Labor Day–The Great Irony
In San Francisco they worry about whether or not Buster Posey is getting enough rest. In New York, Matt Harvey and his snake agent huddle together wondering if he’s going to turn into a Spinal Tap drummer once that 180th inning falls.
Happy Labor Day? I think not.
Let’s rewind to 1976. Tommy John just came off the surgery he’d become famous for. Now, obviously there have been some improvements over the years in how that surgery is done. That first one was probably done with a rusty butter knife and a half a bottle of cheap whiskey to kill the pain.
What did John do his first year back? He went 10-10 and pitched 207 innings. That was for a Dodger team that finished 10 games back in the standings to the Reds. Four of the 5 LA starters went over 200 innings that year….
I picked a random year (1970) and here were the top 10 innings leaders:
With a few starts left for each, here are today’s leaders:
We all know it’s a different game today with pitching specialists and pitch counts and nervous managers afraid to leave anyone in for too long. But being Labor Day I thought it would be nice to give a shout out to the pitchers from back in the day who, you know, pitched. Today’s pitchers have every advantage imaginable over guys who pitched in the 70’s—Technology. Diet. Conditioning. They have like 10 new pitches to throw. They have it all. And yet not a single one of them would be able to crack that list I posted from ’70.
Hope Posey got his 10 hours last night…….
Harvey is now saying he’s going to pitch in the post season (assuming the Mets make it). Why didn’t he just say that in the first place? Public pressure is probably not the best guide for your career. If I was Gaylord Perry I would be laughing long and loud at guys like Harvey…….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Wow eye opening for me. I didn’t really start watching baseball until I started playing it around 88/89. I’ve never seen pitchers go regularly longer than 6 or 7 innings, or at least I don’t remember them going deeper than that. Looking at those guys from the 70’s with their high innings counts makes me wonder when teams started using 5 man rotations.
7:25 CA Stretch Willie Mac on 680 now
We headed into the end of August beat up.Pitchers ‘done’, batters injured, fielders making mistakes. We remained faithful, you gotta believe and Sept call ups were coming. It is now Labor Day (thank you workers of the world) Sept. 7th and our injury list is longer than ever.We have never had our whole starting 25 ready to play this entire season. Damn.
There was a blogger posting on the cbs site story about Harvey’s last comments that he would pitch in playoffs.
He cited numerous articles including one from a med research journal stating innings pitched has little to do with the likelihood of recurring injuries.
Kruk often says in individual game it is less total pitches thrown than amount thrown in “stressful” innings, out of the stretch with guys on base, yada yada.
Baseball minds seem way behind the science on this, tho certainly what happens to kids in their teens (or earlier idk) must have something to do with it re: amount of throwing for year round club teams and types of pitches thrown.
But with all the advantages Flav mentions plus 5 man rotations with extra rest, why someone can’t throw 200 innings nowadays without warning flags being raised is just odd and the excuses seem lame.
And as to end of last thread discussion, the xenophobia of Americans is one of our more deplorable characteristics, from coast to coast.
There was a letter to editor in Chron a week ago who compared Trump’s comments on immigrants to Hitler’s warnings that Jews were the ones responsible for Germany’s fate in mid-30s. The way he comes off is that he really doesn’t care about rule of law or Congress, Constitution/Bill of Rights, Supreme court, et al—he’s gonna do what he wants to do, and that’s what gets his supporters all fired up to salute him. I’m sure he’d blow up Iran if he had the chance, and who knows what else.
And hey, there are plenty of Californians who have felt for a long time that “illegal aliens” are what is ruining the state and would love to see “appropriate” actions taken against them…and to hear only English spoken when they shop at Safeway.
Saw story on yahoo about Zito pitching an inning in relief yesterday for Nashville to close out season (and career it looks like). He says A’s aren’t interested in bringing him up, so apparently that’s it.
He spent the whole year there, started 22 games for them, ended up with 3.48 ERA.
So from Oakland’s standpoint, wtf? They are having a terrible year with worst record in AL, their pitching staff not named Sonny Gray is mostly the shits and they have brought up all kinds of guys to start games. If you didn’t want Zito to do anything more than eat innings in AAA, what kind of plan is that?
2015 Plate Appearances so far:
Buster Posey: 531
Yadier “Iron Man” Molina: 493
Salvadore “The Invincible” Perez: 462
Russell “Super Man” Martin: 437
Brian “Big Stud” McCann: 444
Yasmani “I Made The All-Star Team” Grandal: 377
Compare the number of games caught, zum. Molina has caught more games that Posey. When Molina rests, he doesn’t play at all, maybe as PH availability…
noticing how much the home run derby “took out” of guys like Pederson and Frazier. Deep, deep funk for both since that day. Bet they wish they’d rested instead of compete in HR Derby
Yeah, Pederson especially looks out of gas. A lot of pitchers are blowing fastballs past him now, not as afraid as they were earlier in the season.
well he should be tired. He swings as big and as hard as he can on every swing—Dave Kingman like, minus all the bombs…..
He hit a big one off MadBum last week.
Never have liked how today’s pitchers are so freakin “Pampered ”
Yeah their crazy ass contracts,8-9 th specialist coming in to finish a job they should, it’s a f**king joke to me.
You look at Flavor’s list today only 3 of the 10 pitchers are barely scraping 7 innings of work, before calling in quits..
The old-school pitchers would laugh and call these new generation pitchers pussies, for not having fire in their bellies instead of bellyaching that I’m near 80-90 pitches.Shit those stud pitchers from the 60’s-70’s all averaged 35 + starts a year, and never ever wanted to come out.
I still shake my head when Kruk says:Yeah if your starting pitcher averages 15 pitches an inning he’s doing well.Well for what?the usual 6 innings maybe 7? This modern day era, you have to be at 12 pitches tops for a total of 108 if they really want to TRY for a CG, which of course in the new generation doesn’t happen…
The Giants have 25 games left, so Bum getting 20 wins is very doable. It’d be a nice thing to happen.
Cubs defaced the Cards’ Lynn today. Maybe a playoff preview.
Jackson Williams makes his Giant debut today. He played a little for Colorado last year.
I wonder if Casilla’s back next year…
I probably won’t shut up about Cespedes till some other team locks him up…
He has a cool 4 2 3 2 box score going so far today in a big game vs. the Nats.
Just don’t see Cespedes resigning with the Mets Loo.
Tigers made throw 6/120 at him, which will probably take the Giants out of it..
Giants will go after Zimmerman instead, especially if Leake bails.
It’s not my coin, but Cespedes& Zimmerman sure would make my Christmas list!
Doubt it will happen though, to much scratch locked up in those 2…
I would give Cespedes 6/120 sooner than I would give Leake the same deal…
I can easily see Sabean doing nothing with the OF in the offseason/ Pence heals, Pagan heals, Aoki heals and re-signs for one year. Blanco back for his usual 4-5 OF role. Nothing changes. If so, it’ll be a shame. Byrd not signed, too. This OF needs an upgraded bat. Giants need more pop, period…
Marichal is the greatest SF pitcher ever, and it’s not close. One of the greatest in the last half of the 20th century, and it’s not arguable. From the SABR site:
Career 243 wins against 142 losses, an ERA of 2.89, 244 complete games (more than half of his starts), 52 shutouts, a strikeout-to-walk ratio of better than 3-to-1. He led the league in wins twice, in shutouts twice, in complete games twice, in innings pitched twice, in winning percentage once. In the 60s decade, he won more games every year than Gibson.
Check that complete games career number, and the shutouts. No, those are not typos. He pitched more complete games than he had wins. He had more shutouts than these modern guys will ever throw complete games — by a huge margin. Amazing stuff. And, he threw a scroogie, which is probably the toughest pitch on an arm imaginable. He was voted into the HOF in this THIRD year of eligibility. Another reason the HOF voting is/was a total joke…
THe HOF delay was punishment for the Roseboro thing…
Proof that the HOF voting is a joke…
The brilliance of Matt Williams was on full display in T7 of 5-5 game:
Relief pitcher #1: Single. Bunt-forceout at 2nd.
RP #2: Walk.
RP #3: RBI single, Mets 6-5.
RP #4: RBI sac fly, Mets 7-5. RBI double, Mets 8-5. Line out.
I could literally hear the air going out of F. P. Santangello.
Dodgers/Angels game is on MLB Network tonight in many areas.
That HR got out of here quickly.
1st&3rd no outs and they labored thru with out scoring!Pathetic
Yep, seen that a lot this year. I don’t know how many times they have hit singles to the OF with a guy on second and the runner at 2nd is held up at third, then they never score that guy. Here, it was Posey held up, I suppose OK because he’s so slow, but I’ve seen that scenario so much, it just is maddening. I am guessing that the opposition this year has not had so many times when the guy on 2nd doesn’t make it home on a single to the OF. Flannery was more aggressive obviously at sending runners, and we ragged on him for that sometimes, but I think I’d rather do that way than this hold the runner thing. How many throws from the OF these days are actually right on target at home? Not many…
D-backs had no problems getting their runners home that’s for sure..
Yeah not a big Kelly fan, and since Posey leads all Giants getting thrown out at home the last couple of years,Kelly now is gun shy with him. The base hit was the one to send him home on over the Sac Fly since the Outfielder was moving over at a different angle so even Posey could have made that one..
Leake is leaking oil today.
From Leake to bleak.
So now are starting pitching staff is down to Bum and a bottle of Rum..
Just catching up here (Aptos was beautiful) and read all that stuff..God shit. What the fuck are they talking about? indeed!
They don;t call the flyover states for nothing. The big fallacy to the ‘good people’ of the heartland is that they believe the absolute bullshit rhetoric spewed by their local and national politicians. I’m no big John McCain fan, but when he ran as a ‘maverick’ in 2000, the Rove political misinformation machine put flyers in churches in NC that McCain fathered a black child while married when in reality he had adopted her. 5 seconds of actually trying to figure shit out will clue people in.
That was this morning. Here we are down by 5 and not sending Posey on a med-deep fly ball.
Aaaand leaving the bases full like a bushel of biscuits.
Houston Astros @astros 22m22 minutes ago
The A’s fans in the bleachers have drums at the games. It is not a broadcast issue and there is nothing we can do about it.
Lqtm
I heard Lurie talk this morning about Blackburn being ready to vy for a spot on the rotation. And, WTF not have him twirl a start or two now? Exactly. Let the guy get his feet wet in MLB. This season is toast in practical terms, barring an epic collapse by LA. I don’t need to see any more Voggy or Huddy. Bring on Blackburn, he’d be hopefully better anyway and help win a game or two in case an epic collapse happened. Keereist, start free wheelin this last few weeks — it’s not like these old starters are suddenly going to throw a freekin’ shutout…
The Giants are taking this Labor Day off thing way too far…….
Does anyone know WTF they did to the Stubhub site? The friggin thing is near unusable compared to before. They have FAQs saying they’re “working on” the features they used to have. WTF?…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/stubhub-gets-out-of-all-in-pricing-1441065436
Well, you CAN push a button to show all-in pricing, it’s just not default. My beef is that damn near all the comparative functionality of before is gone or hidden somehow. You used to be able to do all sorts of comparative searches for price, location, number of seats, etc. I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out where that was, and come to find out, it’s not there — the FAQs say they’re working on it. I had a “chat” with a rep and told her the new site is FOS…
Not sure if you use their app on your phone but I would highly recommend it. It still shows all in pricing and is quite user friendly. All of the desktop versions for tickets (stubhub, ticketmaster, etc..) pretty much suck.
No Joe, I don’t futz with apps. Maybe I’ll need to…
NL batting avg. leaders are now:
Harper .336
Posey .330
Gordon .329
if Posey can stay awake and alert for the rest of the month get 10-12 hours of sleep each night AND stay out of the hot draining sun during daytime, he just might have a shot at passing Harper. But, Harper is getting walked all the time now so he’s not going to take too many 0-4’s which at this point in the season he would need to take for Posey to make up 6 pts….
lqtm…
Harper is hitting a HARD .336, with a near league lead in dingers. Posey has been a singles hitter the last month or more. One HR in the last 120 or so ABs…
Dodger magic # goes to 18.
Not only did our starter spring a Leake, but our hitters contributed with an existential exercise in flagellating futility. 16 baserunners for the Snakes ~ four of them walks. Ten for SF ~basically singles ~ no BB’s. Total of 9 LOB. Brandenburg concerto between SS and 1B ~ zero for the game. Multiple scoring chances and it happened exactly once. This tattered and tortured team has lost its spunk.
not super high on Leake right now. True, he’s had shit run support. But that bomb he gave up to Utley the inning after we tied the game still bugs me. And today we needed his best and we got his worst. Dude might not be a winner.
100% with Snarkk (and Marty Lurie) on bringing up a AAA young man to get a start or two at the big league level. Isn’t that experience more important than Hudson slogging through the last start or two of his career? I could care less about Tim Hudson but I’d like to see what a Blackburn or a Blach could do v major league hitters in sept- one of the guys who you don’t care if you start their clock early.
And, the same radio show had people talk about giving Huddy some kind of sendoff. Huh? The dude had a quality half season his first year here, since then has basically been a crap sandwich with an occasional spike of a good game. He helped a bit in the 2014 playoffs, but not a lot, and got hammered in the WS. He’s done squat this season, basically he should have retired before this season started. The guy is a good dude, but to me he’s an A and and a Brave, with a pit stop good story in SF at the end of the journey. He bagged a ring while here, along with $24 million. What more of a sendoff could you want?…
completely agree. That pic of Huddy kissing the trophy in a champagne soaked clubhouse should have been his send off. It certainly meant more to him than any ‘sendoff’ we could give him now. And I really do want to see Blackburn pitch a game for the Giants. Preferably one that has no consequence if he gets blasted……
If I was the Giants, I would just put Huddy on waivers and let the Braves pick him up for a final send off. His home is just a stones throw away in Bama anyway. He got a huge ovation from the fans at the Giants-Braves game I went to in ATL last year.
Good idea. No, great idea. He won a ton for the Braves. Unless there’s bad blood, they should be the ones to send him off…
Yes, good idea, but it usually doesn’t happen that way. He’ll get his stupid ovation when he pitches in Oakland at the end of the month…
Harper called out the Nats fans for leaving early. Leaving in the 7th inning because the team is down by 3. That’s lame; Harper’s right.
I did a double-take when I saw that Grandal was 1 for his last 45. He has a shoulder injury of some kind.
that’s venturing into Velez territory. What was that record he set? Like 50 at bats in a row without a hit? It was something absurd like that. Shouldn’t have ever let him set that, IMO.
Yeah, it always strikes me as bizarre when a pro athlete couldn’t do better than me during an extended time period.
Part of me gets depressed at where the Giants ended up, and I avert my eyes. For a while. Then I take a glimpse, understanding that this won’t be possible in January. I just caught up with Bumgarner’s words about the team meeting Friday: play hard, be at peace with whatever happens if you do.
We really didn’t have the ponies.
Then there’s my crazy self, holding on to some irrational and absurd scenario of Giants redemption, one for the books, blah blah.
I almost get relieved when they lose, to add a dose of cold-water reality. Get it over with.
FINAL MANNY BURRISS REPORT OF 2015: Went to the game, the last game. A smallish crowd (competing with the last day of the NY State Fair) but friendly and avid. The ball was flying. Some nice plays. Some bungled plays. Sat with three friends. Got in for free (someone left a voucher at the ticket window). $2 ice cream. Free hot dog (a coney, they call it) because my friends had a coupon, and free soda and potato chips. Free parking. The game went into extra innings. Manny Burriss drills a single to right, bottom 11th. Walk-off win. Manny! Mobbed. Teammates douse him. Smiling, he points to his crew in back of the plate (no, not me). Now the melancholy of no more local baseball. But a great finish to the season. Chiefs were the best in the International League the last 82 games. Manny.
http://www.syracuse.com/chiefs/index.ssf/2015/09/syracuse_chiefs_vs_scrantonwilkes-barre_10.html#incart_river
Now, that’s baseball. Great story.
Gotta go to a SJ Giants game again next season. blade and willied — you guys up for another one again?…
yeah that was great fun to sit with you guys and catch the game, good food too.
BTW, on the oppo side of late season personnel moves, the A’s have told Zito they won’t bring him up. WTF? This is the guy’s last hurrah season, he toiled all year in friggin Nashville. The A’s are crap, circling the drain, and fending off brickbats from their fans for trading away a playoff team for the “future”. So, you could throw the fans a bone with a Zito appearance to give him a sendoff “for the good times” (for you Ray Price fans), and have a feel good moment. But, no. No. The A’s always sucker punch their fans. What a dogS organization, in terms of dealing with its fans…
heck, bring Zito in to pitch for US…..somebody’s gotta do it
Not feeling the Posey disses. Power outage? sure, it had been a month since the last one b4 yesterday.
But he did C all 14 innings of game 1 vs. LA, played entire series and in game 3 got 2 hits off Opie. Seems to me he has played a lot lately, but when he’s in or out of the LU is on Bochy, not him.
Take a quick look at B/R under heading league leaders for batting and here’s what you will find re: Posey:
WAR by position players 6
Off WAR 8
D WAR 7
BA 3
OB 6
OPS 9
Hits 4
RBI 9
Runs created 10
Times OB 9
And trust me, no C is anywhere in sight on any of league leader stats anywhere.
Giants certainly have some problems, but imo Posey at C is NOT one of them. If the guy needs a day off, he’s earned it. That all the Giants have behind him is Hector and Williams isn’t his fault either.
I’m still trippin’ on that list of pitchers and innings: Palmer, Cuellar, and McNally for the O’s, almost 900 innings between them that year… wow….
Koufax-Drysdale-Osteen: 930 in 1965
Just took a shot at that. There might be higher ones…
Technically, I never tripped. Everybody else did. A coworker sold acid at Woodstock, offered me some acid, some Orange Sunshine, on a sunny day. I almost took it but demurred. Heard stories of people who “never came back” and figured I was wacky enough as is.
no $$$ for a bullpen? Sheesh, those 3 put some damn work in, right?
Why can’t the Dodgers just lose 4 or 5 games in a row, just for fun? And Adrian Beltre will be a Hall of Famer, won’t he?
I will have to say one thing for Nats fans…they are quitting far after the Nats themselves quit on the season.
Another thing that growing up in the Bay Area does not give one perspective is that is Sept. 7 and hot as hell still on the East Coast. We’ve had something like 50 days in the last two months of 90 degree plus weather. Labor Day is the end of summer, Congress and the fed got back in full swing tomorrow, people don’t want t sit in the sweltering box that is Nats Stadium in a Sweat Zone of DC endlessly on the their last day of summer vacation and watch what the Nats are putting on the field in terms of winning effort.
That is a team that needs a Hunter Pence badly….
my blog post on Labor Day and the so-called end of summer:
http://thelaughorist.blogspot.com/2015/09/endless-summerish.html
Very cool. Captures it well.
I also hope that my bad feeling we are going to get hit by some type of terrorist attack is just a bad hunch. I fear these ISIS monsters want to make a statement…keep safe everyone…
More likely to be a false-flag attack ~ much like 911 ~ courtesy of some nasty people who are running the show, just like they are behind Al CIA-duh and I$I$.
Keep safe how?
I’m with Loo. I feel like there’s a veiled message here and yet I’m not getting it. 🙂 Keep safe HOW? giiiaannnt HEAAAADDDD!!!!!!!!
“Baseball is like the tide, it comes in and it goes out, and you can take any player and put him under a microscope . . . . ” Vin Scully sucks.
I’m with you on that.
Well, the Angels are pretty mediocre, but we already knew that.
The AL ump isn’t giving Greinke the extra-large strikezone.
the bums have had a helluva a lot of good luck the past two weeks.
Bummer to go out so weakly against the D backs. I’m with willeD..Posey is not the issue…
Like to see craw finish strong, but I guess he is still not 100%…14 for his last 69 with 0 HRs in a month, 2 for last 22, BA down to .257.
Fine season, but like others very streaky.
May hit .340.
June hit .217.
July best power month 6 HRs
August hit .241 Sept. 2 for 18 .111
Ostler today says next year Posey splits time btw C and 1b about 50/50, which sounds like Belt is either gonzo or in the OF. Pick up J Morneau if at all possible and find another C better than Hector (which shouldn’t be that hard) behind Susac maybe that works.
8 1/2 back? I see I wasn’t the only one who took time off from baseball.
Speaking of Gaylord, I thought he had sold his place here, but I just noticed a For Sale Sign was back up. Harvey should buy the place, it would be a great place for him to relax during the playoffs.
new.