We Won? Huh?
So sticking Nunie and Span at the bottom of the LU turned out to be the trick. Interesting…..
Matt Moore has been dominant in 3 of his last 4 starts. He’s been the anti-Leake. I don’t see any reason why he can’t keep that going tonight. Whether we can string together 2 good hitting games in a row is definitely in question. Luke Weaver isn’t like those 3 bad Padre pitchers, he’s actually pretty good. And we don’t know him. Uh oh.
Wonder what it’s like to be a Cardinal fan this morning. Losing to the Giants has got to be an ignominious defeat. Those fans have been going through a pretty parallel year with us. Disappointment, frustration, being let down time and time again. Just like Giants fans, right?
It’s probably almost easier to be an A’s fan. You know you’re going to suck, there are no surprises when you ultimately do.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
I have been saying “damn, I sure want to see that ass-kicking team from the first half of the season,” and Wala, there they were last night. Complete game by the Dreadlocked Dominican. The bats woke up. Let’s see more of that, please!
Charlie and Dirt – way to bring the mojo. You guys must go to the rest of the remaining games, home and away.
On a separate note, it appears Blade made it safe and sound to SE Asia. Wish him your best, I am sure it will be a rough trip. 😉
Yeah, I see some frustration parallels between our boys and the Cards, but the one main difference, and this is the one that just fries my ass, is the Giants were hands down one of the best teams in all of baseball (if not THE best) going into the break. And we don’t need to discuss what transpired afterwards. Talking about Jekyll and Hyde!
Time for boots on the throats…TAKE NO PRISONERS. We are running out of “tomorrows.”
Nice to see Giants light up Wainwright, best night of sleep I’ve had all week.
Pagan Posey Pence and Span who got crucial rbis to take game out of dreaded save situation. Cueto lights out after 4th. SPs gonna have to continue to hold other team in the yard and Cards have plenty of power.
But you can’t just pretend second half didn’t happen–totality of their record is who they really are. Pagan and Belt aren’t hitting .300 any more and the power outages from Posey and Craw are real, and Panik is a .250 hitter. CF has been mostly expensive disaster btw Span and Blanco. The idea that Span could defend CF and hit (leadoff no less) was dead wrong. I’ll stand by what I said yesterday—Bochy and Evans have to wear this.
Bochy made sure Casilla was coming back and closing. He and Evans had other complete fails on getting another year out of Peavy Cain and Lopez; 4 guys that’s a third of their pitching staff they completely overestimated. Their intended replacements Osich and Gearrin just not good enough. Too bad Romo was hurt and missed so much time but Evans did nothing to replace him.
Closers were dealt at deadline, Evans couldn’t get one. Like GH said, suppose a real closer like Melancon saved half of the games Casilla etc. blew—Giants would be in first place right now and way up on WC.
Hello from the other side. Here’s my writeup from today. You can skip over the first part about the Cards/Cubs game from Wednesday if you want.
http://www.cardsconclave.com/2016/09/16/playoff-race/
Thanks, Daniel. Your description, as Craig mentions, there are definitely some parallels (suffering) between our teams. I will be at a concert tonight, but you can bet I will be following the game via my phone (I’ll potentially get a bit of grief from my better half, but probably not…she understands it is stretch time for the playoffs).
One more salvo–the biggest difference in second half is that Giants are making type of mistakes are bad baseball. Baserunning gaffes and getting picked off, made worse by poor coaching at 3b, pitchers not covering bags and walking or beaning guys with runners on, failure to advance runners (like Wong did last night that got props from Kruk who must have been surprised to see someone do that) and adding onto leads when they had an opportunity to take pressure off beleaguered pen.
First half Giants were playing winning baseball and doing the little things right. Second half, no. The whole thought was “once we get regs back we’ll be fine” turned out to be completely wrong. Pence took forever to get his game back and Panik is still struggling along at .250 Losing Specs and Williamson turned out to be much more damaging. Hope those guys are bigger part of next year and CF gets solved somehow.
Agree Willie (not doing the “little things, etc.” So, when I have seen Flappers bag on the construction of the team, I disagree. The team is NOT significantly different first/second half. There is no reason this team now cannot do the “little things” and play some fundamental ball. They do that, and a lot of those close losses would have been wins. There is no reason this team cannot return to some semblance of the team we saw in the first half, IMO.
Hey their new trick pony is no batting practice before the game and their gonna do it again today. They couldn’t hit with batting practice before so why not? Mix it up the dog days of summer everyone’s tired might as well save some energy…
Agree, Kat. WTF…time to try something different. “Hey Rockie – watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!”
papa says just enough critical stuff to keep Kruk real, awkward for him I’m sure.
Affeldt was on radio with Kuip, quite interesting tho I only heard half inning. He can take Flem’s spot anytime.
Tell ya I couldn’t believe Buster tagging to 3rd on the fly ball. Got a little lucky there on the drop.
Unexpectedly fun night at the park tho.
Glad you got to see a win, brother! Fuck, it has been so long, I cannot remember the last game I attended in which I saw a win!
Here We Come!
Yeah that Colo loss was very hard to stomach. It felt like 5 losses at once.
Chuck, Nice meeting up with you last night. Good times.
A quick look at the headlines on Cardinal70’s blog and it’s probably safe to say there have been a lot of parallels this year.
It was a nice night at the yard. I’ve been to six games this year and I think that is the third time that Cueto has been pitching. He works fast and is fun to watch. I had a pretty good view of the Posey play at 3rd and it really illustrated to me how slow he is on the bases. That might be reason enough to move him to the 5 spot in the LU. He did a good job there though. Good game all around. They grinded it out for #78.
GOLD.
Grind, baby, Grind. Yeah, Buster was out by 10′. And yeah, the game my daughter took me to a few weeks ago was a Cueto gem as well, so I returned the favor and took her.
Setting ’em up and mowing ’em down. I think Cueto got the last 17 outs w/o allowing a runner.
You tell her I said hi Chuck???
Every game from here on is a playoff game. This is when players need to step up. Cueto and Crawford did it last night (Crawford in the field, so great to watch). Pence too, he’s hot, and if he stays hot, he’s the offensive piece that has been missing all season. And if Brucie starts managing like it’s the playoffs, then perhaps it shall be.
There are times I think he is managing too much. Too many matchup pitching changes and the like. Not trusting W Smith late in games. I don’t know.nthe pen’s a mess but he has to trust these guys in their roles and set something up going forward.n
The mystery of Joe Panik….he hits a lot of line-drives and hard grounders, but they often are right at the defense. At this point, it has to be more than just bad-fortune BABIP. He needs to make an adjustment, and try to use more of the field. I have a theory, and I could be totally wrong, of course, that his HRs kind of mess him up, just like Blanco. Those HRs are cool when they happen, but then they’re often followed by ABs with over-swinging and some warning-track fly-outs.
“Do They Know It’s a Playoff Race?
by CARDINAL70 on SEPTEMBER 16, 2016
Given the last couple of games, you’d be forgiven if you came to the conclusion that the answer to that question is “no”. At a time when wins are paramount, it’s seemed at times that the club is just going through the motions.”
Just change the word “games” to “months,” and that describes the Giants. Last night being an obvious exception.
Not to have been able to produce offensively as they did last night in those 3 games against the Padres is absurd. Winning just two of those would have been so different psychologically to the team. I can’t buy that just having the day off from BP and getting to the park late all of sudden made hitters out of them. Keep that lineup from last night and play it out this series…
He’s under and over managed. Under re in game management and Small ball to score some runs, over re the Pen cuz he can’t figure out roles…
So apparently Kevin Frandsen has a radio show somewhere in the Bay Area, and was encouraging Giants fans to really rally the team at the ballpark. You know, there’s nothing we need from Frandsen. He can just go away. Why in the world would I care what Frandsen thinks about anything? The team played horrible baseball, overall, for two months. I think the fans have done pretty darned well in staying loyal to the team and pulling for them.
Yeah, that makes sense. Bochy does stick with ‘his guys’ too much as well.
I was shocked to see Span out of the one hole and Nooner down the order as well.
Funny, I went to the game last night with a guy from work who is a die-hard Cards fan who lives in StL and he said for the most part he didn’t see a lot of backlash against Metheny by the fans there.
Yeah, Frannie can take a flying hike. He should be getting on the players for sucking so hard, not cajoling the fans to do more than they already have. I mean really, the bleachers last night were fairly reminiscent of the Stick as the wind was blowling straight out to LF. Where we were sitting. Yes the Jameson’s helped in the coffee, and yes, the Pence bomb got the game started on the right foot, but if they just keep playing like they should, then shit will be fine.
Shaun Estes is pretty much a talking hedge, but he said something very after that last loss. He said that beyond what has taken place these last couple months, all the tough losses and blown saves, the team still controls its destiny. They play well going forward, they are in the playoffs. Good, bad, or indifferent, this team has the starting pitching to take anyone down.
Of course it sounded a lot better to my ears after we won last night!
Span ain’t one of “his” guys. He’s a new Giant.
Have to use the high salary or he only plays veterans excuse…
I knew back in February that if the Giants were trailing LA by 4 games and still had 6 games left with them, they would be in control of their own destiny. Estes is just brilliant…
Well, then I don’t get the love affair. Span has been a non-entity. but then again so has the rest of the offense for the most part since the break. Day one I thought Nooner should replace Span at the top of the order. It still hasn’t happened other than spot starts here and there.
Span is Bochy’s type of guy, it doesn’t matter how long he’s been here. He shows up every day to play, walks and talks like a professional, has DONE IT BEFORE….Bochy fucking probably beats off to Span.
Everyone hated checklists. Strictly for bicycle spokes. You weren’t even allowed to flip them in my neighborhood and no one in history one ever actually checked the boxes. They did become more interesting to me the year I noticed that the better players were given card numbers ending in ‘0’ or ‘5’ and the best players were every 50 or 100. I still wonder why they did that…
blows my mind that you noticed that (the 0/5/50/100 thing)
I was much sharper 50 years ago…
I think it’s about 100% for sure that, when the season is over for the Giants, whenever that is, we’ll be hearing that Span was never fully healthy this season, as he recovered from off-season surgery. And then we’ll hear about how healthy he got during the off-season before the ’17 season, and then he’ll go out and have about the same season in ’17 that he’s having now. Lincecum and Cain raved about their off-season healing, too.
It’s the declining players last card to play: “I wasn’t healthy last season, but now I am, and I’ll have a really good season now, yada yada yada.”
I don’t think so, Zum. It would make the Giants look stupid for signing him. Remember the video he put out (tweeted?) showing him jumping over something from a standstill just to prove he was fine?
That’s a good point; but I’m wondering what he would say then. “I had a disappointing season, but I’ll show that I’m better than that”? He could say that, I guess, but it creates no hope. At least the injury recovery excuse gives some glimmer of hope.
i just watched the presser after they signed Span. Bochy could not have been jizzing more on the guy.
LF Angel Pagan (S)
2B Joe Panik (L)
C Buster Posey (R)
RF Hunter Pence (R)
1B Brandon Belt (L)
SS Brandon . Crawford (L)
3B Eduardo Nunez (R)
CF Denard Span (L)
P Matt Moore (L)
Stix is always pushing for Belt in the two-hole, and I think that would be interesting to try for at least one game, given all the walks Belt gets. But Bochy doesn’t go that far outside the box. As if the Giants weren’t desperate enough in the second half of the season to at least try it for one game.
I guess it was 2014 when Pence lead off a whole bunch of games during one of Pagan’s injury stints.
That was a little out there…
exactly. It actually makes sense. Bochy’s big idea of change is to not make them take batting practice. Jesus Christ. And that scored him some props in the media, lol.
Familia’s having a mini-adventure trying to close out the Twins…
But he did…
9 runs scored so far in Colorado. And they head to the 4th…..
Blanco is off the DL today and back on the roster.
Meanwhile, I think I saw a photo of Parker and Williamson on a milk carton.
Bochy has never played kids in Sept if the team was still in it. In all 3 WS runs he played vets. In fact, I don’t think I can ever remember him playing kids in Sept. If we were out of it, you’d see Mac and Parker. That’s how he’s always rolled and how he always will roll.
Yeah, I fully expect to see Blanco pinch-hitting in a crucial situation tonight. Maybe even faking the bunt on the first pitch and taking a strike, just to drive us a little batty.
Kevin Durant is at AT&T, and Twitter has a gif circulating of Willie Mays showing KD how to grip a baseball. It may become a classique.
Did he charge him for it?
Oh snap! 🙂
how can the Giants keep calling these sellouts?
they’re just late arrivals, like Chavez Raviners
I read an article a couple of years ago on the topic. There’s a bunch of arcane Byzantine rules that allow teams to set their own number of tickets sold for a sell-out. It doesn’t have to be the full capacity of the ballpark.
The park could have one fan sitting there, and if the seats are sold that number what Larry Baer calls a “sellout”, then it IS a sellout. I don’t see the big deal of whether it is or isn’t a sellout. Everybody knows it’s bullshit when 10,000 seats are empty…
i get that. My argument is that there is no fucking way in hell every seat has sold and there are like 20000 people there. If that. Look at the Durant video and a few of the shots of the upper deck. More than half decided not to show up and couldn’t even give the tickets away? Shit, you would think a homeless shelter or a bunch of boys and girls clubs could take the unused tickets and fill that place out
Maybe they count the seagulls…
A few years ago, late in a hopeless Jets season, one of the local papers wrote that there were nearly 40,000 no-shows at the game…
Affeldt is pretty good on the announcer side with Kuip. Pretty good. Maybe they’re auditioning the guy for sometime later, if Flemm decides he’s gotten too big to do Giants games…
And I always find it interesting how doing radio energizes Kuip.
He loves Krukow as a brother, and loves working with him; but I think deep down inside, Kuip wishes he and Miller had each other’s roles. Kuip would love to be the lead radio guy.
Hope he’s better than J.T. Snow. He just had no aptitude for it…
JT is like one of those American Idol tryout singers who Simon used to brutalize. Probably a bunch of people told JT he’d be good at it. He is not good at it……
Is he still at it? I just remember how bad he was and figured he moved on to something else…
no he’s done. But his attempt still resonates with me in how pathetic it was. Like when OJ tried Monday night football. Remember that first game he did? Stuttering his way through the opening segment. JT was better…..
On Bochy and his vets, Blanco can come off the DL and ride pine as far as I’m concerned. Agree with zum that if he were really hurting since May or whatever, it’s bullshit that he played like dog doo, hurt, over Williamson and Parker who could have been taking ABs for 3 months. I tend to doubt Blanco was hurt much all that time, he sucked so bad they finally DL’d him, and it looked to me a lot like the typical suckage-generated phantom “injury” deal. I agree that Bochy will probably PHit Blanco over Parker when a LHB is needed, and I will predict Blanco will do nothing with the chance — I hope he proves me wrong…
So far, the Giants are doing their usual thing of getting mowed down by a pitcher they’re not familiar with.
First time I heard that expression:
Honestly, there’s only like one truly smart high IQ manager out there: Maddon. That’s it. All the rest of them are products of their team and the outcome they produce…..
Article on SF Giants and “sellouts’.
Giants define a sellout as when they distribute more than 41,500 tickets for the game. Seating capacity is 41,915. So, actual attendance is meaningless, and accordingly, IMO, so is the “sellout” term…
http://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/SF-Giants-sellout-streak-a-numbers-game-3882485.php
so let’s say they distributed 41K tonight. Is the Bay Area THAT hoppin’ tonight that barely any of the recipients of what might have been mostly free tickets went to the game? This place looks like a freaking A’s game, no one is there……
So if they dropped 41,500 tickets out of a small plane over North Dakota it’s a sellout?
lol!
It’s felony littering…
all littering should be a felony
Whoa!!!!! Krukow just said ONEFLAPDOWN!!!!
Papa ain’t that exciting, is he?
He’s like listening to paint dry…
Speaking of IQs in baseball, I saw a young player the other night finish off his walk-off homerun by jumping up and landing hard with both feet on homeplate, probably completely unaware a player blew out his knee doing that several years ago. There isn’t that kind of historical knowledge with young players. The fans know way more of the history of the game than the players, in general, anyway. Football, too. I winced hard hearing Jerry Rice say some compliments about his wide-receiver mate John Taylor in an interview a couple of years ago. At one point Rice said “Taylor had two 70 yard touchdown catches in one game, I think.” Sheesh. It was two 90 yard catches (in a Monday night game vs. the Rams.) How could Rice not better remember such a big moment for Taylor? Kind of blew my mind. But I guess that kind of thing shouldn’t surprise me about players and former players.
Is this happening on everybody else’s TV?
There’s ALWAYS some glitches when it’s the local NBC coverage of the game. Fortunately, they don’t have the game all that often. Occasionally on some Friday nights, mostly.
Or were you being sarcastic about the rally? 🙂
Yes I was, Zum…
Man, Cardinal fans have it rough. Easily rougher than us. They are losing to the worst team in the National League. Getting beaten handily, actually. How are they over .500?
What the hell?
Giants got 6 runs? If Belt starts to keep hitting gappers into left center, that’s good news…
it’s nice to win yesterday and now probably tonight. But we still have 4 vs the Padres so whatever good times we start feeling now will get critically and immediately crushed when we have to play them again. That’s 4 L’s waiting to happen, gents…..
a sexpot! I mean, six spot!
Moore needs to pitch a CG.
Don’t let the Pen near this one, now that SF has a good lead…
6 unearned runs. That’s awesome.
If the Giants are at 41,401 tickets “distributed”, I hope they give away the needed 100+ tix to local kids groups or what have you to make the bullshit “sellout” happen…
This one ain’t over. It’s early. Cards are a homer happy bunch…
The wheels suddenly got a bit wobbly.
Superb yakker to end the 4th.
Giants, one error in their past 30 games, 3rd in MLB team fielding.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Buster Bomb!
Buster’s long nightmare is over.
With the Giants Pen waiting in Gasoline Alley, I can’t even enjoy this yet…
What the….?
Tomorrow, 80,000 will say they were there for Buster’s home run.
The Cardinal series woke the Giants up, but it makes the Padres series before that all the more galling.
Here comes the bullpen!
You are an evil genius, Zum…
Ha! Stop me before I gif again! 🙂
Shouldn’t Kontos be allowed to pitch another inning?
From the waist down, Broxton looks exactly like the bag of laundry I have to do tomorrow…
Gearrin with short hair? Is this new? I don’t like it!
Me either! How was Amy G not all over that?
Moore is friggin maddening.
The guy’s motion looks compact enough — so it’s weird the guy gets wild stretches, including walking 2 dudes in the 5th and walking in a run. If you can’t get through at least 6 when your team gets you 8 runs, man, that is sad…
I’m getting a strong look alike for Gearrin with this look, but I can’t quite figure out who it is. Jeff Reardon maybe?
Definitely your specialty since the epic Splittorff/Kickham comparison.
Here’s one Reardon version:
The Splittorf/Kickham look alike was my magnum opus. I can never top that one.
I’m actually enjoying McCarver’s analysis these past two nights. I’m really getting soft in my old age…
Edward Albee died today. 88.
He wrote “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and other plays, other works. 3 Pulitzers.
Woolf is one of my all time fav theater pieces. And, the movie with Liz did it more than justice, IMO. She and Burton were jaw dropping amazing in that film. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. Or, see the play. Best to have a drink before you see the play. Have something strong at hand if you watch the DVD. It’s not for the faint of heart — but, amazing nonetheless…
Ah, sad to hear, but 88, good life. Met him once, one of my classmates at university had a crush on him, she wrote him letters, and he responded to her and ended up giving a little talk at my uni one evening. Seemed like a nice guy, didn’t even try to hit on my friend… 🙂
Well, since he was gay, that might explain it… 😉
I took a class in college where that play was covered. I may have even read it. Never saw the play or movie, but now I’m intrigued.
Wow, they never show that on TV…
Did the Giants feed show the guy???
Yes, they showed the tackle from a distance and the police escort close up…
…or did you mean they never show Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf on TV???? (Lulz)
I can remember watching Dodger games as a kid in San Luis Obispo when they actually would show it on TV when a fan would run out on the field. It was highly entertaining. I miss the 70’s.
Totally underrated decade.
It had a tough act to follow…
Lulz, yeah. 70’s TV was the best though.
This doofus did a pretty memorable one.
http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/article/media_slots/photos/000/584/280/MiamiFSU_FanONField_original.gif?1350781304
He’s lucky one of those dudes didn’t light him up like a Christmas tree. FSU v The U? There were probably about 15 studs who went on to play in the NFL on that field right then.
Fun Fact: I asked MapDawg where he wants to transfer after community college. His response? “The U!”
Greg Papa seems like a nice guy but I don’t want to listen to him on Giants broadcasts. What’s up with Miller?
He has the weekend off.
I’m diggin’ your graphic communications today dj.
Zumie got me hooked…
I credit the In ‘n Out Burger burger I had for dinner. It gave me a good feeling about this game.
Get back to us later. (grin)
Good point!
Beats last year’s “Rally Yogurt”…
Yeah, yogurt couldn’t save the ’15 season.
Great game last night! Was following best I could from the Avett Brothers concert.
Here We Come! And seriously, why the fuck not!? This team has played the past two days the way we know and expect they can.
Just heard that WP Kinsella has passed (author of “Shoeless Joe”), which was the basis for Field of Dreams. RIP.
Zum, I read yesterday in Chron that Span vowed to be in better condition in off season…because this year he was rehabbing from whatever surgery and wasn’t able to properly train.
Quote from Schulman: “The 32 year old also hopes that a full winter of weight work and conditioning will make him stronger for 2017. Span was limited last winter after undergoing season ending hip surgery.”
@wilco: watched great game btw ASU and UTSA last night played in AlamoDome. Sun Devils won in 4th Q but were down at one point 28-12 before SA fell apart.
Fun fact: There are more Texas HS players in D-1 football than any other state, with Florida and Cal 2nd/3rd.