A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Watching Voggy get treated like a human pinata was tough. But remember, he’s been buried by everyone for most of his career. That chip on his shoulder has been the thing that’s fueled him. And he HAS proven his critics wrong for most of his career.

Having said that, nobody has a career that lasts forever and watching those bombs sail off into the night to be forever tracked by NASA might finally signal the end for the beloved Voggy.  But as I asked last night, who do you want to replace him? Yuzzie-Pet has been been pretty awful this year and frankly, outside of some unreal performances last year, when has this guy looked like a reliable SP that’s gonna take the ball every 5th game and work deep? Having said that, if he keeps his WHIP under freaking 2 I’ll take it……

Regarding McDeePee, there isn’t much more to say. If he’s hurt, DL him. If he’s not, he clearly can’t play baseball at this level right now. Duffy needs to be playing every day until he proves he’s not ready or McDoofuuus shows Bochy he can play baseball.

Dan Uggla hit a 3 run home run to propel the Nats to a W after they had been down 10-2. Madison Bumgarner beats Kershaw for the 3rd straight time. The unpredictable quirks of baseball are heard to see coming. And with the Braves still paying Uggla’s salary (roughly 78K last night) that Atlanta loss probably couldn’t have stung more….

The Giants, as usual, are near the bottom of the league in runs scored. They’ve squeezed out 63 runs which is tied with the Brewers are just ahead of the Phillies.

But when you score two and the other team scores one, 2 is all you need, right?

Andrew Baggarly, easily the best beat writer in the Bay Area, noted that Timmy only threw his fastball 36% of the time, an absurdly low percentage. Is he afraid to throw it? Or does he just not have it to throw? Regardless, he can’t win pitching the way he did last night.

Sad images coming out of Baltimore. Surreal to see all this happening with Camden Yards in the background.

Just a couple of post-rain out thoughts before we play the Art Dealers again:

The Nats, who everyone predicted would win the NL pennant, have a worse record than we do. That’s hard to do. Matt Williams never caught on for me as a manager. I didn’t get that MOY thing. He always seemed like more of a guy to just keep the boat afloat—not a guy to sail you to the promised land. And now they come out of the gate 7-12? With that roster?

The Cardinals losing Waino is a big deal but they lost him in 2011 and still won the World Series so…..

Sherzer is spouting off about the NL needing to go to the DH. “Would you rather see me or Big Papi hit?” That’s a dude that doesn’t really get the game. I don’t know too many NL fans who want to see the DH come to the NL. Doesn’t that say a lot?

The Houston Astros and New York Mets are leading their divisions.

That is all.

That win last night felt like we just won our 4th in 6. Shit, beating the Rockies? You know what they say, “once you display a skill, you own it for life.” I’m hoping we display that skill again today.

And on a more important note, Paul in Asia, I give you my most heartfelt condolences on the loss of your dad. Two Flaps Up isn’t enough, but it’s all I got. I know your friends here will surely show you the love in the comments below when they read this post. Hang in there.

Not a huge surprise that we lost the opener. That sweep of the Art Dealers was emotional, probably took a little out of them. Plus, no day off.

Looks like a lot of rain in Colorado today.

De La Rosa was absolutely lit up in his first start of the season so maybe we get to him, through the raindrops.

So we’re back on the beam, right? Regardless of how this season unfolds, this sweep of the Art Dealers will go down as a highlight to remember. And it speaks to the heartbeat of the team that they were able to focus up at home, a place they don’t play very well, and sweep the Dodgers, who came into AT&T toting a 7 game win streak.

This Justin Maxwell thing is turning into a real thang, isn’t it?

Time to roust the Sherpa’s, we’re heading to Colorado.

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I could listen to this all day long. I love Tim Roye.

http://www.knbr.com/2015/04/23/tim-royes-knbr-call-of-currys-game-tying-3-pointer/

Sorry, but I’m with the Dodgers on this one. Blanco absolutely should have been called out for interference by Kelly. He stood in the basepath and there was contact between him and Blanco. He was essentially holding up a human stop sign and how could that not be considered physically assisting a player back to the bag? He used his body, physically, to send Blanco back to the bag. I understand the rule is open to umpire interpretation, but the rule can’t be so daft as to only refer to a 3rd base coach who tackles a runner and physically drags him back to the bag, right?

There’s probably a better still shot than this but this is what I snipped off mlb.com:

Now, the ump wasn’t even looking and apparently none of the other umps saw it either.

Kelly looked completely lost on that play. He obviously starts to send the “go” sign but then abruptly stopped and that’s when he went into “human stop sign” mode. There is no way Blanco could have run through him. He had to stop and go back to the bag.

I’m certainly not complaining about a win but we got lucky and the bigger issue to me is Kelly’s qualifications for the 3rd base job. Is he ready? If not, going with an in-house hire was stupid. Was anyone else even interviewed for the 3rd base job?

Doubt it.

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also, I really appreciated reading Snarkk and Xoot’s breakdown last night of the Bonds decision. Good stuff.

Apologies, late today. This Maxwell thing is only going to sustain itself if he’s in a platoon. Good thing for both he and Blanco is that they both need the same thing to succeed. So, let’s keep it rolling.

It’s probably time to give Timmy some credit. He’s been very reliable this year.

Kershaw is not an automatic loss tonight.

I’m not so sure that playing the Dodgers is what this team needs right now. But at least we got the day off that everyone has been fretting so hard. I don’t buy the desperate need for the day off but we’ll see what happens, right?

At least we don’t have to face Kershaw right out the shoot. But really, what pitcher DOESN’T shut us down these days?

Gonna need to see a competitive effort tonight before I feel like this team has a realistic chance to win a game in this series…..

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I enjoy looking at the evolution of the ring pics to the right of the blog. It goes from Timmy showing off the first one to the group sticking the ring out there saying “that’s right beatches! 2 in 3!” to Bumgarner giving his expected understated pose. All 3 pics are perfect.

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also, I think Bryan Price might need some anger management classes. lqtm. Or medication. Or both. What an embarrassment he is to the Reds.

I listen to way too much KNBR. I can’t remember when my car radio was tuned to a different station. I guess I’ve just gotten comfortable with the hosts and even though they almost never give me any news that I didn’t already know, I keep listening. The callers are the best. As you can imagine, there is a swelling contingent of Giants fans who have had it up to here (I’m waving my hand over my head right now) with the 2015 season already. I guess they get themselves so worked up in a froth they have no other way to release it than to call into a radio station. And I’m not really knocking them, I’ve called into KNBR a half dozen times in the last year. But the things they say are just so….stupid.

Yesterday afternoon a guy called into Marty’s show, sounded reasonable enough in the beginning. He started by agreeing with Marty that the problem with the team is the pitching. He then went on to say he believes Sabean will *work his magic* and pull off a dynamic trade to turn this season around.

Then he went insane.

Here’s the very specific trade he *has a feeling* Sabean will pull off: Brandon Belt for Denard Span and Jordan Zimmerman. Marty gave this guy 7 minutes of airtime to repeat over and over that he’s just *got a feeling* that this is the trade Sabean will make this year. At no point did Marty ever ask, “And what would make Washington agree to this trade?” Marty just kept repeating that he was happy the caller agreed with him that it’s the pitching that’s the problem.

Anyway, it was fantastic comedy. Some people have their reality shows, I don’t really watch tv. I get my entertainment from the KNBR callers. There is no substitute for spontaneous idiocy.

We won a GAME!!!!!!!! Yeah, baby!

I’m all over Hest-by-Hest just like the rest of you but one minor quibble: Some of those pitches he threw were right down the middle and just got flat out missed by the hitters. Still, he looks reliable and I’ll take reliable all day long right now.

I’ve been trying to find a good pic from yesterday’s ring ceremony to lock into the right side of the blog for eternity, but I’m having trouble. I can’t re-size the pic because wordpress demands that I use a link of a pic for their image widget. If any of you guys find one *worthy* on the internet, please send me the link and I’ll consider it.

9-0 defeat. Losers of 8 in a row. 0-5 at home.

The team has now dissolved into a group that’s teetering on the competitive axis. And really, if you look at all the injuries, all of the players Sabean didn’t get this off season along with the guys he brought back, it’s certainly not out of the realm of reality to understand how and why this is happening.

So naturally, we have the ring ceremony tonight!!!!! lqtm. Jesus. It almost feels embarrassing. But as usual, the Giants are doing it right again by giving a replica ring to the fans in attendance. My advice to each fan is to put the ring on and wave it methodically in front of your face, back and forth, while repeating “I am getting very sleepy” over and over. Hopefully you hypnotize yourself into a deep trance and don’t have to watch the loss that will occur shortly thereafter……

This night I spent alone in my car seems like a million years ago:

3-8 to start the season—worst start since moving to SF. Did I hear this correctly? Did they mean “since moving to AT&T?” Because I’m having a hard time processing this start as * the worst since moving to SF.* That’s a mighty long time with some awfully shitty teams sprinkled in over the years……

Ok, where does everyone stand regarding Brandon Belt? He’s been a polarizing figure here at the Flap over the years. My position, always, has been let’s see what he does beyond is sparkling OPS and OPS+. He’s been horrible this year but not noticeably more horrible than most of the rest of the hitters on the team. And we’re only 11 games into the season.

Bottom line is that I’m having a hard time getting too pumped up one way or the other about his slow start.

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Just in case you want something to distract you from the shit start to this season, let’s all take a moment to remember this fantastic moment. One of my favorite Giants photos ever:

A buddy of mine who lives in Colorado, Scott Lamm, texted me this yesterday: “Getting tired of my Rockies dominating you guys yet?”

I laughed out loud. I think a text like this would have bothered me pre-2010. But now? I’ll let Scott count regular season wins. I’m busy counting World Series trophies.

So as you can imagine, I’m having a hard time getting too worked up about losing to the Rockies.

Paul (not Asian but living in Asia) made a good point yesterday. What do these guys have to press about? They are world champions. They didn’t become the worst team in the league overnight. You could say they were never the best team and you’d be wrong. If you win it all, you are the best. End of story.

You don’t have to look any further than this stat to know our hitters are failing: Nori Aoki OBP .488. He has scored 4 total runs.

I think Bochy is planning on resting some guys today. An appropriate response: now the players can rest along side their bats. This is frustrating, especially for the paying customers, but not totally surprising. As we know by now, Belt always starts off like crap. Blanco just should be sent to the plate this often. Crawford is in a terrible slump. And the line up obviously misses Pence and, sadly, Casey McGehee.

Today will likely yield the same results unless you’re comforted by the sight of Jo-Arias with a bat in his hands……

I still can’t believe this Butler kid got into the 6th inning with 6 walks, one measly K and we still couldn’t scratch even a run off him. Whatever. Turn the page. Chris Heston was impressive. I liked his balanced make up, the movement on his pitches and as I said yesterday, he reminds me a little bit of John Burkett. There are worse guys he could remind me of.

That was the first time we got shut out in a home opener since….wait for it….1953! That’s hilarious.

Weird weather today. It’s cold and very breezy. High wind, even blowing out at ATT, doesn’t necessarily mean a bomb fest. Same thing in Oakland, by the way. I’d like a meteorologist to explain that to me…….

Yesterday’s ceremony was great and the only thing I would have liked to have seen would have been MadBum riding that fine steed faster and further. Still, nothing beats Brian Wilson taking off on a solo mission to the flag pole. I might need to go find that on youtube later today just to feel the buzz again…..

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Pete Rose turned 74 today. That seems high.

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signing in to post: There are a few guys still having problems and for that I’m sorry. I needed to make this change to lock out the dickless piece of shit pussies who have nothing better to do with their empty lives than post nonsense on the internet. The problem for a few of you seems to be wordpress and I don’t know what to tell you. There are 2 other posting options: facebook and twitter. You will need a valid email addy to sign up for either of those sites.

Today is a day to celebrate. Don’t ever take a flag raising ceremony for granted. They’ll be flying long after we’re gone but only some get to see the short journey up the string for the first time. Today is a day to let go of all the bullshit in your life, about the team—all of it. Just enjoy.

I don’t think you could ever top the Brian Wilson flag raising ceremony. For so many reasons, that one will always be the best. How should they do it this year? Normally, I would say anything not directly spot lighting Bumgarner would be a travesty. But the dude is so understated, he probably just wants to watch.

I’m not frettin’ about the 3-4 start or the injuries or Crawford’s 1-13 in San Diego. None of it. Today is a day for the fans of this great franchise to embrace the team and salute their outrageous 2014 accomplishment.

The wind is blowing out today at a pretty healthy 15mph. Normally, that has me thinking about what it’s going to do to an airborne baseball. Today, all I can think about is how it’s going to make those three beauties dance….flutter….fly.

Forever.

Tough day for me to watch baseball with the Masters on. Even with Spieth’s big lead I would never miss a Sunday Masters. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get the hell out of San Diego. Doubt things change today with Peavy trying to nurse his back through 5 innings. And Ross is a beast. But hey, that’s why they play the game, right?

Can’t help but appreciate how hard this team fights. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s not enough. Not being able to hit in San Diego isn’t anything knew, whether Pence and Belt are there or not. Timmy’s velocity is a concern but can’t really quibble with the results. It was just an L, there are going to be a lot of those whether you win 100 games or win 60 games. Go get ’em today….

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IMPORTANT NOTE:

I’ve changed some of the settings. You may be asked to register and log in before you post. I’m not sure what this is going to look like and unfortunately I’m going to be gone most of the day so I won’t be able to remedy comment-posting problems (should there be any). But email me if you’re having trouble and I’ll fix it later this pm. bigflavor77@gmail.com

Thanks.

I missed the game but when you don’t score for 11 innings, an error, a walk and a fisted single up the middle must have felt like a grand slam. This is going to be another year where our odds to win the World Series get worse each time we win a game like last night’s. 🙂

Regardless, that was a great win, a grinded win. Watching Pagan pop up at 3rd base with explosive fire is what this team needs. I can’t wait till we get pence back.

So who’s got Timmy throwing a no no tonight? I don’t, just wondering who sees that happening.

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Ok, now on to more important thing: this “Hesto Presto” nickname is not working for me. At all. I’ve given it some thought and here are my two ideas: If he hits the bench press hard in the gym, how about “Chesty Hesty?”….lqtm….Or maybe an old school Splash ref? “Hest-by-Hest?”

These are mine. Yours?

I’ve got a lot going on today so this thread will be short. Great game last night. Super quick turn around for a 3:40 game against a pitcher that usually shuts them down is probably not what the dr. ordered. But these guys seem to be taking the same mentality as all other recent Bochy-led teams so maybe they come out strong.

We’ll see.

Who thought we’d be talking about those 2 guys last week?

I was actually pretty encouraged by what I saw from our offense last night. The *old* way of winning isn’t going to work this year and the hitters are going to have to step up. Voggy did about how I would expect he would do and suddenly Tim Lincecum is going to be a central protagonist on this year’s team. At least there’s upside with Timmy. The idea of Kevin Correia pitching even as a spot starter gives me chills. But maybe that’s just because he brings back so many bad memories of the 2007-08 dark years.

Or maybe he’s a harbinger of things to come–an evil messenger from Hell walking among us, delivering the  news in the form of hittable fastballs. 🙂 :0 🙂

I am SUPER STOKED to see Heston pitch today. I think it’s a good spot for him against a collection of average hitters. The future is now, whether Bochy and Sabean are ready for it or not…..

It was nice to see The Mad Snot calm the waters with an efficient W but now the fun really begins. Just as I still can’t understand how we won a freaking World Series with ONE competent starting pitcher, I’m not understanding who’s going to pitch for us on the days Bum sits. This “forearm tightness” thing that Cain is going through smells an awful lot like a UCL tear and if that’s the case we’re looking at best at a rotation with question marks. At worst, a rotation in shambles.

If the Giants call up one of the kids to pitch on Wednesday what does that say about their Tim Lincecum feelings? He’s getting paid almost 20 million this year, the Giants usually let those high priced players play until they’re forced to publicly *Rowand* them.

We’ll see, but I’m in full blown skeptic mode right now and there’s 161 of these bad boys to go.

I can’t remember which rapper said that. Maybe it was all of them. But before our season gets underway there are a few things I want to get off my chest. And it has to do with the haters. Specifically, three kinds….:

1) The fans (non Giant). Mostly, they do their hatin’ on the internet. It’s one of the great failings of the internet–people get to say whatever they want nearly without consequence. It took me a while to develop the right mindset to deal with these numbskulls but I feel like I am much better equip to deal with them now than I was 6 or 7 years ago. I can thank my spam filter for that.

If you’re a non-Giants fan, your hate started with Barry Bonds. And I get that. His pompous march toward the HR crown had non-Giant baseball fans worldwide doing a slow burn. So by the time 2010 rolled around there was no way you were going to believe in this team. Three World Series wins later, I can only imagine how slow that burn must be now. And A’s fans have it the worst. This in all unfolding in their backyard. They’re almost forced to watch it. And look where they’re watching it from!    Let me ask you something Giants fans: If I told you that when you attend a game at AT&T Park, the Coke bottle would randomly fire off human shit fireworks in between innings all over the crowd, would that make you more likely or less likely to go to the game? Because that’s basically what’s going on over at O.Co. Human shit spews and oozes all over that place. It’s like Old Faithful gone horribly wrong. At AT&T we enjoy garlic fries and a tasty Sheboygan. At O.Co the vendors are literally selling frozen shitcicles in the stands. Those sound positively awful. I’m not paying 8 bucks for that. If I ever went to an A’s game I ‘d be sure to wear me galoshes and construction goggles. Throw in the fact that they haven’t won a world series in a quarter century and you can see how easily the haters be hatin’ in Shitland (I mean *Oakland*).

The next group of Haters are the writers. Somewhere along the way, writers decided that their job was to predict what was going to happen. And because they get paid to write, they are probably pretty good at writing. Too bad that’s where their skill set ends. Again, I think a lot of the hate goes back to Bonds and the way he treated them. And to that point, I can understand it. But you’re a professional and are being paid to perform sans bias. It’s too bad the national media continues to fail at this.

The final group of haters are the analysts. The former players who get paid to babble into a microphone. These guys are arguably the worst of the 3. Whenever a former player barks into a mic “Listen, I played the game…” I know I’m about to be registered in a class I had no intention of taking. The fact that you *played the game* at the professional level means you understand certain nuances of the game better than i do. But it in no way legitimizes your predictions. These guys are wrong all the time. Guy like Erik Karros are so spectacularly wrong every time it amazes me that they have the balls to keep churning out their drivel publicly.

Now haters, I’m going to warn you in advance. Look away. Avert your eyes. Staring too long at what I’m about to show you could cause “Hater Blindness”. On a side note, I’d like to meet the dipshit that stared so long at the sun he finally went blind. Who does this? Who stares at the sun so long they actually go blind? Anyway…behold:

These are the 3 main reasons that the haters gonna hate. And the best part (for us) is that these 3 reasons will never go away. We might never win another one again. Unlikely, but possible. Through whatever the future holds for the Giants and their fans, these 3 beauties will sustain us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some knowing dude head nods to prepare for that I’ll  be doling out later today……

That’s the numbers of days left till real baseball begins again.

Tonight we get to watch a game that counts. Personally, I’ll be looking to see how Matheny is doing. Last time we saw him he was doing that stone faced thousand yard stare we’ve come to know so well…..

I have never spent less of a Spring on baseball. I’m not playing in a season long fantasy baseball league for the first time since high school so there’s been nothing for me to research, no drafts to partake in, and I’ve been consumed with NBA, CBB and golf—-100% into daily leagues.

But that’s all about to change. This morning I woke up at 2am wondering what A-Rod’s ST batting average was. Discovered it was .267 but that’s not the point.

The point is that I’ve gone from literally not thinking about baseball at all to obsessing on everything about it. Every player. Every statistic. Every at bat. Every moment.

The switch has been flipped within me. Baseball.

nothing. I don’t know if I’m burnt out on the prediction-side of blogging or maybe there are just too many question marks surrounding the 2015 Giants–but I don’t have it in me to predict how they’ll do. I was listening to a radio show out of New York this morning. Two complete blowhards trying to yell over each other who they thought would win the National Championship on Monday. They sounded like idiots. They don’t know who’s going to win and more importantly, who cares what they think? It’s all just a bunch of bullshit for them to use later (if they’re correct) to brag about themselves next week on the radio.

As it relates to the Giants the one thing I’ve learned over the last several years is that the team that starts the season is almost never the team to finish the season. So how could you ever make an informed prediction anyway? If they’re close at the trade deadline, Sabean will do something that has a much better than 50% chance of working. And don’t kid yourself, Bobby Evans is nothing more than Sabean’s boy toy. He’s a GM in title only. Sabes still calls all the shots for this team…….

That’s what some chick said on KTVU this morning when she was asked why she comes to the Bay Bridge Series every year.

Whhhaaaatttttt?

I don’t get the Bay Bridge Series. I don’t get why people would pay money to see a game at AT&T that doesn’t count. I don’t get why that chick drove 7 hours to see the game. I don’t get how that dude survived at sea for 66 days. But I digress…..

I didn’t watch any of the game last night. My main man on the scene in Houston, WilcoJoe, said Peavy looked 10-15 lbs lighter. Anyone else notice that? Why would Peavy lose 10-15 pounds?

There’s another game tonight but I won’t be watching it. Too busy still basking in the glow of yet another NIT championship for the Stanford Cardinal! Yeah baby!!!!!! We’re number 69? Chasson Randle, who by all accounts is a hell of a guy, will always be my sworn enemy. He passed the great Todd Lichti on the all time scoring list at Stanford and for that I will never forgive him…..

How many home runs do you think this crew will hit? 100? That’s what Kuip said on the radio today. Here’s my quick take:

Pagan: 4

Aoki: 2

Belt: 20

Pence: 20

McGehee: 7

Crawford: 15

Posey: 23

Panic: 12

Apparently, I’m going with 103

Great post by Twin at the end of the last thread. Very weird that the Cardinals will be honoring this guy who basically murdered himself and his girlfriend last year in a horrific drunk driving crash. Six times the legal limit? I don’t know if you guys have ever blown into a straw. I did once and I came up .11 BAC and I was actually pretty surprised it was that low. I felt pretty hammered. I can’t even imagine what .28 (or whatever he was) must feel like and the fact that he thought it a good idea to go blazing around in his car with a passenger is just unreal to me.

The Cards say they’re doing it to educate young ballplayers about the dangers of drinking and driving but I would think at this point everyone knows about that. To me it looks an awful lot like the way Darryl Kile was *honored* and I those 2 deaths aren’t even in the same ballpark.

If you are drunk off your ass and you decide to drive a car you’re a freaking idiot. Come to think of it, maybe people this dumb do need to be educated……

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On a separate note, I’d like to encourage all of you not to participate in what is far and away the dumbest day of the year……