Down to the Wire
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…..
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Maybe you’re right and LA really doesn’t give an F about Giants. Kinda odd, as Miller mentioned during the early parts of the rally, that Roberts didn’t even have anyone warming up as McCarthy self destructed.
He left him in there for 6 batters, none of whom he got out, in a tight game, with a ton on guys available expanded rosters.
Hernandez with another start, right vs. Opie? This guy is definitely a keeper, and Gameface is making a name for himself this week too. Miller said he was 5 for 9 with walk and the SF vs. Rockies as he came in to PH. Miller also said that Panik was in on deck circle originally. Sometimes things just work out.
Say what you want about Bud Selig, but the three division format, inter-league play, and especially the wild card have, in my book, been the greatest improvements in the game in 100 years and they all came on his watch.
I’m almost more fired up to watch Vogey pitch than Moore. And don’t all games start at the same time tomorrow? (Another great move by the Selig admin). And huge props to the Pirates for giving Vogey this one last start before he rides into the sunset. They have several young arms they could have given that start to, including my son’s friend Steven Brault, but I love that they are showing some respect to Vogey for his career and comeback from a horrific injury.
your son knows Steve Brault? That’s cool. Cards game starts at 10am today.
Matt went to high school with AJ Griffin, Brault, and Joe Musgrove. Doesn’t know AJ at all, knows Musgrove a little bit, and is friends with Brault.
I give up on the Stix gif. I feel like my dad trying to operate a new phone. I can’t figure gif’s out. I really wanted to put a Giants hat on him and have him nod side ways and I can’t figger it out goddammit!!!!!!!!!
Someone here has to figure that out. Thanks for trying though.
I have to believe Zumie’s on the case…
Don’t you need the original video to do it? Have you tried giphy.com?
I was asleep on couch when Casilla came in tho I remember seeing him warming up in the pen.
Any reaction from fans?
LA does have LH heavy LU when the regs are in…a guy like Osich who throws pretty hard and often isn’t really sure where the ball is going could be a weapon of mass destruction should Giants want to go that route.
Doesn’t seem like Bochy’s style tho and I think he respects Roberts a lot.
Something I’d like to see in a gif is look on Puig’s face after the weirdo K zone ump called him out on strikes.
Notice after he turned and said something he allowed old man Ruiz to push him out of the way and back to dugout.
And Law’s pitch earlier in the AB really wasn’t that close.
The Dodgers are just here for the free clubhouse food. If they can plunk a few Giants and the worst that happens is their bench gets warned, they’ll do it. We have more at stake than they do. Home field advantage in baseball isn’t that big of a deal. Their weekend, in this order, probably looks like this: Keep their SP’s on a regular, abbreviated rotation. Keep everyone healthy. Plunk a few Giants.
Thanks for letting me blow off some steam and for all the words of encouragement. Just saw a video of Pagan body slamming that fodgers fan. That was pretty cool.
Hang in there Sarge! I wish you the best in finding a way to do right by your dad and your wife, AND still being able to go out on your own and catch a good skink every now and then!
Lately we seem to have a lot more Nappers than Flappers…
That’s a good one! As was “The Fresh Wince.” Keep trotting that one out there. I got your back man.
Thanks Dawg. In the meantime, TFW has really turned it around…
props to east coast guys for sticking things out. 3 hour game last night didn’t end til what 1:30 AM back there.
Mac and Loo always there to end. I woke up to Amy G babbling, time to shut things off.
Sarge, if you need any help, we have a certain someone in Minnesota who is an accomplished rifleman…
Allegedly…
Valid point…no one saw him fire. Innocent I say.
Hahahaha, I’ll keep the in mind
albert Collins b-day today. Have the LP with his hit “Brick” on it plus even better cut “Don’t You Go Reaching Across My Plate.”
Check out Opie pattern today: fastball only first pitch or two for a strike usually perfectly located on black.
After that off speed only. Belt or Pence might get fastball up where they can’t hit it.
Albert Collins – one of my favorite blues men! HBD!
One thing we do have to be grateful for: Stix gave us The Undertaker nickname for Bumgarner after or during MadBum’s 2010 WS performance. A tip of the cap to the Unawoodsman.
Yes!
Beckham going crazy with Pence in the dugout looks like a sixth grader at lunchtime. He’s Dan Uggla, though.
In the post game presser Bochy announced Bach as today’s starter and sort of looked around wondering if anyone would question him. I was at home thinking, W.T.F.?!?
Great thread, but even with all the frustration, I have not even came close to throwing in the towel. This team, even with copious amounts of sucktitude in the 2nd half has just surprised me too often.
Jus win…
And get in…
And anything can happen.
I keep visualizing another parade down Market Street…
Best thing going for Giants today is no way Kershaw goes deep into game, so the challenge is can they stay close before Roberts goes to ‘pen. A 2-run deficit is about what the Giants can handle if the last two games are any indication.
I don’t care if the dodgers go all out in this series or not. Let them leave scrubs like McCarthey in there. If it gets the Giants get bats going a bit it’s all good baby.
Kang goes deep…
3 run blast…
Phils-Mets tied. Pirate pitcher almost killed himself bunting.. still 3-0 Pitt
No Specs. Maybe Panik has numbers vs. Kershaw?
Gorkys Hernandez (R)
Brandon Belt (L)
Buster Posey (R)
Hunter Pence (R)
Angel Pagan (S)
Brandon Crawford (L)
Gordon Beckham (R)
Joe Panik (L)
Ty Blach (R)
Panik 4-15 against Kershaw. Probably better than anyone.
Hey, with the big emotional win last night, the Giants have put themselves in a good position to get the 2nd wild card spot. It’s been a rough second half, for all of us, but getting in is all that matters right now. They have their arch nemesis going against them today, which means one thing: a tough game. But if they can build on last night and somehow eke out a win, it could put the team over the top. They get in and it could be 2014 all over again and the second half would just become a nasty, but distant, memory. Bummie going in the WC game Wednesday, on the road again, for all the marbles.
To steal a quote from chi, “JUST WIN.”
GO GIANTS!!
And here come the fuckin’ Cardinals…
Krukow: “The Dodgers don’t know anything about Blach.”
What an ignorant statement.
in 2016, it really is….
MOTHERFUCKER!!!
Damn you Pirates…much rests on Voggy tomorrow…
The Pirates are fucking worthless…..
I’m so tired of our struggles to hit Kershaw. You’d think, at least once, accidentally, the Giants could score 4 or 5 runs against him, but no. I almost laughed when Flannery gave a pre-game scouting report on how to hit Kershaw. What does Flannery know about hitting against Kershaw?
It actually worked out well to have Bum going last night for the win, and not use up his start vs. Kershaw.
I’d love to see Utley get one in the ribs or off his kneecap…
I wonder what “protein shakes” Turner’s been using the last few years.
We didn’t need Blach earlier in the season because we had the awesome Cain/Peavy duo BOTH in the rotation.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox jettisoned the Panda on Day 1 of the season, in spite of his huge contract, and they end up winning a division.
Yeah no shit.
Now we can get to Kershaw…
Scratch that.
35 pitches thru 4 innings, that’s ridiculous.
YES!!!
PA-GONE!!!
OK, NOW we can get to Kershaw.
He ain’t God!
Yeah, Blach hits him, they all should hit him.
Pence will never do well against Kershaw by continually going all-out hacker against him.
Chip off the old Blach !!
This kid knows how to pitch!
Rotation could be bad ass next year with Bum,Cueto,Moore,Shark,Blach
3 lefties I’m digging that as well in our division…
Alright, gotta keep chipping away at em. Kershaw can be got, so get him.
Bum-blers!!!
YES…
An Angel salute to get it started.
Kuip has really upped his calls these last couple of games…..
Hey now!
EEEEE-YEAH!
Gor-done!
Thank you very much Justin Turner, those 2 runs are on you bro!!
Gold Loo!
Kuip 1 out single for Utley?
When Pederson got the hit?
What a shit throw by Beckham, Panik saved his bacon when it should of been a DP…
Goodbye, Peavy,
So long, Cain;
Blach to the future,
Is our new refrain…
Anybody think Bochy would be dumb enough to pull Blach with his shutout gem going to the 9 th???
Looks like that’s exactly what he’s doing….
Well he is, and I still trust Boch in the end…
is the comcast sound out for you guys too?
Nope…
I’m good
That’s Fucked up to me!!
You have a kid that’s just dominated the most hatred rival and he had a chance for his 1st CG Shutout in only his 2 nd career start and you pull his ass??? Fuck that!!
I wouldn’t mind sticking it to the Dogpile and getting FA to be Jansen for are closer role..
Prepare for torture…
so the fucking sound went out on this game for me but the sound works on every other channel. What. The. Fuck.
sound came back for the last out!
Blach and Orange!
Just Win…
Great game by the kid, Blach, and also Pa-GONE.
Easy enough…
Well how the hell did we win that game???
Was like a first half game with people like Tejada, Parker and Williamson playing. Who was that other Latino infielder we had??? Amazing! We have our 3rd lefty starter for next year and may be the way to destroy the Fodgers….
Blach earned his Giants stripes today as did Beckham with a huge sacrifice…
Pena…
Ty Blach is the opposite of Solomon Torres in a huge game that’s for sure…
The Dodgers coughed up home field advantage to the Nats, for what it’s worth.
The Dodgers don’t really have anything much to play for tomorrow, other getting some kind of a workout in for Maeda.
Really liked what Rich Aurilla said about Ty Blach:
“The kid probably does not know the magnitude of how big this game was and to go out and throw 8 shutout innings and oh by the way gets 2 hits off of Kershaw( when’s the last giant to do that) just amazing…
And he added “This kid gets free dinners the rest of the year thru the playoffs atleast”
actually I have gotten kinda tired of old schooler’s like Kruk and Aurillia who think rookies are incompetent boobs. Blach knows the significance of what he did today. He’s a fucking gamer, clearly.
I agree but probably in the context of the Fodger rivalry, he wont realize for a while he is now a legend…
Pretty sure my fav thing at the blog these days is Loo uploading Stix mugshot to compete with Zummie’s Clint-for-the-win upload….
Yeah, they have a certain symmetry. 🙂
Agreed!
If you look at the Clint one long enough and then gaze down at Stix, it almost appears as if his head is nodding too.
From a Dodger blog:
If the Giants somehow get into the WS again, with Vin having retired, I might have to move out to the desert and become a hermit.
Posted by Freddy V on Oct 1, 2016 | 3:33 PM
Do we know if VIn will do at least radio for any of their home playoff games….or is tomorrow truly his final broadcast?
I understood it as tomorrow is it.
I just realized it’s October 1st. Kershaw had no chance at the win today……
He didnt want to take any spotlight from the playoff announcers…but wasnt Scully the only radio voice of the Fodgers?
Nice to see Kershaw rounding into post season form. Where’s rooster? rooster? rooster….hello?
He r-u-n-n-o-f-t.
EYB, baby.
E.Y.B.
Scully feed will do the 3rd inning tomorrow on KNBR…
I was at my local library this week, and they had a new book about the 1960s Dodgers that looked pretty interesting. But it’s not the kind of thing I would read during the season. I really enjoy reading baseball books the most during the winter. I get so much baseball during the season that reading baseball books, too, during the summer kind of feels like overkill. I do read a few during the summer, though. Brian Kenny’s book is pretty good. I recommend it.
I have Pawlie’s new book on my Kindle, and have started it, and am liking it a lot.
His book is stirring a lot of thoughts in me, but I’m going to wait a while before posting those, because I would rather you all just read the book first, before you start getting my thoughts and reactions.
I’m looking forward to the sequel:
“Stalking Emmanuel Burriss”
I will say this- I have to admit, I’ve never really given a lot of thought to what that was like for East coast Giants fans to lose the team to SF. By the time the team was in my awareness, they were already the SF Giants, and that was that, in my view. But of course, they were in NY for many many years, and had been a beloved part of the East coast sports world. It’s important to remember that, and really embrace that history. Plus, counting the NY Giants championships gives the franchise 8, which is more than the Dodgers’ 6. 🙂
I didn’t even know it was out. I thought I had one more review to sign off on. But all right. Enjoy.
It was kind of ironic, for me, to read Barry Svrluga’s book “The Grind,” over the winter, which is a book about a season in the life of the Washington Nationals, and then the Giants ended up getting Span. And, also, we’ll be pulling for the Nats to defeat the Dodgers, of course. Getting Dusty was a nice pick-up for their team. Maybe this is the year Dusty can avoid being snake-bit in the playoffs. But he did recently lose his catcher, Ramos, so some of the snake-biting is still happening. But the back-up catcher looks decent, and the Nats have a pretty good line-up anyway. But….they are the Nats, and we know how they’ve done in the playoffs in the past. Dusty has his work cut out for him, getting that team over the hump.
Pawlie, it looked to me like only the Kindle version is available right now. I’m assuming a paper version is coming, right?
Yeah, I’m with you on the “Blach doesn’t know the importance of this” bullshit. He’s a ball player, obviously. He;s been playing a long time. Like most guys that play, they pay attention to the game, the rivalries, and the history of the game. Some more than others, sure, but Giants/Dodgers, Red Sox/Yankees, Cubs/Cards are pretty much woven into the tapestry of the game.
You get drafted by the Giants and yeah, you get the fact that there’s a history there. It;s like they think the guy just crawled out from under a rock and started pitching. Frankly I don’t like Aurilia much as an announcer. His taking credit for helping guys 2 years after the fact during the 2010 WS run rang real hollow with me.
Plus, he wouldn’t have been half the shit he was without roids.
I was a big Raider fan when Darth Al and the team bolted for LA. The 70s Raiders were a team I paid a lot of attention to, and Snake was the Magic Man for that team, with Bill King spinning his yarns every Sunday. When they moved to LA, that was it. The team was lost, so screw Al, screw the team. I haven’t been a Raider fan since…
I remember seeing a brief “reaction interview” a few years ago with the Giants #1 draft pick. He had no idea where the Giants played. I think he knew the city but had no knowledge of the park. Pretty sure it was Wheeler. The guy who really went bananas when the Giants drafted him was Jason Grilli.
It was what he was hoping for…
Well, maybe you’re right. Ball players are dumb generally speaking.
Well, the Giants made it to the post-season, even if it is just a possible Monday play-in for the Wednesday play-in. Maybe it’ll be just the Wednesday play-in in NY (which, by the way, I remember Loo calling that weeks ago). 2010, they won the division on the last day of the season. 2012 was *easy*, if I remember correctly. 2014, obviously they needed the play-in to win that ring, and I think that game in Pittsburgh was on… October 2nd. This year’s team pleasantly surprised me in the 1st half, horribly haunted me the 2nd half, and now is *surging* once again, right at the end. Whacky. Any other unseen rookies we can bring up to do what Blach did? Fun stuff. Flap Nation turns its collective eyes to Matt Young. Get ‘er done, boys….
Yeah, we’re guaranteed bonus baseball, which is very cool!
It will take getting to the Wednesday game to be able to say we made the playoffs officially, but it’s great knowing the Dodgers will be unable to end our season.
Grant Brisbee:
Consider the matchup. It was Clayton Kershaw (first-round pick, Cy Young, Cy Young again, Cy Young yet again, MVP, six-time All-Star) vs. Ty Blach (Ty Blach).
Loo, loved your 6:48.
zumieee, enjoy. Yes, paperback will be available any time now. I will provide a link.