the points to run in the Derby be allowed to run in the Belmont. But he looked like a loser ranting about it 5 seconds after he lost and the real issue is how these 3 races are stacked together, it’s not about the number of points a horse has or doesn’t have…..

Here’s a look at our first 10 picks in the 2014 draft:

Only 5 pitchers drafted in the first 10 picks. This disappoints me. All 10 should be pitchers, at least in the first 10 rounds. Use the final 40 rounds (or whatever it is) to supply your minor league system with depth. It’s a little early, but I’m going to call out Dylan Davis as a total waste of a pick. Same with Seth Harrison and Austin Slater. If you’re an outfielder, and you get drafted by the Giants, you should be so bummed. All your hopes and dreams, dashed.

The Giants are either the unluckiest team in the world when it comes to drafting outfielders or they have no idea how to develop them. Or they have no idea how to identify outfield talent. It has to be one of the 3, maybe a combo of the three. The odds are nearly 100% that if you get drafted by SF as an outfielder, your career is over before it starts. I’m waiting for one of our drafted outfielders to immediately switch positions upon finding out he was drafted by the Giants. Go “Jason Lane” on them. Most of these guys pitched in Little League, why not find out if ya still got it?

Because if Sabean drafts you, and you are an outfielder, you don’t got it. You so don’t got it.

As all of you have heard, the Giants drafted Tyler Beede (RHP) out of Vanderbilt yesterday. Rather than give you his stats, here’s an interview he did with a hot Vandy girl. The free style rap at the end is pretty epic.

To call Don Zimmer a “baseball lifer” isn’t doing much justice to the life of a lifer…….

Everyone knows who he was, everyone loved him. I stole this from wikipedia:  he married his one and only wife (Soot. Come on, “Soot?” lol)  at home plate before a minor league game in 1951. He started dating her in 10th grade, I’m not sure she knew what she was getting herself into. But if you’re a chick and your nickname is “Soot” you’re probably cool with getting down and dirty with the ballgame back in the 50’s. That reminds me of Jerry Garcia’s wife “Mountain Girl”. I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume both of these chicks didn’t earmark too many dollars towards razor blades……

He coached on the Giants staff in 1987. Maybe it was because that was such a magical year, but he seemed to be around SF a lot longer than one year.

Probably because he was always “around”. After his playing career ended  (um, Zimmer stole 45 bases?) he managed 4 teams. He coached on 11. Most recently, he coached on the Rays staff for the last 10 years. Think about that, you just break off a clean decade like it was a piece of cheddar at the end of your 66 year career in a random gig like The Rays. I guess that’s how you get to 66…..

None of us will ever forget the bizarre mismatch between Zimmer and Pedro Martinez during a 2003 playoff game. I’m not going to give the link, it’s painful to watch. Pedro did nothing wrong there, in my opinion. You have some dude zeroing in on you, you have like half a second to recognize the threat, and then you just quickly decide to send him past you. Adrenaline is up. I don’t fault Pedro there. And Zimmer’s apology after the game was one of the most heartfelt apologies I’ve ever seen a baseball professional man make publicly.

Every baseball dugout should have a *Don Zimmer* sitting on it’s bench. And you’d think that there’s a million *lifers* who could do just that. And yet, I can’t think of another one who did it quite like Zimmer. One lifer. Gone today. Easy to honor.

Last night, Timmy was awful and there’s no way to defend that performance. Of course, it wasn’t too hard to predict, he’s always horrendous against the Reds (regular season). He’s never beaten them. For a guy with 93 wins and 2 CY wins, that’s almost hard to believe…..

At 17 million a year we should expect, as a bare minimum, better consistency from him. He was pretty consistent in May, better than that actually. His ERA was 2.86 for the month. But it’s hard to give that stat too much credit after games like last night.

As Giants fans, we’re conditioned to expect greatness from all starting pitchers not-named-Zito. Big Tim Timmy Jim is no longer *great* and he hasn’t been for some time now. But everyone thought Voggy was done a month ago and I don’t think too many of us are saying that now.

Timmy isn’t done. He’s not awful. He doesn’t suck. He’s like a lot of pitchers on every staff in the league. He’s average. And it’s hard to purge *average* from your pitching staff unless you want to go with a 2 man rotation all year long……

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ps–you guys filled up the “walk down concert memory lane” stat sheet last night. Lot’s of great tales told and as Macdog said, “the comments far outweighed the game…”

In the clubhouse! I’m talking about IN THE CLUBHOUSE!!!!!!

Decent discussion at the end of the last thread about dicks in the clubhouse, Bochy’s success, Two-trips failures….

It does appear that the Giants made a concerted effort to go dick-free after the Bonds era ended. And whether it’s coincidence or not, that clubhouse castration led to two world series wins and the current best record in mlb. Going cold turkey on clubhouse dicks led to good things for the franchise….

I think Bochy and Sabean made the decision to go this direction because they’re old and they’ve earned it. After the years those two put in, they probably figured that fighting dicks in the clubhouse just wasn’t worth it anymore.

Two Trips hasn’t really earned that right. Sure, he played for many years and he earned respect as a player. But he didn’t earn that as a manager and I would argue that he’s got less rep on this side of the country than he does on the other side of the country. Throw in a team full of divas who are almost all set for life and you have the makings for Two-Trips not being able to change much in that dugout….

And I’m fine with that.

🙂

After outscoring St Louis 23-11 in their home park, I’m hard pressed to remember a more dominant trip through that stadium. A great day to relax and enjoy this:

I’m a little late to the par-tay. Third inning, we are up 4-0. Dare I consider taking 3 of 4 from St Louis?

Who are these guys?