Pence No Longer By the Fence
When AJ Pollock went down for the year for the D-backs everyone said what a big blow it would be. Like if the Giants lost Pence. I didn’t agree then and I don’t agree now. The Giants and Arizona are built completely different and are run differently. Also, I think everyone overreacted at the value of Pollock. AZ wasn’t going to ever be as good as the pundits were thinking. Same way SD wasn’t going to fulfill promise last season.
Loo brought up the idea of taking Markakis from the Braves who would be salivating at the idea of shedding the rest of his deal. The Giants beat writers scoffed at this idea when I proposed it and one of them, I think Baggs, said the Giants would only be looking at a 2 month rental. Suggested our sights be set closer to Jeff Francour.
Can I raise a topical point? Why should the Giants just be looking for a 2 month rental? Because Angel Pagan is such a rock solid reliable player? This is beyond stupid. The Giants are the worst team in the history of baseball at developing outfielders. So the pipeline is bare and broken UNTIL they produce one.
During the season, that means trades are the only way of acquiring legitimate mlb talent. Tell me what could possibly be wrong with picking up a steady outfielder like Markakis for the long haul?
When and if Pence came back this year, BELIEVE ME there would be a spot for him. And there will be a spot next year. And probably the year after that.
I’m not saying that Markakis is the answer, but the idea that the replacement has to be some shit-done player like Francour is ludicrous. If they’re going to do that, just do the Mac-Park thing instead. We need good outfielders. Lots of them. We should stockpile them.
Markakis is available? Great. Come aboard. You got a brother? Bring him too.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Just in case you are curious (and I can’t see why you would) Tyler Lyons is referred to as the Patron Pitcher on my site due to his great taste in uniform numbers.
Two games in a row that Smarge has coughed it up.
Double off the bag and 3-0 HR off the foul pole after a two out single. 3 line drive outs for SF follow. The bad luck stat . . . .
This is the Bad Smarge everyone saw last year.
4 bombs so far? Jeez.
I wasn’t expecting this until Peavy tomorrow.
Wow. That got ugly fast.
Now 9 HRs allowed in 81 innings for Smarge, exactly at his career average for the season.
Still think we win this.
Not saying you are wrong, but we’ve been pretty comfortable with the bullpen this year. For the most part, they’ve been extremely solid.
well, he’s only wrong if they don’t win, lulz
yeah, the ball is flying out tonight. Three innings left, they could easily win this.
Parker didn’t strike out. Improvement I guess.
I was curious about Zumie’s Glavine/Kershaw/Bumgarner observation. Here are the 2016 called strikes for each on curveballs and sliders:
Kershaw: http://tinyurl.com/jscy9bj
Bumgarner: http://tinyurl.com/zv5zfue
Bum has actually gotten more out of the zone calls than Kershaw on the breaking ball. The percentage of out of the zone strike calls is nearly identical, i.e., Kershaw is not getting treatment any more special than Bumgarner is this year.
A raw chart isn’t going to show it, IMO. I want to see a comparison on 2-strike pitches. Who gets that called third strike more often on that pitch?
Good question, hold on 🙂
And, admittedly, Kershaw has a great curveball; but Bum’s is one of the better ones around.
I’ll try not to get annoyed watching Kershaw pitch. 🙂
I’m better about this than the Dodger fans, though. They LOATHE Bum.
Kershaw: http://tinyurl.com/zdvkw89 — 7 out of 15 called strike 3s out of the zone
Bum: http://tinyurl.com/zdvkw89 — 6 out of 13 called strike 3s out of the zone
Good work, sir. Just about even. Maybe I just happened to see the games where Kershaw got all 7 of his. 🙂
The Jarrett Parker Era is starting quietly.
Ahhh, shit.
Peavey tomorrow? Uh, we’re gonna need a bigger bat.
No problem; the Braves got this tonight.
I made a funny.
lol. They don’t even get to throw Folty, they had to turn to Bud Norris.
They want Folty to have a better chance to win. A total give-up by the Braves tonight.
The Giants did enough to win today. This was all on Smarjshatza.
WTF? I leave and SF is up 4-0, come back, it’s a 7-4 loss. Sounds like a HR fest against Smardz. Peavy tomorrow? Uh oh…
snarkk: regarding Bobbie Gentry, yesterday the WashPost tracked her down tho’ did not say exactly where. Great story. she became the J.D. Salinger of country music.
What does that mean, she can sing “Catcher In The Rye”?
I’m giving a pass to the Shark tonight (unlike against the Braves, where he had no excuse).
The matchup was going to be tough against the Cardinals, who are ranked second and first against right-handed pitching in team wOBA and ISO respectively. Conversely, Jeff has kept batters to a wOBA of under .291 from both sides of the plate this year. In short, it was a tossup on who would come up on top before the game and with the Cardinals having already been such a good offense against righties this year, as we saw – they ultimately prevailed.
Consequently, I am going to be very interested in his next start and we’ll see if this is a continuing trend.
SYRACUSE MINOR LEAGUE UPDATE, sans Manny Burriss: Biggest crowd of the year, Little League night. Warm and pleasant. John, my buddy whose mom died a few weeks ago, brought a first date, all the way from Cortland (she’s actually from Ithaca; I joked with her, saying by law you have to be wear Birkenstocks and be tested for gluten before entering the city of Ithaca; Macdog can chime in on that). DOG WHISTLE INCIDENTS: Hart Seely says I pick up Giants fan vibes like a dog hearing a dog whistle. 1. This one guy had on a black and orange NY cap. I said, “Nice hat.” He was excited I knew. It’s a 1948 Giants hat. Year of my birth. He said he typically just gives up and tells people, yeah, it’s a Mets hat. His son had the coolest hat going: the El Paso Chihuahuas. He said they were allowed to pick any hat for LL and he picked that just for the hat. I want one. 2. Then I talked to Jim and Becky from Philly. Ryan Howard called third strike. domonic Brown, who was playing for Buffalo in front of us. Game? What game? 3. Season ticket holder Matt Loveland won a World of Beer gift cert. He was to pick it up at the courtesy table, near where I was standing. Matt Loveland?! We follow each other on Twitter. Before I even said a word to him, he said, “Are you Paul?” He’s a Brewers fan. A prof at Le Moyne, my alma mater. Small-town meeting that surprises no one.
That’s awesome stuff, Pawlie. Very cool.
That’s me. I sheepishly admit that my manic nature, at times, puts the action on the field in the background, but not for every inning. Isn’t that part of watching baseball?
I’ve been out and about all day and missed the game and the blog. Just read the Jim Ray Hart article and agree it was well written, but sad. I love those 1973 cards. That was the second year I bought baseball cards and I bought a bunch of them.—but I didn’t have that Hart card and don’t think I’d ever even seen it before, which is rare.
Went for my first swim in the ocean today. Spent 45 minutes catching a few waves and trying to keep warm. There was a seal playing in the waves not far from me and a lot of these little red crawdad-looking things washed up on the beach and a few swimming around me in the water. Good stuff.
Love the minor league re-cap Pawlie and that you keep an eye on Manny Burriss for us!
I did kind of a Pawlie thing myself while coming out of the water today. A guy was walking on the beach, kind of wading in the water with a couple of buddies and he had on a well worn Minnesota Vikings jersey with #7 on it.
I used to LOVE me some Randall Cunningham, so I asked in an incredulous tone if that was a Randall Cunningham jersey. He and his buddies got a big kick out of me making that call and he proudly spun around to show me the name on the back. The little things in life are pretty cool.
Hopefully the Hart article changed your CPA (cavalier patch attitude)…
LULZ
A few weeks ago I saw someone wearing a Raiders’ Jeff George jersey. Kind of tripped me out a little.
Sharks win in OT!
Great Shark win in OT, Top shelf goal by Joonas Donskol for the winner 3-2..
Get this series tied up now..
Good, I hate the fuckin’ Penguins…
Seems every Rangers fan — actually every Rangers, Devils, Flyers fan — I know can’t stand that team, especially Crosby.
Damn, that story about Jimmy Ray Hart really stinks. Those teams around the late 60s and early 70s are the teams I grew to love and become a fan of as I was growing up. He was a big part of that. Like the guy said, even his name was cool. Would hope for a much better fate than that.
Sharks created lots of good chances. they look like they can play with Penguins just fine and Jones looks good.
Hope they can continue to find back of the net.
Up 4-0, then get smoked 7-4?
Guess I’ll just have another piece-a apple pie; you know, it don’t seem right…
Awesome…
Only taking 2 of 4 games from this crappy Braves team still rankles.
Folty to the DL. He hurt his arm defeating the Giants.
Braves stupidly run themselves out of an inning.
Thanks to Loo for playing along tonight w/me and Bobbie…
A 4-0 game took 3 1/2 hours to play. Not a big success at speeding up play.
Agree, a split w/ lowly Braves is crappy. But as much as I hate to rain on what seems like a big fat parade, my feeling is that the Giants have been damn lucky of late with the likes of Wacha walking the bases loaded and the likes. For what is supposed to be such a stellar lineup how many games have we recently won 1-0, 2-1 ? I don’t get the apathy I feel like is demonstrated. And , worse is that it is mostly the high dollar guys and that can only run down hill to the younger players. Happy as heck with the record but frankly not impressed with how we’re getting there. Without Bochey we might be basement dwellers.
Welcome to the Flap Richard . . . 🙂
Well, it’s better than losing those 2-1 and 1-0 games. Kinda like 2010, ya know? Remember torture?
Well, after last Samrdz outing Peavy dominated. That was against Braves of course, and Cards will mount a superior LU. But he is from over near Choctaw Ridge part of America, and like Bum I think he prefers pitching in warmer weather.
I’d like to see Tomlinson take 3rd for a game or two. Sit Duffy, get him get a mental break. No way he should be hitting in the 3 hole. It’s asinine he’s there the way he’s been hitting, and that’s a criticism of Bochy. Deserved…
Dubs keep the pressure on tonite. If they can take this one, there is no way Cavs will take 4 of the next 5 games, and both teams know it…
GREAT thread, Flavor. I have been out and about this weekend, and getting ready to dash up the hill and check-out a campground and go for a hike.
But I ABSOLUTELY agree with your approach on OF help. Fuck that stopgap shit. I think Pagan can “possibly” come back and be serviceable and contribute, but there is no guarantee. Blanco is fine for spot starts and as a very good 4th, and Parker and Williamson have shown nothing to convince me they are anything but AAAA players. With that said, Evans (with direction from Sabes, of course) needs to go out and get an OFer to not only fill the gap while Pence is out, but that will be a viable starter for a few years to come. To me, THAT would be SMART baseball.
ESPN tonight…fuck I hate ESPN games. I may have to go volume down and deal with the delay on the radio. Or just say fuck it and follow the game via radio, or online at the site Blade uses (hey Blade, what is that site, again?).
Make it an awesome rest of the day Flappers.
Oh yeah, nice rally to win in OT by the Tiburones. One day, one game at a time. Just the way the Warriors did with OKC.
Let’s take this series from the Redbirds when they (and probably most of us) least expect it (with a suspect Peavy on the hill). Go Giants!
new thread!