A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Weeeeellllllll, that didn’t go very well. Yesterday’s game did not remind me of any warm childhood memories. MadBum should fix all of this today.

Hope no one missed the gold that is DJ Loo on the last thread. My man had it rolling last night.

Where HAVE all the good beekeepers gone?

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Kevin Frandsen just signed a minor league deal with us. Full circle.

I think it was 1978 but don’t hold me to that. I opened up the Sporting Green and my Giants were on top of the NL West. Back then, it was SF, LA, Cincinnati, SD, Houston and the Braves. I sat there marveling at *SF* being in first place. I think they tumbled down shortly after but they were in it all season long.

Fast forward to today. It wasn’t the same feeling, obviously. But it reminded me of the day when I was a kid and I saw my team on top for the first time ever.

Giants pitchers haven’t allowed a run at home in 37 straight innings. If that stat is correct…wow. Just WOW! Belt is finally hitting for power, our pitchers don’t allow any runs, it feels like we’re never going to lose again.

But of course, we know we’ll lose again.

Huddy couldn’t get anything going in Colorado but we all know his balls will be dancing in the dirt tonight and another W is likely on the horizon.

Granted, we haven’t quite hit June yet. I was still struck by this box score that I pulled up on my phone yesterday:

I would argue that the Giants have NEVER had 8 guys hitting .291 or better in the line up at the same time.

And congrats to the Warriors. 40 years is a long time. I mean, 40 years ago Jerry freaking Brown was governor of California. Remember him? That’s an incredible timeline milestone to use to appreciate…..oh wait….Never mind.

On Thursday, the Giants visit the While House again. Later that evening the Warriors play Game 1 v the Cav’s. It’s a Bay Area world we’re all livin’ in….

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then and now…..

Serious question: How good do you guys feel about our team right now? Because I am feeling pretty confident, barring injury, about us taking down the West this year. Crazy? Maybe.

But look at the facts so far this year: The Padres? They are who I thought they were going to be. Overrated. As June is hitting, and Matt Kemp isn’t, I see that team toiling for most of the Summer. The Dodgers? Sure, they could go trade for Cole Hamels and that wouldn’t really surprise me if they pick him up. But who’s their number 3 right now? Anderson? Freaking Bolsinger? The Art Dealers have lost 17 games this year.

Seven of those losses were to us.

So I’m just sayin’, Pence is back. The Flap is guaranteed to hum for at least another year. I’m feeling a strange sense of confidence this morning…..

Really impressed with how the Giants stepped up yesterday, tired as heck and down 4-1, and still figured out a way to gut out a win. I was driving home yesterday and got a chance to listen to the entire game on the radio. Realized I hadn’t done that in a while. Jon Miller is still the best radio guy in the business, in my opinion….

I’m going to take a time out from complaining about the shit service that is wordpress and give a shout out to my main man in Houston, Wilco Joe. I pray the worst of the weather is missing you, your family and your friends. Check in when you can and tell us everything is ok in Wilcoland.

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finally…..victory.

I always looked at Bobby Evans and kind of considered him Sabean’s butler. Or his *page*. How ’bout that, only 2 sentences in and I’ve already made a middle ages reference. But Evans boldly jettisoned McGehee yesterday in a move that Sabean never would have initiated. Maybe Evans still had to get approval from Sabes and maybe Sabes is feeding his baby bird with some autonomy. But letting a vet go (in May) who’s making 4.8 mil this year is certainly not “The Giants Way.”

McGehee said he’s going to think about reporting to Sac-town but if he wants to play again, why wouldn’t he? He’s not going to get a minor league opportunity so close to his family in Santa Cruz and he cited them as his strongest consideration. Who knows, maybe he retires, he’s made 9+ million in his career not counting the dough he raked in while in Japan. That scratch goes a long way in Santa Cruz….

Plus, it’s not like he’s got Cal Ripkin in front of him. If Duffy struggles and McGehee gets his knee straight and his swing straighter in the minors we just might have at least one more giggle in us this year.

I have low expectations for this game today. The team has got to be dragging hard from that long weekend and the altitude effects cannot be understated……

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regarding the impending doom of the Flap. Assuming I still don’t have this straightened out by the time the domain curtain falls on us, I recommend you guys go hit up Bagg’s blog at the Merc. It has way less trolls than the Splash, I think. If we do get shut down, I’ll sort it out but maybe Flappers bide their time with Baggs till I’m back up. May 29th is the deadline……..

I’m not gonna skewer Blanco for that bone headed play. Those guys had been at the park for 14 hours, one of them was bound to break down mentally over something stupid at some point.

Radar looks not so good. There’s definitely weather in the area around game time. Giving Denver a baseball team was the dumbest thing baseball ever did. Debatable, but still….

Got PK’s vm about the wordpress thing being a possible malware attack. It’s not that, these renewal dues are the same every year. It’s still saying on my admin page that I still own, by the way. I also owe for the custom design but as I said yesterday, there’s no way I’m paying for that till the domain issue gets resolved.

For those of you following the “wordpress scam” saga where they charge their customers twice but still say they owe them, here is the update:

I still haven’t head back from either email that I sent them regarding this clerical error. There is still a message that pops up (usually if you use your phone) that says the Flap’s domain is about to expire. The one piece of good news is that the second fraudulent charge they hit me with has come off my credit card statement. So maybe they are just horrible at customer service and plan on resolving this without ever communicating with me.

There is still a *custom design* fee that I need to renew but I’m not an idiot. I’m not paying for services and having them still tell me I owe them for services.

I’m out of town and I doubt I could reach anyone there on the weekend anyway (there is a 1-877 number next to the charge on my credit card that I will call on Monday if I have to). Hopefully this works itself out before the domain expires on May 29th.

Also: the pop messages are only going to happen to you if you’re an editor here at the Flap.

Double header today plus Game 3 of Western Conference Finals tonight. Wow, what a day of sports.

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and to trump Snarkk’s *for what it’s worth* stat on the last thread I give you this:

Steph Curry: 10.6 million

Andrea Bargnani (Nicks): 11.5 million

And if you don’t want to puke, please don’t go look at what Joe Johnson has made in his career…..

A bold question, to be sure. Brazen, even. But let me take a shot at arguing for it….

I understand no championships were won. So right away, if that’s your criteria, there are at least 9 days that you’d say were better (3in5, 5 SB’s and an NBA Championship that I was too young to remember). And I don’t count championships that were won before I was born. I’m just THAT egotistical….. 🙂 🙂 🙂

The day began with the Giants beating the Dodgers. And not just the Dodgers, but the modern day version of Sandy Koufax. And the game winning run was a home run hit by our pitcher. And that win culminated a sweep of the Dodgers in a series where they failed to score a single run……

That’s a pretty good start to the day.

Then Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals happens. The fact that the Warriors are even in this is still something that blows the collective mind of the Bay Area. So bad for so long. I left the team for dead many times over my life.

That game could not have been more exciting. The Rockets fought like the beasts I didn’t think they were and with the clock ticking down and the ball in Harden’s hands as he crossed half court I could just feel the dagger coming. He inexplicably passes to Howard who kicks it back to him. That’s when Steph and Klay literally play patty cake with the basketball till time runs out. I exploded off my couch.

And hey, for those down with schadenfreude, the team with the worst record in all of baseball got shut out by The Rays in the worst, ugliest park in the league. The A’s, toiling away in last place. Love it.

So I’m not saying I’m right or you’re wrong or you’ll be right if you can produce a better day in Bay Area Sports history. But give it a shot it you like…….

Shutting out the Dodgers again….lqtm.

Great game, Timmy was the stud I expected him to be.

But did any of you see Bryce Harper get tossed yesterday? WTF was up with that? He mildly complained about a ball that got called a strike but he got back in the box ready to go. All of a sudden, dipshit Matt Williams starts barking at the ump who walks away from his spot behind homeplate towards the dugout and engages Williams. At that point, Harper steps out of the box to let those 2 argue. The ump comes back and promptly throws harper out of the game for not being in the box ready to bat.

I mean, that was just absurd. And Matt Williams is showing how far he still needs to come, in my eyes, before he’s even seen as a competent manager. It is a JOKE that this guy won MOY last year. He got taken to the woodshed by Bochy in the playoffs and this year he seems more interested in being a hot head and getting thrown out of games. His team, not surprisingly, has taken on his persona.

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What a day for Bay Area sports. Bum/Kershaw in the day, Warriors in Game 2 of Western Conference Finals tonight.

Giants shut out the first place Dodgers and The Warriors win an exciting Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. I feel like I’m someone else typing those words. Winning 3 in 5 and now on the verge of an appearance in the NBA Championships is just so beyond foreign for this fan base I don’t even know what to say. There’s a sense of pride swelling in the community, you can feel it everywhere you go. It’s the greatest gift a team can give its fans.

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Timmy going tonight and, as usual, I feel confident with him going at home, against anybody.

Why not?

Dodgers/Giants. First place v second place. Don’t take games like this for granted.

This Frias guy could be a problem for us. He’s got good control and he doesn’t strike me as the type of pitcher we pound. Although after this past weekend, all pitchers look like guys we pound.

Huddy needs to keep the ball down tonight……

I’m going to need one of you to remind me of this past weekend when our offense goes back to “binary code”. But until that happens we can revel in the bounty of runs that Belt, Crawford, Pence and the rest gifted us vs the Reds.

I didn’t look before the series started against Cincinnati, but I’m assuming we were last in runs scored in the NL. A quick check of that stat shows us in 12th position with 145 runs only 1 behind the Pirates.

Art Dealers up next. Giants are 11-5 in May……

Games like last night’s sort of write their own thread the next day.

Welcome back Under Pants and we have scored 21 runs in the last 2 games. What I don’t get is this: The balls they hit off Voggy died at the warning track (except for Bruce). Same thing the game before v Lincecum. And yet we’re sending rainbow bombs well into the bleachers. How are the Giants hitters, supposedly worse than the vaunted Cincinnati offense, laying such prodigious wood? Especially when you consider that Lincecum and Voggy are “totally done”, at least according to Flappers far and wide……

A great topic that mushroomed out of the middle of yesterday’s thread: what former Giant did you dislike the most? Some good ones got listed with AJP and Blownitez being the 2 most popular. I had a tough time going super historical. Sure, there were guys I didn’t like on teams 30 years ago but that was really more a function of frustration with entire teams. I had no problem coming up with *ugliest former players* deciding on a 3 (ugly) headed tie between Willie McGee, Julian Tavares and Darrell Evans.

But who did I dislike the most? Honestly, it was probably Rowand. And certainly not because of his effort or commitment to the game. I have no doubt he was trying his best. He came to the Giants in a dark time for the franchise. And those 10 million slowly rolled balls to the left side of the infield finally got to me. His batting stance was a turnoff, man. I also didn’t care for the amount of time he spent in the batting cage. Perfecting a shitting swing was not the answer, dawg. Laying off the slider once in a while might have been the way to go.

He did make a great catch to save, I think, Dirrrrrty Sanchez’ no hitter. Ah, suddenly a new candidate emerges…..

Anyway, not the sexiest pick but that’s mine: Aaron Rowand. Somewhere I bet he’s still practicing that swing……

I’m actually surprised we were able to keep it to a run in the opener v Cincinnati. The team was on no sleep facing Cueto, Timmy historically sucks balls against the Reds and then to watch Lincecum slip slide around on that mound, it seemed like it should have been a 10-1 type of game.

Still, another loss versus another team we should be beating in a park we should be scoring lots of runs in. Tonight we face off against Jason Marquis who is not a very good pitcher. Bumgarner should dice up the Red hitters and we should slap up some crooked numbers in this hitters park against a bad pitcher.

That’s the script, right?

Frustrating game. If the Giants are up 3-1 they need to put that shit away. But we got out-homered 3-1 and it didn’t appear that this smaller park helped our power much. And Brandon Belt….. never mind….

Now we have 4 in Cincinnati and I have no feel for how this series will go but the Giants didn’t get into town till 4am this morning and they’ve got Cueto tonight so I think I know how Game 1 will be going.

How about a massive shout out to Chris Heston who is turning into John Burkett before our very eyes.

And Matt Duffy, what else is there to say? My main man on the scene in Reno, Dave Anderson otherwise known as “Pa Salon” and/or “Fingers” and/or “Pee Pap” and/or “Pa Dingle” and/or “Pappy” and/or “Pa”, predicted in spring training that Duffy would have a huge year. I mockingly responded “yeah, in Sacramento.” And while that was quite the witty burn back then, I must admit that Duffy has run with his opportunity and my hat is off to DAVE for his bold pre-season foreboding. He and his buddy ERVIN read the blog daily (though doesn’t post) so I know DAVE will appreciate this prop. And while I’m at it, I want to thank ALL of you who take the time to read the blog even though you don’t post!

Probably the only downer was the trifecta of strike outs for Belt last night. Looked like his family enjoyed the game, though. His wife appears to still be regularly fed…….

Ah, the Astros. No longer the (L)astros. In fact, they’re in first place and I’m not really sure how they’re doing this with that pitching staff.

I’m mostly interested in seeing how Hest-by-Hest performs tonight. Coming off the worst outing of his short career and now having to pitch on the road in a small park is probably not an “all systems go” moment for him. If he can contain Altuve, he’ll probably be all right. “If”…..

Houston leads the AL in home runs with 45…..

After listening to us dink ‘n doughnut our way to another improbable victory it got me to wondering, when was the last time we hit a walk off HR? I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of minutes and still can’t come up with much–recent or ancient. Ishikawa? That’s the only one that’s coming to mind.

Without googling it, name off the SF walk off HR’s in your memory. Either best or most recent. If you can’t remember what a walk off HR feels like just go to mlb.com, click on Must C and there are tons of them. Hit by players on other teams…….

Great resurrection by Voggy, of himself…..

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Panda finally gets his ring. He looks good in this pic, too

For me, this is a real big start for Voggy. All the praise he got for “pounding the strike zone” last time will be balls sent the other way by Stanton deep, deep into outer space if he tries that same approach today. But he can build off his last start if he pitches smart and gets lucky.

If not, NASA could have their hands full trying to track all those balls the Marlins will be launching today……

LU– no Stanton

Timmy dropping his ERA to an even 2.00 had me lqtm last night. You could easily make the argument that he’s been MVP of the staff this year. But really, the staff has been outstanding. Better than I thought they would do coming out of spring training. I don’t know if it’s the collective group that pushes itself to greatness or if this is all the product of Raggs. Either way, we continue to ride our starting pitching as far as it will take us.

And big props to McGehee for his perseverance. As Kruk said, “Welcome home Casey McGehee.”

Belt’s props will be flowing in the comment section below, I’m sure…..

Go get ’em
And here’s tonight’s Rivercats LU. I’m not so sure our leadoff hitter has the name of a can’t miss MVP in the big leagues……..

Not much to say about last night except that it was another Miami smack down. Taken out to the woodshed again by the Marlins. Had our hides tanned. Beatch-slapped right across the…..whatever, you get the idea.

And tonight, the show stopper. The loss ender. Mr No Hitter himself! Be careful with those fastballs in the zone to Big Mike.

Maybe it hasn’t been this way in recent years, but it always feels like we play our worst baseball against the Marlins in San Francisco. Rickey Nolasco is pitching today in Minnesota and I can feel his longing westward stare. His ERA is 10.12 this year but if he had been allowed to pitch against the Giants all season you could subtract the 0.

Still trying to figure out why the Dodgers let Dee Gordon go……

As usual, watch out for Stanton.

Giddy up.

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no better example of the vast chasm between Baggs and the rest of the SF Giant beat writers. Haren gets a hit and these are the near simultaneous tweets from one guy who pays attention to stats and one guy who eats lots of hot dogs and fights with his twitter followers:

Happy 84th to Willie Mays!

Wither Voggy? Heresy….

I’m going to enjoy the slow Summer decline of the Padres who I never thought would do much this year. You can’t round up a bunch of glitzy hitters, especially nearly all right handed hitters, and expect it to come together like magic. Matt Kemp has 1 home run this year and once he quits the healthy Upton bro might not be far behind.

I’d have some fun talking shit to Padre fans, the problem is, I don’t know any. Not a single one. My main man on the scene in SD, San Diggity, might be able to tell us what a Padre fan is like. Assuming he knows one down there. He can chime in once he reads this……

After the way this season started, .500 feels like 5000.

For all the talk about the Padres *all star* line up, they have 1 win more than we do. That number is expected to rise to 2 after they tee off on Voggy tonight.

Speaking of Voggy, my thoughts about him are similar to my thoughts on Belt. Yes, he’s sucking but who do you want to have replace him? And all this *trade Belt* stuff is funny. If WE don’t want him, why would anyone else? His value is in the tank right now and if it started to rise none of you would want to trade him.

And McGehee sitting only works if you think Duffy is ready to play full time, out of position. Not sold on that yet.

Five starts into the season, Tim Lincecum has the lowest ERA of any of the starters on the staff (2.40). While not the strongest of sample sizes it’s certainly not the weakest. It got me to wondering who are MVP is so far this year. Timmy would and absolutely should get a few 2nd and 3rd place votes. But who is #1? Aoki? Heston? My dark horse: Pagan. Or does Brandon Crawford strike your fancy? He leads the team in home runs and RBI’s. Who called that?

I’d probably go Heston and Pagan tied for first place…

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interesting news clipping someone found—25 years ago, top salaries at each position. I find it hilarious that the Brewers and A’s made up 33% of the list.

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To celebrate Steph’s MVP win I thought it would be fun to go back and look over the players picked ahead of him. Favorite thing: Minnesota took not one but TWO point guards in front of him. Hilarious.

Casey McGehee began his assault on May player of the month honors by banging out 3 hits yesterday. And while that’s an award that will likely allude him, it was nice to see him start to snap out of whatever it is he’s been in this year. This dude had 177 hits last year. That’s a lot. Pablo has had more than that in a season once and last year didn’t come close with 164. Will Clark, my favorite player of all time, eclipsed 177 hits in a season but a single time. McGehee is not some chump off the street. He doesn’t have to be Panda or Clark. But I’d settle for David Bell. I think we all would.

My phone got inundated with Flapper photos around the 4th inning yesterday. Looks like everyone had a great time. Steve et al, feel free to dump as many photos as you would like in the Photo Bucket. If you don’t know how to do that, please don’t guess, just email them to me. I’ll be out all day, though.

A-Rod with a pinch hit home run at Fenway to finally tally 660 was fantastic theater, in my opinion. The pinch hit part was the best because the fans who hate him didn’t have time to *cover and protect* since they didn’t think he was even going to play yesterday. Anyway, I am in the camp that says pay ARod his bonus and even a PED-aided 660 is an awesome accomplishment. Bonds and A-Rod: PED’s. Hank Aaron and Willie Mays: amphetamines. Babe Ruth: only playing against white people. Put a * after all of them and at the end of the day you’ve still got 5 dominant beasts who mashed and blasted the ball deep into the night better than any other player of their time.

Today is a jam packed day. All day volleyball tourney for me. Plus the Derby. The fight tonight. And there is a Flapalooza going down at AT&T. Send updates boys!

Angels are in town. Kinda bummed we didn’t get in on them paying our players to beat them the way Texas did. Between CJ Wilson, Pujols and Hamilton (who am I forgetting?) the Angels pick up some of the worst free agents available.

Pretty incredible weekend of sports lined up. What event are you most interested in? Giants baseball? The Derby? The Warriors? The Fight? It’s almost too much to consider….