Trying Not To Stress On This Mess
Yesterday I said I’m not giving up but I’m taking the first step towards that (Oregon?) and that is trying to extricate myself from the normal emotions I’ve had for these games. You simply can’t will a forlorn team to victory and that’s what the Giants are right now. So, why spend time feeling shitty about it?
I woke up this morning remembering the 2014 team. At least, trying to remember them. I remembered Bum and Panda and….that was about it. I also remembered not allowing myself to believe they could actually pull that off until they were literally declared the NL rep in the World Series. I pulled up the post season 25 man roster just to get some of the old feelings back about that team.
Our SP’s were listed as Bum, Huddy, Peavy, Voggy. Hmmmm…. I think I’d take Bum, Cueto, Moore and Smarge over those 4.
Our 5 outfielders were….I can barely type this without laughing…..Blanco, Ishikawa, Morse, Pence and Juan Perez. Even a Span disliker like myself would prefer Pagan, Span and Pence out there…..
I probably shouldn’t have looked up that 2014 team. It’s screwing up my attempt to release myself from the emotions I’ve been having for the 2016 team.
The main emotion I’m having trouble with his *frustration*. I don’t understand why we are the worst team in mlb since the break. We have good SP and good enough position players to be AT WORST like a mid-pack team. I can’t put it on the coaching staff because it’s not their job to motivate these guys. The coaching staff could fuck it up if they were completely incompetent but not even R-Kelly could bungle that many *sends*. And it’s not fair to put it all on the bullpen. They haven’t been that bad. In fact, many games they are very good but no one seems to notice.
And yet here we sit at 15-29. Makes no sense to me at all! But hey, it’s been 20 years and I still don’t even know wtf *hakuna matata* means.
Just try to relax, Flavor. Exhale…Serenity now, serenity now……
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
A .341 winning%!
Too many white boys? I kid, I kid. The championship teams were a mix that just seems to be missing with this club. It’s crazy that the 1st half Mash Unit was outperforming the current roster. Bad breaks, slumping bats, bullpen hiccups, yaddaa, yadda. It this point they just need to try easier or something. Hey, baseball at 1120 is pretty sweet.
Go Giants!
We got paid back 3 times over for decades of loyalty and disappointment.
Who would have ever even dreamed that was possible?
We ain’t long suffering fans anymore.
This shit is still aggravating but probably easier to accept for most of us.
We may actually be spoiled.
DJLoo
Remember the name of the guy on the Splash that would always sign his posts?
He was excellent…
Yeah. Older guy. Or at least, his handle suggested that. Someone will remember it. Ed something?
Very good, Flav.
The correct answer is: Midwest Ed
he was a good Splasher…..
Watching scores fly across during Stanford game (wow Shaw has the imagination of an amoeba for playcalling)
what struck me I think there were only 3 games that didn’t have playoff implications.
And yes, most every team pertaining to Giants, lost–LA to Padres, Cards to Reds, Pirates shut out by Brewers no less, Mets and Marlins.
Flav thx for look at roster of 2014. I recall 2010, when Giants had to run down Pads late just to get in on last day thx to a triple by J Sanchez. doesn’t get any weirder than that. Nobody liked their chances then, either.
Saw something on yahoo site that made me think. Ryan Howard’s contract will finally run out this month, and with $10 mil buyout Phils will be done with him. Very sympathetic posts on “The good phight” site, remembering what he did early in his career. They plan to have highlights of his top ABs.
As Giants fans we’ll remember one that won’t be on it, of course.
What would Giants fans think if Cain’s contract got bought out?
Or if it went all the way through next season with similar results as 2016?
He won’t take a penny less than what he has coming to him and why should he?
They either release him or not and deal with the consequences, if any.
The money is spent either way…
What’s known as a sunk cost in economics. Well said, Loo.
Going into the season many of us mentioned that this is the best club Bochy has had in SF. Then key players like Pence, Panik & Duffy (sniff) went down and Bowker Gang replacements did better than just keeping the ship afloat. Maybe Bochy’s greatest strength is getting the most out of border line players rather than pushing stars to new heights.
Last night, Haft said on KNBR:”I can’t put my finger on it, but something is missing from this year’s team compared to the other teams during this championship era.”
A Flapper the other day mentioned how the bullpen used to have a swagger to it. The pen was very good, and knew it. Maybe the team used to feed off that bullpen swagger.
Yep, I’ve been saying the same for a while.
It’s gone from swagger to stagger…
Was that Ed Goodson guy that used to sign posts?
Hope Bozo stays out of Hurricane’s way.
And Stix hasn’t been eaten by alien hybrid mosquitoes sent by CIA drones.
Looks like the “Oh, really” incident may have claimed Lisle as well…
Oh Lisle. Man, he went hard at BF from the get-go, and kept going at him. There was some kind of intent there.
The Giants are bringing up Joe Nathan! This will be the turning point! 🙂
a last desperate attempt to grasp that swag.
Gotta thank snarkk too before I hit work for the Rawhide vid last night.
Frankie Laine doing that theme song always got to me.
Gal I talked to yesterday in store was wearing a lapel pin of…Yosemite Sam. What in tarnation!
Lisle had his supporters and his detractors. Ironically, I was always in the middle about him until he suggested I was lying (and Dan Gladden was lying) about Nunie’s arm. He’s free to post here, he just chooses not to. I think the only guys who are banned are Denny and ODB.
I kinda miss Lisle. It’s nice when new folks comment here. Isn’t he a sort of famous working musician? Maybe he’s on tour or in the studio or something.
i think he’s a musician working on being famous. But to be honest, I never paid that much attention to what he did for a living.
Hey, if you can make a decent living in the arts all the power to you. it beats working for The Man.
I sensed he would sometimes get frustrated when he would write a lengthy post and not get any feedback on it. Maybe Stix, too. I could be wrong…
Yeah, could be. Comment threads aren’t good for long dissertations. Anything more than a paragraph and I just skim past it. I accepted that no one reads my posts like 4-5 years ago.
nobody should take getting ignored here personally. It’s a place to vent, #1. I wrote a thread today that was riddled with subtle ironies and secret innuendos and nobody noticed. And you know what? I’m totally cool with that because I wrote it mostly for….me. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Lulz…I didn’t miss it big man. I read all of your posts as soft porn slow jams.
sweet. Play some Barry White in the background next time, it’ll be the best shit you’ve ever read.
Andrew Baggarly @extrabaggs 1h1 hour ago
Nathan is a nice story, but how do Giants justify carrying a 13th reliever and just two catchers, one of whom is sick? Mind boggling.
And I read that Brown is REALLY sick. Like they ruled out Mono or maybe they ruled out strep, I can’t remember. Either way, he shouldn’t be playing baseball right now…
He looked like he was gonna collapse on 2nd base yesterday.
Sometimes this team makes you wonder…
Dirt, ever since you taught me about *lulz* I have read every word you’ve written. Twice!
I read every word everybody posts except…..I might skip past some of the Fantasy sports talk and horse-racing talk. But I don’t mind that stuff being posted. It all adds to life’s rich pageant on the Flap.
Giving this thread the respect it deserves. lulz
Perfect. Now the thread is making sense to everyone. “Best thread ever!” they’ll say. “Thank God for the Flap!” they’ll shout from the highest peaks…..
If any of you skip over posts like these then there is something very wrong with you.
Love that Gibson comment. Awesome. I wish we had a badass like that right now on the Giants. Bum is a bit of a redass IMO, not a badass like Gibson…
LOL. Gibby was one of a kind.
Soler scratched with an ingrown toe nail. That’s gotta piss off a well groomed manager like Maddon. If you can’t even attend to your toe nails growing INSIDE of you what other critical manscaping duties are you ignoring? I’ve never had an ingrown toe nail and I NEVER FUCKING WILL…..
Dude, not to be a pissant here, but you can really pay attention to your toes and still get one. I had one about six months ago on my big toe, and I pay attention to those piggies. The foot doc said I had snipped the nail too short on the side that developed the problem, and that’s what caused the ingrown. Ok, my bad. The toe blew up like a small Roma tomato — hurt like a mutha. Doc shot up the toe, then basically snipped off 1/4 of the nail on the right side straight down from top to bottom. Bled all over the place, but within a week, all good with some hot water antibiotic soaks, etc….
Interesting. see, this is why I read every comment at the Flap. You can learn shit here.
ok, time for a DISH run with some mental focus mixed in preparing me for today’s loss. Catch you guys on the flip side. Hakuna matata.
Flavor
As long as the Dodgers keep tripping on their bats, I hold out hope that the Giants bats get freaking hot. I’m even not too upset on the last 2 one run loses….pitching isn’t the problem. Stringing runs together is.
Time for a Hunter pep talk…
I’m going to the ocean on the way to work to see what should be some gnarly waves ahead of Hermine’s arrival sometime tomorrow. Anything to avoid the Giants.
From multiple sources I’ve read, there is no such thing in MLB as “buying out” a contract that has multiple years to run. Under the CBA these contracts are guaranteed, period. You cut a player with term of 2 or more years left on his deal, he get’s ALL the money he’s due. Cue Russ Ortiz and the Dbacks. So, the Giants can get rid of Cain this November, but they’ll owe him the $20MM next year and the $7MM “buy out” for the year after. Only if there’s a year left with that reduced “buy out” option for the club, is there a “buy out”. If the player retires, then the contract can be “bought out” under those circumstances. Last year, Cuddyer retired with a couple of years left on his deal with the Mets, and they paid him less than he was owed, because he chose to retire. He could have stayed active, crapped out, and gotten DFA’d, and watched the guaranteed checks roll in, but he retired instead for less money in a lump sum immediately — a stand up move on his part, IMO. The NBA allows buyouts with multiple years left, where the player gets his immediate freedom to do a new contract with another team, in exchange for taking less than he’s guaranteed from his current squad for the remaining years on that deal…
Yeah, Cuddyer’s a rare exception in baseball. There was no way Scutaro was going to retire even though he couldn’t play anymore. We had the farce of regular Scutaro rehab updates.
I get tired of hearing media use the term “stopper” for Bum or Cueto. The starting pitching has not been the problem lately. You can’t win getting 2 runs a game, or getting 6 hits over 2 games, with 3 of them from Pence. Friggin Bum could pitch a no-hitter through nine today, the very definition of stopper, and still may not win the way this lineup hits. I’m sure James can come up with some stats that support the problem has been pitching, but it’s not really. The pitching has been OK overall in this nosedive after the first part of it, notwithstanding the inconsistent Pen, and the defense has been great lately (17 games straight at end yesterday without an error, that ties a NL record — going for 18 in a row today which would tie MLB record)…
Well, you took care of that streak, Snarkk…
Ok, I’m going to go with this: based on the last 2 games and Arrieta going, the Giants can’t possibly score more than 2 today…
Bochy should manage today like his hair is on fire. With Bum going, he should do everything and anything to get some runs on the board against Arrieta…
He should’ve been managing like that for the last month.
Pagan gets it going, and Pence makes contact. But, it works. Nice to start up by one…
Belt,
Glad to see that not hurt.
Subtle issue, but Belt’s gaffe cost Bumgarner 8 pitches. From a thrifty 8 pitch inning to a 16 pitch inning. Bum tends to throw a lot of pitches anyway. Staying out of that bullpen with your ace on the mound is important today. Those 8 pitches may come back later in tight game.
Looks like we have to make that run stand up.
Flav, you should do a Flap t-shirt and sell them.
Need a good logo or graphic or something like that. Something catchy. It’d make for a great shirt and would draw a lot of questions. The knowing dude head nod.
Any of you dudes think the Giants core is just tired/bored/can’t get excited about playing, after winning 3 titles recently? I can’t really fathom that, but I can’t come up with another rationale as to why there has been a team-wide cratering of hitting in the second half. Every team is going to hit a bad week or two in scoring/hitting in a season. But, basically going into a hitting disaster for 2 months across the entire team just is beyond my comprehension — this team has talent that should not be this poor this long at hitting and scoring. Maybe the frustration of hitting at ATT is finally getting to them?…
That the frustration of hitting at AT&T hasn’t gotten to them years ago is a testament to the quality of the team since 2010. Because of that quality, I find it hard to believe they’re bored, but maybe fatigue is a problem. Sometimes good baseball teams flounder.
Giants batting stats and position in NL since AS break:
13th in runs scored; 11th in SLG; 9th in BA; 13th in HRs; 12th in RBI; 10th in hits; 8th in OBP, dead worst in entire MLB (season to date) at runners left in scoring position at 3.92/game. The thing that stands out is that they are putting guys on base at a middle of the pack clip, but can’t score them. I think that is a large function of them not hitting HRs, in a year when MLB is hitting dingers like they’re playing with Super balls…
And it seems like so many lead-off doubles have died without scoring, or even advancing to third.
Arrieta’s pitches seem to get on the hitters before they can time him. Deceptive delivery + wicked stuff = bad for hitters, as Buster Posey drills one to the mound for the third out.
Giants pitching stats in the post AS break period:
7th in ERA at 4.07; 3rd best in WHIP at 1.28; 5th WORST at giving up HRs at 55; 3rd best in BA against at .243; 3rd best in hits against. These say to me that despite the Pen inconsistency, the HRs are an issue, but generally, pitching isn’t the root problem in this nosedive…
Sometimes I think Nunie has real star potential…
Despite a hiccup or two he’s been very good defensively. He needs to hit better.
HIs D has been better than expected, the hitting way worse…
Kuip is losing it. I could tell from here that the ball just hit was doinked. He made it sound like it was going out.
Giving up HRs and not hitting them is the theme. Bummie gives up one and they lose 1-0. Smarge had a game like that. There have been probably 6 or 7 that were pitched well but for a bomb or 2.
And no offense. Bummie is dealing though.
Clutch, baby, clutch.
Nunie with the 2-out RBI !
Ball’s in your court, Bum.
Since Duffy and Nunie left and arrived, respectively:
Duffy: .269/.300/.343/.643
Nunie: .237/.304/.419/.723
Bum is dealing.
This game sizing up like so many others. Good Giants pitching, Giants not scoring a lot. Mid-late innings HRs by oppo could spell doom. Giants need to add on, and Bum keep that pitch count down so he can stay in and get these Cubphucks out. I don’t trust our Pen to keep the ball in the park, even with the wind blowing in some…
Nooner is really impressing me defensively.
I think we really need a Flapalooza next year at Wrigley…
Kelly Crull might be hotter than Amy G. Amy might get Pipped if Kelly moved to S.F.
Arrieta’s pitch count is creeping up.
Miller ripping Pagan for swinging at that high pitch on a 3-1 count…
Your welcome to willieD on that Rawhide vid last night. Iconic show from my very early youth. One of the top 10 TV show themes, ever, IMHO. I give this advice to the Giants to add on today: Gettem’ up, Mov ’em out! …
Sure would of been hilarious if Pete Lacock was on the same team with Dick Pole and Rusty Kuntz…
Hiccup
That run should’ve never score there.
They fell asleep on that.
Another fucking dinker somehow gets a run in
Well, that is just bullshit defense right there by Nunie. You cannot, cannot let a score in on that kind of play…
Crawfish lollygagged it as well.
Bum has to be hacked off to have that called a hit, and give up an RBI…
Bum sure is entertaining…
I think we need an angry Bummie. Special K there.
Yeah, but when he gets pissed off, he tends to lose focus, and gives up a dinger…
Nunez hasn’t been good on bare-hand pick-ups.
It was going to be a hit all the way. He should’ve just eaten it.
And Chuck is right, Craw’s lapse was what let the run in. Snarkk asks earlier why a team this good can play so bad, maybe it’s little stuff like that.
And Craw makes up for the play with heads-up baserunning. That catcher is having a hell of a time catching Arrieta.
Giants need a goddam outfield that can kick some ass at bat. I mean power…
Cub announcer called the WP…
yeah he did. thanks dude. lol Craw was a third of the way down the line with his lead.
Crawfish makes up for his lollygag
Awesome by Crawford! Finally, somebody does something to force the D to make a play. And, they phuck it up in two straight plays, including the WPitch for the score. That’s what you need to do to win these games! Stop sitting on your ass waiting for something to happen. MAKE it happen…
John Smoltz was talking up the Cub’s D the other day, when they’re 19th in the Majors in fielding percentage. Today they’re proving they came be a little ragged in the field. Could cost them in the playoffs.
Check that, 22nd in the Majors. Not too good.
Fuck, 13th in fielding percentage, 22nd in errors. Giants are 6th in both.
Shit. Not crazy bout the throw going through. Got to get through this, Bummie.
These guys get more flairs…
The Cubs are using up all their good mojo in the regular season with these doinks…
Pitch 100. Come on!
And more fucking foul balls then I can remember seeing. Unbelievable.
Bum has big balls…
Does Bum come out for the 7th?
He looked to be tiring in the 6th. The fucking Cubs dinked and fouled him to death.
Bring him out, yank him if someone gets on.
Makes sense, LJ.
I wonder if they let Bum decide…
Yep, one guy gets on, he’s done. Then, cross your fingers for this Giants Pen. Bochy might use every single one of the 13 relievers now available…
Take me out to the ballgame is so lame – or am I just an old grouch?
Their idiot drunk fans seem to enjoy it, so why not?
Well, I guess Boch had seen enough, and too many pitches for Bum. I was going to say why have Lopez pitch to the righty, but Ross got the hit off him before I could type it. I just don’t get that at all. You’ve got relievers out the wazoo in the Pen, and he pitches Lopez to a righty…
Well, Cubs fans were raised on Harry Carey’s off-key version and he often sounded like he was nipping some of the good stuff during the games, so maybe they’re just following suit.
Why the fuck was Pence playing so fuckin’ deep?
He likes talking with the bleacher bums?…
Am I wrong to feel danger coming with our Pen now at work?…
Grave danger?
No. I’d be worried if you didn’t feel danger.
Strickland — has Bryant down 0-2, and throws a FB right down the middle. Idiot. He does that shit again and again. These guys can hit 98 mph fastballs down the middle — has he not gotten that message yet?…
Well, is it a strike or isn’t it? I don;t like the walk, but those calls were all over the place. In one AB