Mac Back Back Back!
Shocker, we hit 3 home runs and won easily. Like it or not, this is how you win games in today’s baseball world. Hitting singles, taking walks, having dudes loiter around on the bases….that’s not how it’s done anymore. Of course you need pitching too. We got that and an 8-1 drubbing was the outcome.
Willy hit a ball 434 feet. I wonder how many balls Hunter Pence would have to hit and string together before they equaled 434 feet?
It’s still only April but the team is beginning to evolve. And Bum could be back by early June?
It would be unwise to give up on this team….
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Smrddz got through 5 scoreless and built up pitch count to 80. Jackson made another nice running grab of an early rocket that was not going to be an out last year. And Giants have still hit more bombs than they have given up, again quite unlike last year.
AZ Rox and Dodgers all lost…Op is 1-3 (despite ERA of 2.45) losing his match up with Scherzer by giving up 9 hits and 4 runs in 7 innings.
Mt. Moronta and that Pierce guy have been very pleasant surprises. I don’t remember even hearing their names over the winter when we would discuss the horrific bullpen.
Where’s Kokonuts? In love, I suspect…
Mount Moranta. That’s fucking awesome Loo. LMAO….
Now which Flapper called Cheesy Mac an oaf???? And who had agreed with him???
Guilty…
Just my take, but I agree with you Loo . . . I’m not pinning a turn around on any one game or player. Mac to date, is a 27 year old unproven outfielder, signed in 2012, with a career .226 MLB batting average going back to his debut in 2015.
However, I also agree with Flavor’s point below, that having a catalyst like Mac in the LU, along with the absence of an automatic out (Pence) can potentially turn around a season.
Good man…start of the transition I hope.
All true. But he did hit home runs in Boston and NY when we were there in 2016…
Ya never know…he may be a late bloomer, or not. I’m pulling for “the kid,”regardless….
Great weekend for sports, with NBA and NHL playoffs and multiple baseball games available starting with Yanks hosting Toronto.
Cool story there was brother of Stros Yuli Gurriel making debut for Jays at 2b and driving in 3 in 8-5 W.
Mac sounded very humble in post game with K and K, just hoping to have good ABs and contribute. The guy earned his shot let’s see what he can do with it.
I saw your post last night about interleague, Giants were 8-12 overall, 6-10 in non-A’s games.
Impressive win last night, but one game doesn’t make a season. Regarding Mac, I’ll take anyone who potentially can drive in runs versus Pence – who is grabbing pine at a 36% rate (see below).
https://www.yardbarker.com/mobile/content/article/s1_7899_26238851
true Blade, it’s only a game. But last night was good evidence that the potential for the hitters is in there. An important thing to remember that isn’t going to get shown anywhere in any stat: If you played baseball, literally at any level, we all had someone on the team who was an automatic out. That hitter dragged the team down emotionally, there is no denying that every time he came up any momentum would instantly evaporate. Pence was doing that to the line up 4 times a game–so, nearly the entire game the line up was getting punished by his failures.
I think getting him out of there is going to do a lot for the guys who can still hit. And make no mistake about it, the only guy who I think is totally done as a hitter on this team is Pence. Everyone else, while not at their career highs in terms of ability or production, can still hit.
I think we are going to see a new group of hitters going forward now that “auto out” isn’t in the line up anymore.
I hope so. Mac definitely did something dramatic last night (that can potentially fire up a team).
Regarding Pence, I can’t imagine how terrible he feels. Especially so, if this was a “rigged” DL assignment, similar to what happened to Zito. I actually like and admire Pence a lot . . . Wondering if he will work out a buyout and/or a graceful exit with the Giants?
Me too. Pence has had a legendary Giants career. These are men, mostly good men, not stats.
Having said that, Williamson flat out won the LF job in Spring Training. Either Blanco or Duggar had to make the 25 man roster. Gorkys can play CF. There’s just no place for him anymore.
I like your optimism, Flav, and think it is rooted in truth, especially re: Pence.
Crawford is close to becoming an automatic, unproductive out. Still, he’s a Gold Glover at a key position.
This has been a strange year so far, the Giants are fairly typical. Lot’s of great pitching, then games where both teams score in double digits. Their lineup is below average, pitching and defense considerably above.
I have been critical, but how can you not be when your team is dead-ass last in runs, RBI w/RISP, and also RBI w/RISP, two out. They just cannot get the hits when they need to, and maybe having Pence outta there can light a fire with the remaining bats. Given the team has been without their 1 and 3 SPs, and also 2 (Cueto for a few games), and the absolute suckage at scoring, I still am quietly optimistic the O will come around.
Won a fucking series, please.
Well, the trend of hitting one game a week continues. If they can string together 4 or 5 wins in a row, I’ll believe.
Otherwise, meh.
It’s too bad that in middle of awful 2017 so many of the young guys got hurt, including Mac. They still have Slater Shaw and Duggar in Sac and potential openings in CF and RF next year to go younger.
Let’s see what Mac can do and figure out if the others deserve a shot somewhere too. As always, Sac and the PCL inflate offensive stats so zero guarantees numbers will translate vs.ML pitching.
Duggar, fwiw, is 12 for 48 with 3 doubles (no other XBHs) 7 walks 16 Ks. So he’s batting .250 .345 OB 313 slugging for .658 OPS. Nothing exactly earth shattering there.
I watched Mets last night for first time in a while, didn’t know that Cespedes is such a K machine. He leads all MLB with 34 after 4 more last night vs. Braves (A’s 1B Olson is next at 33). And then Cespedes hits the go-ahead RBI single in the top of the 12th to win it.
Cespedes is convinced that he can fix his swing by playing more golf. Sounds like my kinda guy…..
I forgot all about Slater.
I forget a lot of things lately…
I do think Pence is hurt, he definitely rolled that thumb on opening day at AT&T. But that wouldn’t explain all of this. He’s done. And his teammates know it. My point wasn’t that Mac would “fire up” the line up with a bomb. It’s that he would replace the guy who is the auto out. He’s at least got a chance up there–the subtraction of that anchor will have a positive emotional effect on the rest of the hitters. With Pence and the pitcher that’s 22% of the line up that’s an auto out. Without Pence that drops to 11%. That’s a big deal.
I’m sure he really did hurt the thumb opening day. The stupidity of not DL’ing him immediately – especially after Mac’s big spring is inexcusable, but typical…
Great point. More stubbornness from the Giants. The guy barely had a 2% chance completely healthy. So they merrily run him out there day after day, in the 2 hole no less, half injured? So stupid.
We all know Pence is done, but does Bochy?
He’s such in denial that it wouldn’t shock me after this phantom thumb up his ass heals that Boch would still run him out there.Hes not gonna settle for Panda’s role as a cheerleader on the bench so something will have to give eventually, but it better not me Mac after a couple of 0-4’s that gets the shaft..
I got a feeling Panda doesn’t see the summer in San Francisco…
With one game Mac surpassed Pence for the season.
Mac is essentially unproven, but he also has prodigious power, Blade. By all accounts he’s worked his tail off to get better. He wasn’t just doing well in Sac, he was raking and with huge power. He wouldn’t be the first late bloomer in baseball history and he’s not exactly an old geezer.
His teammates were raving about the homer after the game. Hundley:
“That ball was unloaded,” Hundley said. “I started running. I thought the ball was in the gap. When they told me it was 15 rows deep, I had to come in and see the video for myself. He’s put in a lot of quality work. It’s nice to see it carry over from spring training to Triple-A, and to here.”
One game sure, but if he’d fanned 4 times there’d be a lot of griping going on. He came up and gave the lineup a jolt in his first game. I’ll take it.
Pence is finished. Just release him and eat the money, not the Giants way but other teams do it all the time. Maybe some struggling team (besides the Giants) picks him up.
I think you are right but he probably deserves a nice farewell for all that he is done. Couple months in the minors and if the next magical injuy happens to a Gorkys, then he can come back up or just wait till the September call-ups. He was a major figure on two championship teams…
He’ll never go the minors for a couple of months at this stage of his career and why should he?
A few re-hab games and he’ll be back in the dugout playing the bongos on someone’s head.
He’ll get the Matt Cain treatment from management…
no doubt, Pence in the minors for *a couple of months?* He’s got too much SF coffee to drink and stupid videos to make with his lame wife.
Not out of the question to release/eat the salary. Giants have done it. Last I remember was Aaron (I’ve got a corncob up my ass) Rowand.
Just discovered the You Tube game summary video. It is awesome for us east coasters. Runs about 7 minutes…
Mac gave a jolt of energy. Needed. Provided.
Let’s see if he can keep hitting the ball hard. And, not get injured.
The thing with Pence is not only does he make outs, he makes crappy outs.
Mac may K some, but when he does make contact, the contact has a good chance of being hard contact…
We may have also seen the last of “The Doughy Fuck” (Law – Great nickname by Flavor).
I hope him, Beede, and Pence enjoy decades of wedded bliss with their respective career wreckers…
thanks. But he was dubbed “That Doughy Fuck”. Subtle but huge difference from what you wrote.
Yes, and adds to its uniqueness…
Mays sure as shit wasn’t “That Say Hey Kid”…
The next line is much more disturbing…
1. Joe Panik (L) 2B
2. Gregor Blanco (L) CF
3. Andrew McCutchen (R) RF
4. Buster Posey (R) DH
5. Brandon Belt (L) 1B
6. Evan Longoria (R) 3B
7. Mac Williamson (R) LF
8. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
9. Nick Hundley (R) C
7 hole. I like it.
In New York, there’s an epidemic of obese guys who start wearing shorts as soon as the temperature reaches 50. Most of them have amazingly muscular calves. Is that from transporting all that blubber around?
lol, man there is a lot of awesome in this post. Don’t know where to begin so I won’t try….
i’ve noticed calves like that before on fat men but I never gave it much thought. Till now. And yes, i think they are shaped from all the work they do carrying around all that fat. Right?
It’s gotta be. When I was really light and did a lot of running, I still had almost no calf muscles…
my first thought was, “these fat men, they don’t move around enough to sculpt calves like that..” Then I was like, “well, they have to go to the store for food and cigs and beers and shit…” So, in the end, I decided I’m with you. Next topic. We have one hour to kill till game time….
Just an hour, Flav…
i know i checked and then edited my comment. Good thing too as we might already be at the bottom of the list of conversation topics…
Baggs says Posey scratched (back stiffness), Sandoval will be DH.
speaking of fat men…..and wow, sliding right into the 4 hole.
Yeah, I think Hundley should be moved up there 😉
Costello: I got a weak back.
Abbott: When did you get it?
Costello: About a week back.
Sandoval fucking up the fat man calf theory.
now I need Kruk to weigh in on the fat man calf query or I’m gonna be tossing and turning all night….
I feel like this is San Dawg territory…
I was thinking of watching Taxi Driver if the game turns south fast. Thoughts? I’ve never seen it.
In my top 5 all time – maybe top 3…
wow high praise. I am notoriously known for not having seen any movies, especially award winning movies, until like 20 years+ after they show. I just saw Scarface last week. Didn’t really care for it. Saw Casino about 2 weeks ago and really liked it. Same with Tombstone.
Anyway, I need to see Taxi Driver, it’s pushing my 20+ year window. That’s like 40 years right?
The day after I saw it in 1975 all I wanted to do was get guns and a mohawk.
I think I went to the track instead…
I’m not kidding about this movie thing. The last movie I saw in a theater (that wasn’t a kid movie that I saw with my daughter) was Titanic.
My last in-theatre experience was “The Doors” – 1991?
that’s awesome. So we are kinda in the same boat tho I have seen 20+ movies or so in a theater with Katie over the years. I don’t like theaters. At all.
I can’t stand the sound of crunching of popcorn.
It’s a form of misophonia…
I saw Grand Torino last year, that was pretty good.
Was that a wild pitch? Hell yeah, Pablo swung at it. Whoa, another wp!
If you’ve never seen Taxi Driver, watch it ASAP, regardless of how the game goes. Shame on you for not having seen it.
oh there is a long list of shit I haven’t seen. As I said, I try to get to all the big ones within 20 or so years of their release date. Still need to see GoodFellas
Holy shit dude. You need to see both of those soon.
Giants are gonna need some runs if they’re going to win this one. The ball is jumping tonight.
Pablo doesn’t exactly look ready for this start tonight. Waving at pitches, not really coming close to hitting anything hard. So much for “always staying ready”
Always ready for the post game buffet.
Sando just couldn’t lay off 2 in a row in the dirt.
You’d think Trout has seen Holland before. Oh, wait…
Didn’t someone here predict Trout would hit 2-3 bombs this series? Ok, I guess that’s like predicting the sun will come up in the morning.
Yeah, I said I hoped giants could hold Trout to 2 bombs…
Flav, Goodfellas is absolute must-see. Probably the last great movie I saw in a theater.
Uh-oh Loo, Mets fans won’t be happy tonight.
Panik 1 for his last 17.
Panik has been ice cold for about a week now.
this fucking guy who wants to “take his chances” just so he can drive that Audi car….man, I want the bad guys to whack that motherfucker so badly…..
Pablo was not ready to play today and that is embarrassing. Be ready motherfucker.
You may very well be correct about Pablo and summer, Loo…
Should have taken my advice and rode off into the sunset after that walk off homer in last year’s finale…
I’m totally with you guys on the no theatre thing. Only go with my kids as well or when someone absolutely drags me.
Good Lord Flav, you must see Good Fellas soon. Surprised you liked Casino better than Scarface. Other way around for me.
Pablo is quietly having a terrible season so far.
In my early years living in China and Vietnam more than a dozen years ago, I used to hate going to cinema to see western films, obviously subtitled in Chinese or VNmese, because the movie-going patrons would talk through the whole film since they weren’t listening to it, just reading the subtitles, to the point where I couldn’t even hear the dialog. More recently it’s been fine, especially in VN, as society progresses to the point where either a) they’re listening to improve their English or b) they realized that other people in the theater like it quiet….
i think i woulda liked Scarface better if I saw it when it came out. The car chase seen where they were going to blow up the car…I had trouble getting into that one, the technology was so dated….
also, the end of Scarface was utterly absurd.
One thing I like about it as that I find the storyline somewhat plausible—like that is they way someone can work their way up the ladder in that world.
A couple of nice plays there by Mac. I had my doubts on both of those.
That inning-ending play’s about as “athletic” as Williamson can get, but he still looks better than Pence.
Taxi Driver–you knew the guy was insane the moment he wrote this in his diary about his first date with Cybil Sheperd’s character: “I had black coffee and apple pie with a slice of melted yellow cheese. I think that was a good selection.”
And speaking of insane, John Hinkley, of course, was inspired by the movie to shoot Reagan.
well, he was obsessed with child Jodie Foster, primarily. As the scion of an oil industry tycoon he wasn’t really Travis Bickle material. Dennis Hopper had something of an obsession with Foster, too. In his movie Backtrack, a sort of David Lynch imitation thing, he had Foster (an adult Foster) running around undressed or half-dressed for two hours.Takes your mind off Hopper’s inability to imitate Lynch, anyway . . . .
And in other news, a 117-year-old woman in Japan, “the last known person to be born in the 19th century”, died yesterday. Man, sometimes I feel old getting up in the morning, but 117? This also touches on something that you sometimes see debated: she was born in August 1900. Most people agree that 1900 is not yet the turn of the century. I still am undecided about that….
The Nats are going quietly vs. the Dodgers.
Happiness is watching Gearrin get a 1-pitch out.
Not only do these guys need to win a series, they need to notch a quality comeback. Not holding my breath…just saying….
red sox down to last strike trying to dodge no no from A’s sean manaea
walked Benitendi on full count. At 105 pitches with Hanley up.
Panik hits too many fly-outs, but I don’t know what the answer is.
Hanley grounds into 6-4. Game over 3-0 A’s Manaea with no hitter.
truly amazing.
Good movies…Scarface and Good Fellas. I liked Good Fellas better. My absolute favorites would be damned near anything Tarantino.
Jax swung at inside pitch that almost hit him and then lets that one go by. Marty Lurie wondered about him when I was listening earlier on KNBR.
BA of .208 with .250 OB. 21 Ks in 56 PAs.
ok Panda, that’ll do, that’ll do….
Here we are in one of those situations in which the Giants are dead-ass last…get a fucking hit and tie the damned game, at least….
Sando likely saved himself another month with that double.
This guy’s got that Latroy Hawkins thing going on- pumping the ball out and back into his glove while winding up.
well that sucked. Here is something funny tho
Maybe it was just the somewhat fast speed of that video, but yikes, that pie-in-the-face looked like borderline assault…..
lol, no doubt!
I almost had a stroke in the cereal aisle of the supermarket looking at all the varieties of Cheerios.
Maybe we can get into this pre-game tomorrow…
i have strong opinions about the oversaturation of toothpaste and chips choices. Will discuss tomorrow.
Loo—reminds of that scene in The Hurt Locker where the adrenaline-junkie dude realizes he no longer belongs in normal society!
cereal aisles are massive these days.
You need a P.H.D. just to buy fuckin’ Ritz Crackers…
That base running oven mitt might be the dumbest fuckin’ piece of athletic equipment ever…
Fun fact: The Red Sox had gone 3,987 games without being no-hit.
Since Rags?
No, that was about 5,000 games ago…
no they got no hit in 1993 the year Manaea was born, at least that’s what I saw on twitter
Flem mentioned that too. Last done by Chris Bosio, who pitched against my high school when I was in high school and Omar Vizquel barehanded the final out of the game—which was one of my favorite plays of all time.
What the fuck is Joe West doing?
Mac uses a short bat…
Doesn’t Craw’s bat look short too? I’ve thought so for years.
yeah nice AB and hustle from Mac.
Seems like Crawford hasn’t had a big hit since the WC slam in 2014…
Hundley’s done that couple times tonite too.
17 SOs, total. Kuiper somehow manages to bury that fact in his summary. What the fuck? That’s essentially 2 SOs per inning, all game long. (Not since 1959 vs. Koufax, tweets Baggs.)
Tremendous, now we have Good Clint and Bad Clint….
Inspired a generation of punk rockers.
“The hairstyle has been in existence in many parts of the world for millennia. For instance, the Clonycavan Man, a 2000-year-old male bog body discovered near Dublin in 2003, was found to be wearing a mohawk styled with plant oil and pine resin.” W.
MLB.com is cranking out the no-hitter facts. The Red Sox are the best winning pct. team of all time to be no-hit, replacing the ’03 Giants, who were no-hit by Millwood. Who the heck remembers that no-hitter?
I do. It was a Sunday afternoon I think. I had just been able to buy the MLB package for the first time..
I was at that no-hitter.
Very impressive, you two. I have absolutely no memory of it.
I remember it. Not vividly, but I remember it.
Speaking of cereal, here’s what the Giants will be having for breakfast:
https://c.shld.net/rpx/i/s/i/spin/10127449/prod_ec_1687638002??hei=64&wid=64&qlt=50
I’m sure there are 17 different individual versions of that cereal to serve.
Yeah, like Special ꓘ.
Special K is a solid cereal in my book. Got some in my pantry right now.
I’m lately onto Honey Bunches of Oats.
“Johnny Cueto will take the mound for the Giants tomorrow against Jaime Barria, who will be making his second major league start.”
Uh oh…
“Henry Schulman
@hankschulman
Also, Bochy got a bit defensive when asked about letting Holland start the sixth to face Trout/Upton/Pujols the third time. After the second such question, Bochy said, “You guys are stuck on the third-time through thing.” Said Holland was throwing well and he’s used a lot of ‘pen”
It’s an interesting conflict between old school and SABR on this issue. Old school says leave the starter who’s doing well in until he has the crap-out inning. SABR says try to get him out of there before the crap-out inning, because the crap-out inning can cost you the game.
I haven’t seen any stats on what happens when a Giant starter is left in, vs removed for a reliever, but it sure seems it has happened in most of Holland’s 0-3 start. With those three (Trout/Upton/Pujols) coming-up, I would have gone to the pen.
This team has yet to win a series. Let’s hope they score enough runs to get Cueto a W, and this team a first series win for the year.