A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Before last night’s game I was hoping Cleveland would bounce the Cubs and end this series once and for all. I am not really feelin’ baseball right now and will be just as happy to start focusing on the hot stove. But now I am hoping this goes 7 and *Cubbie* fans get the full blown feeling of losing. Their nervous angst, hand wringing and praying in every tv shot is beyond annoying.

I wonder if their are any Brown’s fans who aren’t Indians or Cavs fans. There have to be, right? Suckers.

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#FreeStix! RPOTD– this one was in response to the MadBum signing—that team friendly deal that Loo loves to loath so much. As usual, this is a Stix post with a LOT going on in it.

One of your best postings Steve ~ a real cri de coeur. Being an albeit moderately well travelled countryboy myself i maybe have an insight or two into this myself. Our ace is simply not much ensorcelled by the buzzers and bells of materialist toys and fun and games. He’s real. Down-home. Once the place is paid for, the wife is happy and plenty of hay in the barn the dude is satisfied. He doesn’t even hafta pursue the bitch goddess fame. She came to him with open arms.

Watching Dan Otero finish off the Cubs brought back a lot of those old (3 weeks) bullpen feelings. Before the 9th inning started last night the scoreboard guy in Chicago played this:

….I actually don’t find this funny, I find it irritating and another reason why I want the Cubs to lose this thing as soon as possible……

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#FreeStix! RPOTD:

WordPress was acting up so i did a shorty. This year’s offense looks to be the virtual opposite of the one the Giants trundled out in ’11. Belt is a basher and Buster a blaster. Dynamic duo at the plate, i think. Pence and Panda pop those peas too. Contributions from Crawford, Pagan and Adrianza cannot be overlooked either. Morse is a masher, Blanco a dasher and Perez an up and comer.

All in all there are no perceivable holes in the SF attack. Defense will come around. Last night was a combination of Opening Day heebiejeebies combined with parking lot field conditions.

Have the feeling there will be at least one position player making apologies to Bumgarner ~ either already last night or before this evening’s game. Hard to be an Ace with a swisscheese defense. Bochy pulled him for Blanco’s bat and that worked out a bit. Petit coughed up hairballs and then uprighted the liferaft before things got totally out of hand. Machi EARNED the win. Romo so-so but held on. Pitching is bound to improve, particularly when the team plays in venues more kind to the moundsmen.

Important thing is the Giants lead off with a win vs a powerful offensive team in their own Snakepit. Get on top and stay there. How do you do that? Beat up on your closest rivals. Snakes will be desperate tonight. Cain’s gotta make sure nobody’s on base if he reverts to surrendering taters. A vintage performance by the Horse would calm a lotta nerves around here.

I’m going to nominate Bill Murray’s rendition of “Take me out to the ballgame” to replace Roseanne Barr’s national anthem as *Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen a Comedian Do in Public.” I couldn’t believe what I was watching. Daffy Duck? Are you fucking kidding me? If his goal was to look like a moron, he nailed it.

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#FreeStix! RPOTD

This one was just before one of the 2010 WS games. Zumiee has a pretty great response, so I included it. Stix used to really set those bowling pins up, didn’t he?

• zumarust said, on October 31, 2010 at 3:02 pm (Edit)

  “Gonna actually WATCH the game tonight at a friend’s place.”

  Now, we’re talking, Stix! No more of this “I climbed a tree, and hung up a short-wave radio antenna made out of recycled bees hives, and used an ax to fight off an angry grizzly bear in the process” stuff. (grin)

Doesn’t it seem like an unusual amount of press is going to this Schwarber dude? I get it, he’s a good hitter. But the Cubs have the most stacked line up in baseball. The media is acting like the Cubs have no chance if Cornfield Schwarber isn’t playing. Uh, they did manage to get here without him just fine. Just sayin’.

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I completely forgot that Stix offered to gift me one of his wooden sculptures after we won the 2010 series. He is apparently quite an accomplished wood uh… sculpturist? Sadly, he flaked on it and never finished it or sent it or whatever. Stony days turn into stony nights and it’s easy to hit that repeat button every day.

Anyway, here is today’s #FreeStix! RPOTD:

Depth of winter here in the Northwoods. Sposta drop to thirty below zero overnight. Burning extra oak before i hit the sack. Cookstove been going all day with a slow-cooking stew on its second day and some homemade clam chowder simmering away. Finally got to carving on my ‘One Flap Down’ piece for the first time in months. Hoping the chowder has a sufficiently large flavor to match the recipient of the piece. Maybe it will get finished and shipped before that 30-odd day calendar on the Flap runs outta numbers.

I tried to watch Game 2, I really did. But, I petered out. Heard the Cubs won.
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#FreeStix! RPOTD. This one comes with a classic TedSpe reply.

• TedSpe said, on January 27, 2011 at 10:35 am (Edit)

  I take it you’re not a big Christopher Cross fan, Stix

Cleveland: “Well, that was easy…”

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Today’s #FreeStix! RPOTD is brought to us by the Jan 25th, 2015 thread. It’s short but I liked it because pitch forks and hoe’s are found in the same backyard tool shed and the image of him shaking a pitch fork is nearly as good as him shaking the hoe. I would have liked to have been a fly on the backyard fence as Stix was trying to decide what gardening tool to shake at the Feds……

STRIKE ONE on the new commissioner. If he backs the Dink Hitter rule for the NL that will be strike four and time for torches and pitchforks.

Dave Roberts won the Sporting News Manager of the Year and that’s not a surprise. He deserved it. As a fan, I used to care about those individual awards a lot. Then 3 in 5 happened and I literally couldn’t care less about them.

World Series starts TONIGHT. No more false starts right? Tonight is the night?

I don’t want to send anyone (Loo) into an obsessive search but I am pretty fixated on finding that Stix post about *pussy all over his bed*. I am guessing it was in one of the Winter months but I don’t want to send anyone down the wrong path. Anyway, here’s today’s #FreeStix! RPOTD:

28 below zero hereabouts at sunup this morning but only -2 now. So i’m basking, basking, basking. Opened up the monday sports section in the as previously unread October 27 edition of the New York Times. Their front cover story read “A Giant among Giants”, a very nice piece on Sabean and his trail of successes. They must have been reading tealeaves. Series was tied at 2-2 with Bumgarner going against that loser at San Diego, now.

Friend who did 22 heavy years time living in Manhattan still gets the NYT and i get them after a few weeks. Love the crossword puzzles ~ though Schortz should not ALLOW popkultch krap in the Friday and Saturday ones as they’re hard enough to do already without having to know the identity of some goddamn boobtoob booby starring in some 1986 mindrot. In any event, i saved up the critical mid-October and early November issues for pre-S.T. enjoyment. And man did i enjoy that October 27th one.

World Series starts tonight if that does anything for ya. I would be rooting harder for Cleveland if it weren’t for 1) that stupid racist logo and 2) the bad taste still in my mouth from the Warriors incomprehensible meltdown after being up 3-1 last year. I still haven’t come close to letting that go….

But yeah, I’m rooting for the Indians. I liked the Cubs and their fans much more when they were losing every year.

How about a Retro Stix post? There is so much gold in this one I don’t know where to start:

Easy to see why Spring training is not held here in northern Minnesota. Finally coaxed myself outta the sack upstairs at around nine this a.m. Heating stove got a refill. Ice floes atop the water buckets on the kitchen floor. Cat-water frozen almost solid.
Turned on this machine and hooked into Yahoo weather report for this area. Twenty-four below zero. It’s getting a bit old. Betcha if they were playing up here yesterday that Red Dick guy would not have scaled that fence even once. Not much bounce when there are two feet of snow on the ground and a howling north-northwesterly at about 30 MPH driving the one-below temp into a windshield factor i do not even wanna contemplate. That was yesterday afternoon’s lead-in to last night.
Looks like March is NOT gonna come in like a lamb. Not even a sour old goat. The original Frostbite Falls (aka International Falls) some 130 miles NNE of me set their all-time low for last night at -33. We probably did not bottom that, but probably neared -30. Saturday night, March 1st is projected for a comparatively balmy -26 degrees. Couple more cold ones after that and then we start getting more snow with the milder temps.
So my question is this~~ why do MLB schedule makers even consider early season starts in venues like Minneapolis, Boston. Chicago and Milwaukee when cities like Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, Houston, Arlington, Phoenix, L.A., S.F., Dago and Oakland usually enjoy decent to fine weather in early Spring?

It’s no secret that during the off season it’s a grind to find things to *main thread* about every day. But this one is easy.

I dialed the number someone kindly shared with me. [Long-ish story I can’t get into. The info was handed to me. My first thought was: What? No way I can call him. I was told I had to tell him about the book. I demurred. Until today.] I was that nine-year-old boy trying to call Willie Mays, as described at the outset of ‘Chasing Willie Mays.’

What would I say?

He answered right away. I knew it was him.

‘Hello, who is this?’
‘This is Paul Kocak. I wrote a book…’
‘Wait a second, I can’t hear you.’
His voice was high-pitched, almost plaintive, but calm, cordial, familiar. Comfortable and conversational.

As I was intoning the familiar ‘can you hear me now?,’ I realized it wasn’t just me or my phone, though I might’ve been mumbling a little from nerves. His TV was too loud. The curse of old people. He had left his phone to turn down the television. I could hear the volume receding.

‘I had to turn the TV down.’

‘What can I do for you, sir?’

‘I just wanted to let you know I wrote this book. It’s about you, and my love for the Giants. When I was nine years old I tried to call you, and here I am calling you now from Syracuse, New York.’

‘I heard about that book.’

‘Really? I…’

‘…yeah, it was on a New York station.’

I had yet to be interviewed on a NY station, though a station in Stamford, Connecticut, had interviewed me the day before. But who knows?

‘So, I was wondering if I could send you a copy.’

‘Sure, send it to the ballpark.’

‘Oh, okay. At 24 Willie Mays Plaza.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t want to intrude on your day. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you, sir. Bye now.’

Clearly, my ‘thank yous’ extended over decades and went deeper than this call and far beyond me.

That was it, more or less. I cannot describe how welcoming, charming, easy, and gracious he was. If some stranger had called my number out of the blue, I would be more suspicious, apprehensive, annoyed. He left the feeling we could’ve talked longer. I didn’t want to abuse the privilege. It went easy once I made up my mind to do it. Oh yeah. There was a tiny voice in the back of my head saying: This is Willie Mays. You’re talking to Willie Mays. Live. This is your childhood reenacted with a different ending.

He couldn’t have been sweeter or more hospitable.

So, aside from a nap or two on a day with torrential rains, that was my day.

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If you want to read Pawlie’s book “Chasing Willie Mays” you can find it online here:

Well, all that jizz the networks blow on eachother’s faces when they get to broadcast a Kershaw game is going to get tested on Saturday. He’s the greatest pitcher of all time, right? Nobody even a close second, right? Dodgers backs against the wall and their guy has to come through or it’s another lost season and the dealin’ is DONE in LA for the year…..

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#FreeStix! RPOTD!

This one came from this year. He and I nailed it, didn’t we? Here was the end of my thread on on February 24th:

“I like our bullpen a lot. Nice mix of experience and young flame throwers. And hey, if the bullpen falters the one thing I KNOW the Giants will do is go get help. They aren’t spending 165 million on 2016 salaries and complement it with a leaky bullpen that gives away games. So, nothing to stress on here. Cautious optimism warranted…….”

And then Stix response….

Appears that Derek Law has come back strong from an injury situation. Smith, Romero and Gearin are also champing at the bit. In other words, the pen has not only excellence from the outset but also plenty of depth in the pipeline with a combination of quality experience and young flamethrowers. Bullpen is the least of our worries going into the season.”

Double lulz……

Tonight is the first post season game (non-Giant) that I’ve looked forward to. This pivotal Game 5 in LA will determine the NL rep in the World Series and all the pressure is on….both teams? Lots of second guessing of Roberts who is starting the underwhelming Maeda instead of the short rested Kershaw. I actually think it’s the right decision. If Maeda cobbles together a serviceable outing and LA scratches a win off Lester you have to think the lights get blown out in the windy city this weekend.

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#FreeStix! RPOTD!

Joyeaux Noel et un Bon Anee’ pour mes Amis de le Flap. God Jul og Nyt Aar, ogsa. Okay, so we got now German, Spanish, French and Norwegian greetings of the day and season and, oh ya, Bon Voyage Aeriel for Blade and “Muchos Garcias” as some southeast Texans sometimes say in describing south Texas to Flav for his long-running labor of love in keeping this happening happening. No white Christmas up here in the far flung fringes of Minnesota’s Northwoods, but i guess they got em around Denver and Santa Fe. Go figure.

Looking forward to a Giant 2012, making a matched set with 2010. Already champing at the bit to salute the Champs of the new year.

The Cubs are proving once again that a team that coasts through the regular season is never a lock to succeed in the post season. Some of the Cubs players complained in September that it “felt like Spring Training.” There is something to this. It’s a challenge to go from not feeling pressure for months to suddenly being thrust into the knuckle-gripping stress of the post season. Adding the additional pressure of “Are they really going to lose this?”  is probably making it that much worse. ESPECIALLY for a young team. The Cubs can dig themselves out of this because they are better than the Dodgers. But right now it’s clear which team is handling the pressure of October baseball and it’s not the youngsters from Chi-town.

#FreeStix! RPOTD! (this is a good one that gives a quick glimpse into his *disgust with the corporate crap*. I feel like I am getting to know Stix better as I sift through his repetitive yet introspective posts….)

Carstie Clausen said, on June 25, 2015 at 10:32 am (Edit)

Chi: As much as i admire Belt, i do get the feeling that he may be past simple disgust with ATT. I’m disgusted with the owners for going along with that corporate crap, but they are greedy fuckers so it’s just fine with them not to dump the phonebill and go with Willie Mays Field. So it could just be that BB9 is quietly plumping for a trade.

Houston? They are swamped with prospects, both outfielders and starters. Thing is, SF does not have to trade Belt. They could hold out for one helluva package. There is no clearly dominant team in the Junior League, unlike with StL in the NL. The Stros haven’t been to the dance since long before they switched leagues. They could be hungry enough to make quite an offer for a guy who might well be the next Dave Kingman in their venue.

With some financial considerations added, Philadelphia might get a bite on a Cole Hamels offering. Problem is, they might want to add Howard as well.

Ok, the time for the Cubs to stop screwing around is right now. They are hitting .193 as a team this post season. That is a batting average the Giants should be checking in with, not the stacked Cubs. Enough fiddling around. It’s time to pound the Dodgers into the ground and out of the post season. And that starts tonight.

Even though they’re still playing baseball, for me, it’s basically the off season. In the past I’ve entertained myself with digging up retro players of the day. The BBOTD was born in, I think, the first year of the Flap. This year, to honor and support our ensnared Flap buddy Stix, I am going to try to upload a #FreeStixRetroPostoftheDay! every day this off season. So without further ado, here’s one from 2013 when he went by the handle StixWiz:

#FSRPOTD!:

Greetings and salutations on the pending New Year. It IS an even numbered one. Those have been good for SF of late. Also greetings from the Icebox of the Nation as my HIGH temp today was Twenty-frogging-TWO degrees below ZERO. I really feel sorry for those poor Canuckle ballers less than 100 miles north of me. For them below zero = -1 Celsius, which is something like 30 degrees in real temps. Now i can understand Celsius for some little place like Belgium or the Netherlands where neither 90 degrees nor ten below are often encountered. Places like that it does make some sense to get all laboratory scientificalatious about measurements and such ~ But Cana-frozen-duh? Give me a break.

Olney MIGHT be right if Cain does not show the uptick he provided in the latter part of last season; if Bumgarner suddenly and unaccountably slips; if Hudson starts showing his age; if Timmy’s resurrection was a flash in the pan and IF Vogie’s bad season was not a one-off. Looks like a lotta IFs to me. We are not even talking bullpen yet.

Even year, gang. It starts in less then 8 hours here in the Icebox of the Nation.

AL game tonight, if anyone is interested. Today is the 27 year anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. I was in Portland, Ore attending the esteemed Lewis and Clark college. Where were you?

I’ve been keeping loose tabs on our Flap-buddy in the clink and came across this article from Oct 6. I’m no lawyer, but representing yourself and ordering the court to do something is probably not the fast track to freedom. Maybe Snarkk or Xoot can chime in on this.

Watching the Toronto hitters flail meekly away at the filth from Andrew Miller just reinforces our need for a lockdown bullpen. And I’m not talking about a very good bullpen like the one we had in our World Series runs. I’m talking about secret weapon shit. I know Miller is getting used differently because it’s the post season and some managers (unlike the by-the-book Showalter) play to win NOW in the post season. I’m talking about scaring teams into knowing they are playing a 6 inning game. Score runs by the 6th inning or you’re done. That’s what I want. And that’s completely doable if Evans decides to go this route…..

I grinded through that AL game last night. Zumiee is right, that logo is just awful. It’s like they intended to go out and be as racist as they could possibly be. Regarding the Cubs, I don’t like them much either the way the media is fawning over them. But they fawn over Kershaw 10 times harder, I’ve actually never seen such adoration of a sports figure before (from the media).

I support the Dodgers getting kicked out of the post season at any point so I will be rooting for the Cubs.

Part of the problem (for me) with gearing up for the rest of this post season isn’t just *the Giants aren’t in it*. It’s how they were ousted. It was so fast and so unexpected. Even doubting their bullpen I really thought they could hold a 3 run lead. I still can almost barely believe they lost that game.

It got taken from us too quickly.

The lead story on KTVU this morning is the rain that’s coming through the Bay Area today. It’s not very much rain. But that’s the lead story.

And there’s an AL game tonight if that does anything for ya.

It’s hard for me to really start gearing up for next season, but I was kicking around the prospects of the 3 available stud closers. Seems like a no brainer right? The Giants won’t sign Chapman because he’s a lunatic, they won’t sign Jansen because the Art Dealers wouldn’t ever let that happen. That leaves Melancon unless I’m missing something.

I’ll watch the rest of the post season because I like some of the Indians hitters and can get behind rooting for them a little bit. I was fine with the Nats getting eliminated. I don’t like most of the Nats players or Dusty. Dusty is great at connecting to the players but he’s pretty lame as a tactician and he lost another series last night. He seems to have lost most of his edge anyway. Harper can now spend the off season sculpting his hairdo.

Cubs should smash the Dodgers, that will be fun to watch……

24 hours later, I am looking at this a little more rationally. Jettisoning the entire bullpen is probably not going to happen. Even though part of me still wants to see them all erased from the planet. Before we get started, here is the contract situation for everyone going forward:

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/yearly/payroll/

Realistically, who stays and who goes? Romo, Casilla and Lopez are all coming off the books. Fun fact: That trio made a cool 21 million in 2016. Gnaw on that as you commute to work today. I will assume Evans isn’t insane and won’t bring any of these 3 back. They are all DONE as major league players. I don’t care what Casilla says or how bendy Romo’s slider can still get on occasion. All 3, ba-bye.

3 guys who will be back: That fucking lefty reliever, Kontos, Strickland. They are all arb eligible through 2019 (at least), they all have good stuff, they have all been successful at different points in the season. And we paid up the ass for TFLR so as ant-small as he usually comes up, he ain’t going anywhere. And maybe Strickland takes some anti-stupid pills this off season. He dumb.

Law: Obviously stays, will probably be the 8th inning set up guy.

Okert, Osich and Gearrin: I could see the first 2 guys coming back, not the 3rd. The first 2 are young, controllable with great stuff. That has a place in anyone’s bullpen. Gearrin was never one of “my guys” and I hope he’s gone.

That leaves 2 spots, at least, for Evans to go both fists into the free agent market for a closer and another stud set up guy. He cannot half ass his way through this. Or it will be his full ass having to answer to the fan base. Someone needs to be held accountable for this absolutely shitly constructed bullpen and I put that squarely on Evans and Sabean. They have to fix this.

Matt Cain makes 40 mill over the next 2 seasons if that does anything for ya. If you go back and look at the contracts Timmy and Cain got and look at their production post-deal you can see clearly how much more productive Barry Zito was > both of them during his time here…..

Once you get past the maddening decision to pull Moore and dive into that pathetic excuse for a bullpen, it gets a little easier to tolerate the insanity that unfolded after that. Look, I wanted him to leave Moore in too.  But 120 pitches is a lot of pitches. Bochy might be the only manager in baseball to even CONSIDER leaving him in.

If you can’t hand your bullpen a 3 run lead in the 9th and still win the game you simply have no business being in the post season. None. What was the plan? Pitch our starters 9 innings every game? That’s just not realistic. Sure, he could have left Moore in last night and probably would have gotten the win. But then what? We still had a Game 5, an NLCS and a World Series to go. At some point you have to use your bullpen.

So in one way we got put out of our misery a little early and that’s better than a long, slow painful death. I think. I’ve never died before.

No, I’m not going to fault Bochy too much on this one. Yes, he looked like a doddering old man shuffling back and forth in that 9th inning. But the guys he brought in were paid to do a simple job and they didn’t come close to performing. Law looked scared as fuck out there. He threw one ball nearly over the batter’s head, another ball yanked left in the dirt. And then a hard hit base hit. Lopez? I mean, he’s there to do one thing and he couldn’t do it. I’m actually surprised Rizzo didn’t blast that swing and miss strike two deep into McCovey Cove. That was a straight up cookie he missed. Romo’s pitches looked worthless. He finally had to come in with a nothing-slider and it got belted. I wouldn’t have left him in either, lol. What was Bochy supposed to do? Use Casilla? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

At least that fucking lefty reliever got them to hit a ball on the ground. I don’t know what was going on with Crawford last night. It’s like he was channeling the ghost of Steve Sax or something.

Yes it was a disgusting way to lose. It reminded me of the Roger Craig fumble. Or more recently, the Warriors collapse against the Cavaliers. But there was really no where to go with this. Winning would have just delayed the inevitable. The bullpen is incompetent. This morning, they are ALL that fucking lefty reliever to me.

This is more on the front office than anyone else. They built a 200 million dollar team and a 10 cent bullpen. That’s indefensible.

Tough way to be forced into the off season but we were not winning a World Series with that ‘pen. It was never going to happen.

Ashamed to admit I didn’t make it to the end of that game, not by a long shot. I did what I normally do when I don’t see the end, I opened up my lap top and went to the Flap.

590 comments. Either something really good or something really bad happened.

Or both….

I read through the highs and lows, then went to mlb.com to see it for myself. I don’t really think you can understate this Gillaspie thing. For starters, I can now spell his last name without having to look it up. That in itself is a miracle. Driving down the hill to Safeway this morning I was listening to the KNBR guys jizzing the radio waves and heard that lefties are hitting .122 off Chapman in his career. He had never given up a triple before last night. And had that been a park normally configured his no-triples record would still be in tact (cue: Diggity’s grass roots effort to get the park changed).

I’m just glad we got at least one. I watched the Red Sox game and as it wound down you could just see how desperate and disappointed all those players were. Swept out of the post season at home. Screw that.

I’d like to lather up the hate for Lackey tonight but I just don’t have it in me. That 2002 game wasn’t won by him it was lost by Dusty for starting Livan. And do you remember who are two pinch hitters were that game?

Shingo and Tom Goodwin. We never stood a chance in Game 7.

Instead of talking about tonight’s game I want to bring back and old quote from the past. It was 2012 and the Giants were down 2-0 to the Reds. Hunter Pence gathered the team around him. Retold by Tim Flannery, I’ll let The Reverend take it from here…..

“GET IN HERE, EVERYONE GET IN HERE..LOOK INTO EACH OTHER EYES..NOW! LOOK INTO EACH OTHERS EYES, I WANT ONE MORE DAY WITH YOU, IT’S THE MOST FUN, THE BEST TEAM I HAVE EVER BEEN ON SAID THE REVEREND HUNTER PENCE. ” AND NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS WE MUST NOT GIVE IN, WE OWE IT TO EACH OTHER, PLAY FOR EACH OTHER, I NEED ONE MORE DAY WITH YOU GUYS, I NEED TO SEE WHAT THERIOT (JERRY) WILL WEAR TOMORROW, I WANT TO PLAY DEFENSE BEHIND VOGELSONG BECAUSE HE’S NEVER BEEN TO THE PLAYOFFS..PLAY FOR EACH OTHER NOT YOURSELF, WIN EACH MOMENT, WIN EACH INNING, IT’S ALL WE HAVE LEFT”

Now go out there and do what you do with your Even Year Bullshit……

Slam dunk. Lights out. Win day. I’m not worried about Mad Bum but I am wondering about the rest of the team. I’m not doubting their collective effort but I do wonder how badly they really want it. Many of those guys have rings already and the dude who doesn’t (Span) might not have enough magic to join that party. There was no clearer sign of this being a no-magic season than the ball that Pence dropped in Game 2. In 2014 he was “Pence on the Fence.” Last game he was “Hunter the Punter.” Or something else that rhymes with his name. That was all I could come up with pre-coffee.

Either way, we have an elimination game pending and that’s when it’s usually duck and cover time for our opponent. I have no idea why that is but apparently we have the Cubs right where we want them.

Down 2-0 is not good. Not only is it the score of the series it reminds me of the score of every goddamn game we’ve played this year. But we are in these games. The mlb dyed hair jobs were noticing that the Giants don’t have a hitter who can carry the team. Wow, that’s some sweet analysis.

The argument that we are up against it because our hitters have to face lights out pitching game after game in the playoffs doesn’t even wash because we got Hendricks out of the game and then couldn’t hit their bullpen. And having their relief pitcher hit a bomb was just good comedy in our sad faces.

This tweet from Kuip’s son is good comedy too. I was thinking the same thing. Cubs fans over-celebrate lazy fly balls like each one is a game winning Super Bowl touchdown.

Pffffttttt…. If not for a lone Coner Gillaspie swing, we’d be working on 18 straight zeros. I guess that would have been impossible since we don’t play the Cubs if we don’t score a run in New York. But even for an offense that showered us with impotency all season, this is a little surprising. KNBR gives away 5K if a Giant hits a grand slam in, I think, the 5th inning. They should offer up 50 million for that to happen. 5K should be the payout for an extra base hit….

Speaking of Gillaspie, he’s our third baseman for the rest of the season. Nunie couldn’t beat Posey in a sprint right now. I’m actually a little surprised that Bochy used him in a PH role last night. He doesn’t play for 2 weeks, he’s cold on the bench all night and you send him up there to face Chapman? If he had crumpled to the ground running to first would it have been a surprise? I suppose when you’re travel 2mph there’s little chance for a crumple.

Even with this almost unreal inability to score runs, tonight isn’t a must win game. It’s awfully close to a “pretty please, with sugar on top, win the fucking game” game but with Bum going in 3 and then another home game with Matty Moore, tonight isn’t mandatory. Nobody needs to tell these guys how to come back from a 2-0 deficit anyway…..

So let’s see them loosen up a bit tonight and have some fun. Contrary to what those 17 zeros suggest, this team can score runs. Just go out and do it.

This series vs the Cubs is bringing back a lot of memories for me. 1989. Just starting out Lewis and Clark College. I remember a surprising number of Giants fans attending that tiny school in Portland.

I looked over the ’89 roster just for some better recall. Some of these guys weren’t on the post season roster:

Best player name: Ernie Camacho

Best horse racing name: Kelly Downs

Best Ex Cardinal: Ken Oberkfell

Best clutch hitter I remember with no stats whatsoever to back it up: (tie) Greg Litton and Ernie Riles

wait…2 guys named *Ernie*? Whoa…..

Guy I Thought was too old to be on that team: Chris Speier

That team also had Yan Gomes future father-in-law on it….

Draveckey, Bedrosian, Reuschel….

The Thrill.

Greenwald.

In hindsight, the clear problem with that team not winning the World Series was chronological. 1989. Odd year. They never stood a chance.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been known to get my hoot and holler on. But last night, when Gillaspie launched that “even shaped” ball deep into the night, all I did was raise my left hand, make a fist and smile. I never made a sound, didn’t even utter a “fuck yeah.” My days of jumping out of windows (college after Will Clark’s grand slam) are over. We’ve been gifted too much by this team over the years for me to act like this is all brand new. I advise you to click on “POTD-best of” and read #35. That’s what’s up.

Madison Bumgarner is just a man, man. He’s the man I wish I was. The man we should all strive to be. A winner. A closer. A starter and a finisher. An understated, respectful celebrator. Rock solid reliable. Is there a straighter or truer post season bullet ever fired in the history of baseball? Bumgarner makes me look at Joe Montana and say “Is that all you got?”

The best part of EYB is that it’s already happened. I guess you could also say it’s “happening”. But really, it’s happened. Once again we have been absolutely gifted with an unbridled joy that you don’t get from just walking the earth on a random Wednesday. Who knows what’s going to happen, we all know there is still a long road to travel.

I continue to force myself to appreciate the moments in time that we get with this team. We are so so lucky. Don’t ever forget that no matter what happens from here on out.

I loved last night’s game. Even the strikeouts. As the game wore on it became a game to watch within the game. Good thing I wasn’t playing a drinking game. All those k’s would have sent me to the ER. And who doesn’t enjoy a walk off? There are critics of the wild card format but I’m not one of them. An instant Game 7 to kick off the post season? That is fantastic. And if the WC teams or the fans grouse about only getting one game here’s an idea: win your damn division.

My A’s fan buddy, The Boney One, texted me at 4:32am today looking for my prediction on the game tonight. I just texted back “excitement” and left it at that. It’s the bare minimum of what we all get today and into tonight.

Even if they lose, I’m pretty content just getting to this game. How did the worst team in baseball make the post season? Think about that. And it’s not even arguable, with stats or your own eyeballs, that we weren’t the worst team in all of mlb in the second half of the season.

But here we are. I’m down with a crazy 3 week run. I don’t expect it but I also didn’t expect the 2014 flag and that’s flying like a boss right now.

So whatever, no expectations. But I’m confident because of who’s taking the hill. Excitement is definitely in the air. On the east side of the Dumbarton Bridge there are salt ponds. Savy locals know when it’s time to roll up the window. I hope NY fans know what’s up but there’s only so much they can do to withstand the EYB that’s wafting towards Citi Field right now. It’s coming and it’s even and it’s bullshit and so far (engage knowing dude head nod) no one has been able to stop it……

Representing……

One thing we have going for us, and I think we forget this a little bit, is the absolute mystic of Madison Bumgarner. To us, he’s still human, we watch him all the time. He’s not a machine, he gives up runs. He even loses games. But to the rest of the baseball landscape, he’s a living legend, a character out of Greek mythology. How perfect is it that he gets to go up against a pitcher with the nickname of a God from Norse mythology? I don’t know about you guys, but I go Greek > Norse all damn day long. Always have, always will.

Peep this. Lowest Road ERA, Post Season history:

Bum: 0.60

Bob Gibson: 0.97

Mariano Rivera: 1.02

Sandy Kofax: 1.04

So if you find yourself at work shitting your slacks trying to figure out how we are going to hit Thor, just remember that Mets fans and very likely Mets players are probably shitting themselves twice as hard worrying about how they are going to hit Bum. And that mental mind bending snot rocket in their faces is as real as it is powerful. That’s our “10th man”. Thor was good in the post season last year. 26K’s, 19 innings, 2 wins, 3.32 ERA, blah blah blah. The bottom line is that he’s more cute nickname and flowing locks than he is true legend. Legend status is real and it’s earned and it’s Bum. It could literally be the reason we win that game tomorrow…..

In honor of all that is competitive and right with baseball, the Giants have to win this wild card game. Even though you know the Cubs are rooting hard for the Mets. If you were Chicago, you would too. If Syndy beats us the Mets get a day off for travel and then have to lock the kitchen up and ask “Two Slices” Colon to open the NLDS on Friday. And for Game 2? Freaking Lugo? The guy who’s last name starts with “G” that I can’t spell? After Thor, they literally have zero starting pitching left. The Cubs would destroy them.

Meanwhile, if the Giants win it’s not like they burned their only ticket to the dance. Cueto and Moore loom largely and I love the idea of Smarge out of the bullpen if needed. And by Game 3 Bum is back. SF vs Chicago is set up to be an epic battle.

The only reason I think we can pull this off is because our pitching is right there. It’s been rock solid for 2 months. If we didn’t have 4 stud starting pitchers all geeked and peaked I would worry since pitching doesn’t just all of a sudden come together.

But hitting can. You can be in a hitting slump and all of a sudden spring out of it. In fact, it’s probably nothing that some wild eyes from Pence shooting around the dugout couldn’t fix.

First things first, Thor is going to be a problem. He pitched against us twice this year. We hit him some in May, not at all in August. He’s a total stud.

Right now I’m having a pretty hilarious vision that would likely involve some NYPD activity. Palwie is humping his book outside the stadium. Loo is right next to him waving one of those giant-ass cardboard signs of Stix face– you know the type of sign those Jesus freaks wave around? A sign that big.

A game this big.

E.Y.B.

A loss, and we have to deal with an irritating trip to St Louis (if they win tonight). Although I have to think that if it turns out to not be a Matty Moore Sunday, and we lose, Voggy will be all out to take care of business in the night cap.

I can’t say enough about Cy Blach. The dude toils in the minors all year while Bochy mindlessly trots out Cain and Peavy over and over. Do they Giants know how to scout their own players? Because this is the second year in a row that a guy has come up and been lights out (Chris Heston in 2015).

The Dodgers have to unfurl the lamest of line ups today, right?

The Giants, with their limp and lifeless Summer, have pretty much doused out any fire I had left in me for this season. But I’ll tell you, seeing those orange towels getting whipped around by 40,000+ was fun to see. Did a little rekindling, so to speak.

Taking the first game was critical. Had LA won it would have been a deflated attempt vs Kershaw today. I still don’t know how we coax a win out of this day but hey, EYB right? So Ty Blach v CK today, no pressure there. The Pirates are pitching Chad Kuhl vs Wacha. A lot of that is going to come down to how much of a shit Pittsburgh gives. At least we’ll likely know the outcome before our game.

And then tomorrow is a Matty Moore Sunday. If it ends up mattering, and you know it will, we have Voggy pitching the Sunday night game for us. I am 100% certain he gives everything he has in that start.

So, an interesting weekend set up at least…..