One Down, Two to Go
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.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
There are no auto wins or losses. If they were, the Giants would not have won the WS last year. GO GIANTS
Time for Big Country to take Opie out behind the wood shed.
Orange and Black Forever – GO GIANTS!
Craig makes a good point, i.e., Kershaw hasn’t been Kershaw this season (thus far anyway).
If Lincecum keeps this up Kruk will rub one out on live tv.
No one else on the Giants can hit Kershaw, so might as well give Bang Bang Maxwell a crack at him. Hopefully Duffy, too.
Not sure which, but MLB and/or ESPN is whiffing as usual on tonight’s game. MadBum vs. Kershaw, that’s a big-time matchup, no matter how poorly they’ve pitched so far. But is the game on any national TV? Nope, just St. Louis at Washington on ESPN. That would be like the NFL scheduling a Brady-Manning matchup for 1 p.m.
Maybe Maxwell will adjust….so far, 0-10, 6K’s against CK.
Lots of highlights last night…Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Homer, his sliding catch, and the four DPs. Here is a recap of those DPs…the finale…Mudbug to Panik to Posey is one for the ages…
http://m.giants.mlb.com/video/?affiliateId=clubMEGAMENU
Bill Shaikin @BillShaikin 1h1 hour ago
#Angels claim OF Gary Brown off waivers from STL. Brown, 26, was #SFGiants 1st-rd pick in ’10, right after Marlins took Yelich.
Joc Pederson was taken in the 11th (!) round in that draft.
Frandsen was signed by the Dbax, too.
Flying squirrel lives?
Somehow he lingers on.
One ex-Giant who’s really surprised me is Rajai Davis.
Put together a pretty good career. I’d take him today.
Agree loo. Davis looked like he couldn’t even see the baseball the way he swung. He’d miss pitches by feet. And then he left SF and became very serviceable
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Barry Bonds’ obstruction of justice conviction was reversed Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled his meandering answer before a grand jury in 2003 was not material to the government’s investigation into steroids distribution.
Just saw this and was going to post it. Great news.
Have they gotten around to overturning the Dred Scott decision?
Wow. 14 years later . . .
Or whatever the math is . . .
Bonds’ meandering answer worked in his favor. For some reason that reminded me of the King of Meandering, Hank Kimball, a character on “Green Acres.” No one could meander like Hank Kimball, county agent.
Hank Kimball: Let’s start from the beginning… well, not the beginning, uh, let’s try, uh, 1789 – that was the year that Betsy Ross made the first pair of overalls.
Oliver Douglas: Betsy Ross made the first flag.
Hank Kimball: That’s right – “Flag” overalls. That was her brand. You could buy ’em all over the country. Well, before long all of the farmers along the East Coast were wearing Betsy’s Flag brand overalls, except Florida, which was then known as “Lower New Jersey.”
lol
Poor Cumberland Ass has no ‘convicted felon’ shit to post anymore. Boo hoo.
Probably still flapping his gums in the spam folder with obie wan or WTF his name is.
new posting rules were the best thing I ever did here, can’t believe it took me so long
I watched the game this morning and was quite surprised how well they played and Timmy’s performance. Glad to see the hair cut as well. Get rid of the old and start anew…let’s get another tonight and maybe the Phillies asking price for Hamels will start going down big time…
I don’t think the Phils would deal with SF after the Pence heist plus we don’t have the prospects anyway. Now if we agreed to take Ryan Howard, too that’s another story…
Agree Loo . . . Late last month, there were reports that the Phillies are willing to cover $50 million of the $60 million remaining on Howard’s contract in order to move him in a trade. Howard is owed $25 million over the next two seasons with a $10 million buyout on his $23 million club option for 2017. This means that a potential trade partner would only have to pay him $5 million per season. However, even with that “gift,” he fits best in the American League where he could serve as a DH. No way, no how, will an NL team bite on that, especially with him flailing to start the season. Their best bet was to move him before the season started.
there are posts from me after 2011 season saying Howard was done.
Those 4 DPs last night were lifesavers. And The Flip is becoming the Crawford-Panik and Panik-Crawford trademark. Gotta catch some of this game tonight. We can do it. We can win.
cool interview with Craw explaining that you can’t, uh, practice that. Great point. Wotus gets mad at them when they even flip the ball from their glove, diving and flipping would be severely frowned upon
My daughter, ever the teenager, said, “Dad, we flip the ball all the time in lacrosse. What’s the big deal? And maybe they do practice it.”
Some game notes I saw on the web, from Eric Stephen:
“The Dodgers and Giants give us one of the best pitching matchups possible on Wednesday night, with Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner facing off at AT&T Park. But despite the two rival teams playing so often every year, this is only the fourth career matchup between the two ace left-handers.
Kershaw is 14-5 with a 1.43 ERA in 26 career games against the Giants, including 25 starts, with 191 strikeouts and 34 walks in 189 innings.
Bumgarner is 11-5 with a 2.54 ERA in 17 career games against the Dodgers, including 16 starts, with 101 strikeouts and 21 walks in 106⅓ innings.
The two pitchers met once each in 2011, 2012 and 2013, with Kershaw winning their first matchup and Bumgarner taking the last two.
At the plate, Bumgarner is 1-for-7 with four strikeouts against Kershaw, while Kershaw is 3-for-5 against Bumgarner.”
Lots of creative line-up changes from the two managers, to maximize right-handed batters:
Dodgers Giants
SS Rollins LF Aoki
1B Turner 2B Duffy
RF Puig CF Pagan
2B Kendrick C Posey
LF Van Slyke RF Maxwell
CF Heisey 1B Belt
3B Uribe 3B Arias
C Ellis SS Crawford
P Kershaw P Bumgarner
Actually, more-so from the Dodgers on that.
I would have gone Posey 1B again, Susac, C, for this one.
And not a great sign for McGiggles. The biggest game of the season so far, and Bochy sits him for Arias.
Ouch.
Looked it up. Arias is 7 for 20 last 2 years vs. CK. (8-32 lifetime) Gigs 3-11 lifetime.
BTW, Pence is an unbelievable 4 for 53 career and Posey also can’t touch him with a tree trunk.
Flav: I was thinking about your car radio video from the other day. Were you recording during the play before the last out? Would love to hear your reaction to that one…
I ran out of Listerine so I just used Bud Light as mouthwash after brushing my teeth.
Works fine…
I prefer Miller Lite. Taste great, less fillings.
Like it, WJ!
Nice Giants baseball here in the 3rd. Gotta like Duffy. He comes up in key spots and good things happen.
Like I said this morning, Kershaw isn’t Kershaw this season. Waaaaay to go Giants!
This year he’s Bob Shaw:
Loo, I had no idea who this guy was . . . Interesting schizo career to say the least. In 1962, he was an All Star. In 1959, he won 18 games for the American League pennant-winning White Sox. The White Sox lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games, but not before Shaw defeated Sandy Koufax with a 1–0 shutout in Game 5.
Conversely, Shaw holds the major-league record for the most balks by a pitcher in one game. He balked 5 times pitching for the Braves on May 4, 1963 against the Chicago Cubs. He also played for a gazillion teams.
Looks like a Richard Burton-eque Shakespearean actor.
Nice summary of his career Blade! Defeated Koufax 1-0 in game 5 of the World Freaking Series? That is a nice little nugget to have on your resume. And the 5 balk thing is pretty awesome as well. How did they score the 1 run? Did Loo’s boy Johnny Callison hit a solo shot? Or maybe it was the pride of Richmond, Jim Landis?
Had to look. Nellie Fox scored the run. Callison not even in the line-up–what the hell? Game was played at the Coliseum before almost 93,000 fans. Bob Shaw, this PBR is for you!
Like I said, I didn’t know this guy from Adam . . . Wiki also said he led the NL in Fielding one year with a perfect record of 1.000 . . . Pretty good career all in all.
Same here, but I agree–nice career. I also saw he is who we got when we traded away Felipe Alou.
The Hills dog food described on the MLB.tv ads sounds better than the food I eat.
Agreed. Roasted chicken with a side of garbanzos? Sign me up. Those are garbanzos aka chickpeas…right?
artisanal and organic, no doubt
I’ve told the snarkkettes many times in the past that “artisanal” means outrageously expensive…
I don’t know what James would say, but to my eyes we’ve done well in these two games because of fine defense.
Pawlie, if SF were hitting and pitching significantly better, they could have dispensed with every one of the fancy plays we’ve seen and be 9-6 instead of 5-10.
Shake and bake. Dude got juked. Hilarious.
Aoki is looking to me like a Japanese version of Lonnie Smith—and that’s not such a bad thing.
Loo- why the hell didn’t Johnny Callison play in Game 5 of the World Series?
Shit.
On the backstop, Hangar 1 Vodka . . . Is this named after Hangar 1 at Moffett Field? Is it good vodka?
It’s a local vodka that’s all I know.
It’s a brand that started with St. George’s distillery in Alameda, so a Navy reference. Between their tasting room and Rosenblum’s, you can have quite a Saturday afternoon, while the youngster is playing indoor soccer at the Bladium.
I like that James . . . The Bladium. As Paul suggested below, my “man cave” may have a new name due to you.
Blade, note the locations http://bladium.com/
IMO Belt was daydreaming . . . Should have taken 3rd.
The Bladium…. Steve, is that the official name of your Colorado Man Cave? :-p
Dunno . . . My man cave is in Colorado, not Alameda. In fact, I don’t know anyone Alameda, much less Oakland. 🙂
Um…. play on words, Steve… Blade…… nevermind… :-p
In general, the ballpark has been very helpful to the Giants tonight. Dodger deep drives to rightfield and right-center have been long outs.
Yep, although Pederson’s ball wouldn’t have made the warning track in LF.
The way Kuiper initially described it on radio I thought it was heading for the cove.
Did Donnie just two-times it again?
I believe I said quite a while back that Bonds would win on appeal. The jury decision made no sense — no conviction on actual perjury, but convicted on obstructing with essentially the same testimony. Seems like the 9th Circuit decided it on the elements of the alleged crime — you can’t be guilty of perjury/obstruction if whatever you said that was supposedly untrue was not material to the elements of the alleged crime. Anyway, no chance the gov’t will re-try that case. What a friggin’ waste of taxpayer money that was. I hope that investigator guy Novitzky who was obsessed with getting Bonds is having a nice night — all his crazy efforts resulted in a big, fat ZILCH…
Speaking of drinking, snarkk, what do you know about Hanger 1? 🙂
Not much of a vodka man, blade. But, isn’t that the stuff made in NorCal?…
Per James and Unca, apparently. I worked at Moffett/NASA, so I am very familiar with Hangar 1 . . . but, not this vodka.
The confused answer Bonds gave to one question (which he answered many questions later, when the US Attorney followed up) wasn’t intended to obstruct nor did it obstruct anything. It was not material evidence. That’s what 10 of the 11 judges on the 9th Circuit en banc panel agreed on. They also agreed that because their decision to vacate Bonds’s conviction is based on lack of evidence, double jeopardy attaches–in other words, the feds can’t seek to re-try Bonds now.
Many of the judges on the panel submitted concurring opinions to explain why the original conviction made no sense. You can review those entertaining tomes at the Ninth Circuit’s website. Bottom line: the conviction made no sense.
One judge (out of 11) disagreed. She thinks the jury verdict should receive deference. Her dissenting opinion recounts for posterity all of the evidence submitted in the Bonds trial related to his roid use. She’s an African American woman appointed by Clinton. Sounds to me like some sort of fierce vengeful morality is driving her lone objection, but who knows.
I think the Feds would be wasting money and credibility if they sought review of this en banc decision from the US Supreme Court. It’s very likely that the bullshit felony conviction of the best hitter–perhaps the best player–of his generation is over. Now if the bullshit baseball writers’ conspiracy will get real the witch hunt may end, and Bonds will get elected to the HOF.
FYI on snarkkdog. He had surgery the other day for a big cyst on his shoulder that burst. The dang incision is about 6″ long. He’s been on pain meds, and is a little loopy. If I had a surgical slice on me that long, I’d be down and pounding on the pain meds big time. He’s walking around happy and acting somewhat normal (looking for treats) as if nothing happened. Tough mutt! We’re hoping the lab results on the cyst come back negative. BTW, the vet is going to Hawaii this year courtesy of the snarkkdog’s cyst…
Oh shit.
Let’s get a walk-off here.
I think it was Dirt who pointed out that Kelly positions himself in a weird place.
That’s gotta change.
Shit. Kelly has to stop running to the bag.
Donnie 2x outdoing himself here.
Donnie two trips was all over that. Haha. Kelly, come on man!
Crap, Belt gets the walk off hit, but no walk off. Can we get Flan to coach Kelly how to coach at third?…
torture
Dodgers Panik-stricken!
Yessssss!
Yeah!!!
Wow, Giants win the series. Awesome.
Maybe they only win this year against good teams…
Strange ending, but….a win!!
LOL . . . Man, I love baseball. 🙂
I was beginning to think losing was better than torture, but now I know it is not.
DAMN, Bochy all in with Blanco pinch running. And we win!
Dodgers might well beat more “other teams” than the Giants, but as long as SF can take a good deal more of the head-to-head LA games, things might be fine….
MLB page shows video of Guererro’s HR, and Puig’s diving catch, and something about the HR sending MadBum to the showers…. huh. I coulda sworn the Giants were the ones who won that game…..
The never ending disrespect rages on.
According to espn that was a matchup of the greatest pitcher in the world -v- some hick that got a couple of wins at the end of the 2014 season……
neither of them got a decision tonight.
but what a loverly win.
Have not been here as much lately but reading all of today’s posts reminds me of how fortunate flavor is to have us. Great group of SFGs fans.
And looks like it is time to revive the “Bonds in the HOF” fb page. I believe this was Barry’s stance all along – he never TESTIFIED to any misdoing, lies or crimes. Which was what the trial was about in many ways.
Go Gigantes!
This describes the Dodger blogs at the moment:
LOL! A perfect note to go to bed on.
This photo shows how the ump missed seeing it. Whether he would have called an out, we’ll never know.
Anderson took kind of a cheap shot at the ump with this tweet. Anderson seems like the type to get in trouble with his tweeting someday.