A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Nice little win last night. I’m more interested in tonight’s game. We get to, once again, glimpse into our future. Do we turn away from the hideousness of it like when D-Rod or Beede pitch? Or will we give a knowing dude head nod in the direction of young Logan?

DO the Padres regret the Machado deal? They stink, just like us, but they’re now saddled with a 300 million dollar guy. I don’t understand why it’s taking GM’s so long to figure out that the way to long term success is to draft and trade, not sign guys to 300 million dollar deals……

With conditions nearly perfect D-Rod still laid a huge egg. Giving up bombs to Margot and Hedges? Come on man, even with the juiced ball that’s lame. One under-the-radar problem Young Z needs to solve: Going into 2020 with Smarge the ace of your staff is probably not the way to avert the cellar. I certainly don’t want him signing anyone to an enormous FA deal but he’s going to need to turn over some rocks and find something better than PomPom for next season. Smarge, Cueto and…..I mean it’s a bad look, man.

The Giants were listed as one of 9 teams Gerrit Cole will be considering this off season. I can’t think of a worse decision than the Giants signing this guy. He’s still throwing damn near 100 in his final inning. Think that’s an arm that’s gonna last through his next contract? Ludicrous. He’ll get a TJ within a year and that’s if his arm stays attached to his body which it might not as hard as he throws. He’ll be 29 next week. NO THANK YOU.

Signing big money free agents is a completely antiquated, lazy way to GM a baseball team. I trust Young Z to do the dirty work in the trenches to bring this team back to respectability and relevance….

DRod pitching tonight unless I’ve messed it up again…..

MIke Leake stinks. He’s The Human White Flag. When THWF white flags you, that’s the signal. Your season is toast.

We have another day off for some reason.

Probably for the best.

Ok, let’s see if I can get this one right. Jeff Samardzija is pitching tonight, right? Has everyone admitted they were wrong about him? He’s checking in with a 3.44 ERA/1.08 WHIP and after watching everything our underwhelming youth be toeing the rubber with, I for one appreciate this dude.

Look, baseball is stupid the way they reward free agents and until that changes we’re going to always get overpaid free agents who aren’t worth the paper their contract is written on. Guys like Belt, Crawford and Posey, hey, I think they’re trying their best, I don’t think they mail in their effort. But they are the weakest links on our team, by far.

A guy like Smarge who has struggled with injuries and now is showing up every 5th day pitching like a man, I can dig that, man. You can’t fake a 1.08 WHIP this late in the season. He’s pitched very well this year.

I’m certainly no D-Rod Truther, but I’m giving him a pass for his last start. There was a pretty good wind tunnel at Wrigley and for a dude with marginal talent and suspect location that was likely gonna be a problem. Back in the friendly confines of Oracle I’m hoping he gets his shit together. I hate his hair. I don’t have anything against dudes with long hair but he looks incredibly un-imposing with his locks.

I wonder if there’s a psychological let down for the rest of the team every time they see Posey in the 3 hole. He knows it, they all know it, he can’t swing the stick like a 3-hole hitter anymore. Actually maybe that’s why Boch keeps him 3rd. If he moved him down with Belt, Crawford and the pitcher, man that’s 44% of straight up outs, dawg.

What a wild game last night. I picked it up when it was 4-4 and Pillar laced a clutch double down the right field line to put them ahead 6-4–this dude has been money with runners-on all year for us. And how good must that 3 run oppo bomb felt for Voggy? My text line was suspiciously quiet last night. My A’s fan buddy, The Boney One, didn’t have much to say.

Truth be told, I kinda like the A’s. They’re young with tons of power and dynamic gloves (and arms). I hope they can snag a wild card spot.

But it would be fun to drop another 8 spot on them in some random inning today just to remind them who will always own the Bay Area–at least until the A’s win 3 in 5 and we know that ain’t happening any time soon……

I guess tonight qualifies as a big game. Bum toeing the rubber. Our *arch rivals* in the box. The haunting beat of the drums in the distance….

Runs will probably be pretty scarce tonight.

Pour one out for my homey Dick VanDyke whose name, while never uttered here before, shall never be uttered here in the future……

Most of these are just terribly unoriginal.

Friday night, no baseball. Why? So the Giants and A’s can finish off this ridiculous rivalry series that nobody except the guy who wears the split Giants/A’s cap cares about? I couldn’t even guess what the series is at now or how many games are in the series. Anyone know the answer?

Not much left to do except evaluate talent and have some dudes dig a ditch all the way to the ocean so the facebook housewives can have somewhere to send their tears. Or are they still all in on this team? Zumiee you seem to take that pulse pretty accurately, if Posey dropped to 8th in the order would there be outrage? If he was released, would the tears flow freely? Or are they smart enough to see the value in him leaving?

Can’t hate on last night’s game, slugfests can be coin flips and frankly it was just nice to see us be able to compete with those Cubs bats and not embarrass ourselves. And we came back against a damn good pitcher in Darvish. Watching Dutch Oven Fire toast himself was enjoyable as well.

Sure, it’s over but it’s always been over. The wild card race allows fans to keep believing longer than they should and there’s really nothing wrong with that. The good news is that we are going to get to see a lot of young players in September. Again, nothing wrong with that.

Let the torch be passed swiftly yet respectfully…..

Another big game for DRod to show last start wasn’t all VMI related. Wind coming in a little, humidity down, maybe he gets a little park help and surprises us again.

My buddy Luke, one of my main men in Portland, texted me this while watching the game last night:

“His stuff needs to move off the plate. Everything is on or right around. Big league guys will feast on that stuff. He needs to get them chasing shit that looks like a strike. His shit is up and over the plate. He’s missing his spots by a mile. Posey sets up outside and the pitch is in.”

I trust Luke on this and he explained why Beede’s stuff, while excellent, is just ending up in the wrong spot. Hopefully Young can help him fix that.

Warmish day in Chicago, wind blowing out a little, humidity is HIGH (and remember, that’s bad for pitchers, the ball travels farther in higher humidity contrary to logic)…..I’m guessing Black Shoes is done-for tonight. Cubs hitters, and the Cubs in general, have hardly played to their vaunted pre-season prediction. But they should still smash today.

I’ll set the o/u for bombs tonight (both teams combined) at 4.5. Thoughts?

Back to 7-3 in our last 10. Can we keep up that pace? Hey, if Bum and Smarge stay large and Webb keeps his East German connection humming we just might be able to do it. Of course the bullpen needs a rest and I don’t see how that happens. Well, today. But after that?

There’s also the pesky issue of the #4/#5 spots assuming all of the above somehow works out.

But who cares? We have Yaz. And sometimes a Yaz is all ya need….

Does anyone know anyone who went to the Stones concert last night at The 501? I saw a 5 second clip and watching Jagger and his crew slowly creep around the stage at, what, are the pushing 80, was quite humorous. I like the Stones but I can’t see the interest in watching them shuffle around the stage at this point in the game….

It’s so great when we can get one of these young guys plugged in to secure a win. It makes the time between Bum starts pass quicker. Oh, lookie here, he’s pitching today! His nemesis is Merrill Kelly, same guy who pitched at The Flapalooza—the game that turned the season around and exposed me as a fool who can’t catch a baseball tossed right to him.

I will never forget that nor live it down.

Somewhere in the world’s forest, Gail is being gently awakened by the sounds of another day beginning. Birds chirping, squirrels scurrying about. The sun peeks out over a mountain top, she stretches and is excited to beginning a new day of hiking—the furthest thing away from the explosive night time wake up call that would have jarred her conscious had she stayed at home. 🙂 🙂 🙂

So it turns out, I was very wrong-o about Yaz’ grandson.

Happily so. Between him, Pillar and The Dick we gave up literally nothing. So for that, I give Z huge props. He did this same thing with Muncy in LA so I think it’s clear he’s got a knack for scrapping up useful scraps. And with us so far away from respectability when the year began, that will be an important skill going forward if we want to shorten our stay in baseball purgatory….

Logan Webb Day! I’m really excited to see this kid pitch.

Everyone was talking about what an opportunity last night was for DRod and that was definitely true. He took advantage of it. Before the game, Krukow did his usual spiel about how his struggles this season were “100% mechanical” and that it’s been a greater challenge *getting right* because of his shuttling back and forth from MLB to AAA and the fact that he’s been in the bullpen and missing the routine of being a starting pitcher. I can support some of that. The other piece is that he’s just a marginal guy who has to be totally focused up every start with his *best stuff* with him every time he toes the rubber. And that’s not the end of the world if this is who he is. At least he can give us a start like this now and again. He’s been the only youngster to step up this August so we need to give this guy his due for last night’s performance.

Cueto was hitting 93 last night in his rehab start. That shimmy is getting closer and closer  to returning and I’ve just about taken home that ten bones from Diggity….

We’ve hopefully seen the last of Beede this season. He’s now free to go back to Sacramento and suck and make cameos in his wife’s B movies.

As noted a week or so ago it’s not going to fly having 1.5 reliable starting pitchers. Enter: D-Rod. That’s right, he’s back. I would have preferred Logan Webb because that PED suspension might have saved his arm a bit but here we are with D-Rod. I’m really not understanding why he’s been so bad this year. True, his FIP last season suggested his 2.81 ERA was not sustainable. But it wasn’t suggesting a goddamn 5.32 ERA either. He’s been bad on the road and at home. He’s been bad against lefties and righties. He’s probably not hurt or they would have shut him down. And he’s been a little better in the minor leagues (possibly where he belongs).

Nevertheless, here he is. He doesn’t have to pitch to a 2.81 ERA. How about something in between that and a goddamn 5.32?

Sarge would have a tough time talking Diggity into sitting in these sits which aren’t nearly the mile away from the field they need to be for him to sign off with a knowing dude head nod:

Good to see some of the Flap vets showing up for the stretch run.

Brett Anderson is imminently rake-able. I don’t understand how his ERA is under 4.00 or how he has a winning record. With Bum toeing the rubber (one of my favorite baseball sayings) it feels like Game 1 of the Bay Bridge Series is ours for the taking.

4-6 in our last 10. This has to get turned around quickly if we want meaningful games in September.

That was probably the win of the year. With Mendez getting yanked in the 2nd for some dude I’ve never heard of, the chances of getting embarrassed on the national stage were high. But not on Roger Craig’s watch. Mendez coulda walked 30 hitters, there was no way they were losing on the night they retired The Thrill’s number and Humm Baby himself shuffled on to the diamond in the pre-game ceremony. NO WAY.

As great of a win as that was, winning consistently is going to be a problem with only one and a half (Bum and Smarge) reliable starting pitchers. Mendez, Beede, Anderson, whether they’re burnt out or just not good enough, I see a lot of 3-7’s from here on out when the number needs to be 7-3 for us to make up enough ground in the wild card race.

But whatever, that’s for the baseball gods to sort out. Great win last night……

Besides giving a collective knowing dude head nod from Flap Nation to Kevin Pillar for being so important to the success of the team this year I think it’s time we give one to Smarge who has exceeded expectations. Come on, you can do it. Grudgingly, do it. A 3.55 ERA this year? Expected more like 7.55 amirite?

Yesterday he gives up a bomb in the first, we all start our usual “Smargerine sucks” chant and lo and behold it was just one of two hits he gave up for the game! He pitched like a man yesterday and deserves our respect.

Menez today, one of these days one of these young guys gonna step up and surprise me this August. Might take until September. Or next April?

Man, that second one from Harper was just majestic, wasn’t it? Picasso could have painted that bitch and hung it in the damn Reina Sofia….

Here’s why Bryce Harper would have been a bad signing by the Giants: Even with his 2 homer game last night there are, I couldn’t believe this number when I looked it up, 47 major league players with more home runs than him. Think about that. So for 350 mil or whatever he was going to cost, while I absolutely supported the idea of signing him at the time, I feel like we dodged a huge bullet there. There are way too many guys for a fraction of the cost who do what he does and who do it better…..

Plus he’s a douchbag.

Velasquez going today for the Phils today. Every time I see that guy I throw I don’t understand why he’s not more dominant. He’s got fantastic stuff. I guess it comes down to command—something our young Black Shoes could work on….

Can you imagine how much fun Joe Panik had last night? Getting cut loose from the shackles of this boring ass season and thrust into a game like that? In his hometown? Man, that must have been a wild ride. Good for him. I’m certainly not rooting for him but I’ll follow what he does…..

This is really good:

That was a calm, meditative diversion from what’s been going on around here lately, nice. With the dearth of quality pitching across the league it’s going to be a tough sell telling me Young Z didn’t receive any decent offers for Bum or Smith. Usually the offers get leaked out. I really need to see what they were just so I can finally shit, shower and shave. 🙂

Great opportunity for Black Shoes tonight. At some point I’d like to see one of these young pitchers stand up and say “I’m not like the rest. I will man up and pitch strong through this season.”

I’m not holding my breath.

I hope this team looks in the mirror and sees what the rest of us see: a bunch of overpaid, under performing, slugs. Without their precious Dick they are nothing more than a coterie of holograms shining randomly on different parts of the diamond. It’s really incredible that The Dick gets this much credit. He’s a freaking oft-injured journeyman. He has 6 home runs and 23 measly RBI’s.

And yet that was the coal that drove this engine. He was the man that Buster and Craw and Belt just couldn’t do without.

Ugh, in some ways I hate The Dick. He helped create this mirage of a monster that led to the vets stammering and whining to Z about keeping the team together. Well, Z caved to their demands. The Dick went down. And they went with him.

Utterly pathetic…….

Another boring game in the books. Diggity mentioned something about the Giants on the cusp of a record, biggest difference between runs scored at home vs the road, something like that? Anyone got a link to that?

Another one of our kids going today. Another reason why expecting prolonged production from these guys through the Summer was poppycock. Young arms aren’t grown the way they used to be grown. They’re soft. Pitch counts. Lots of stats and delicate arm angles. The last Great young Giant pitcher to man his way through the season was Bum. Guys like D-Rod, Suarez, Beede, Anderson, Mendez, etc….hey they might figure out how to pitch a full season at a high octane level at some point. Until they do my expectations will remain low, for them and the team…..

Well that went predictably awful. When Fedde shuts you down it’s time to take a step back, re-evaluate, take stock, etc….Smarge was a nibblin’ fool, he came up ant-small again. Losing Dick has castrated this offense.

I’m cool with Menez because he’s someone new, he’s a fairly legit prospect, but this feels a little too early for him to be counted on.

Long, slow, maybe swift decline is upon us. Hope Bochy enjoys it.

Dropped down to 4-6 in our last 10. Mets are 9-1 in their last 10. Think they think they can make the post season? This is where this all becomes somewhat of a mirage. Every team has a little run at some point in the season. Ours, sadly, was a little longer than other bad teams and certainly at the wrong time (close to the deadline).

We are now stuck in this slow walk down the Bochy Brick Road trying to find The Wizard of Wild Card. As  I said a couple of weeks ago, if this was watching Bochy get fired up for one final legit run through the post season I’d be all in. But he doesn’t have the tools, man. No Dick. The pitching is fraying like a motherfucker. He’s like Sandra Bullock in Gravity trying to re-enter the atmosphere but this alternate ending is going to see him burn up, horrifically.

Better than fading away, I guess…

Pawlie Kokonuts won the Trade Deadline contest. The prizes were 1) a $25 gift card and 2) this:

I haven’t seen a game in 10 days except the last 2 innings of last night. A quick check of the WC standings reveals…..we’re basically in the same spot we were when I left. 5-5 over the last 10, that’s not gonna get er done.

If nobody else gets hurt and The Dick comes back we probably have enough pieces to hang around into September. Maybe even till the end of September. But we need more 7-3’s and less 5-5’s.

What’s Cueto’s deal? Is he close to returning? Prolly gonna need him, too.

As we enter August, we now might have to helplessly watch the slow implosion of our young pitchers. DRod is a mess, I’m not really talking about him. But Shaun Anderson and Black Shoes Beede, 2 guys who must pitch well if we are going to keep the dream of .700 ball alive, are headed into some uncharted dog days. Anderson pitched 141 innings in 2018 and 109.2 so far this year, Beede only 87 innings last year, 104.2 this year. The good news there is that the Giants have never been too keen on limiting young pitchers innings, although that could change with Young Z at the helm. We shall see.

I read Kat at the end of the last thread saying Pillar hasn’t had a day off since June 11. The way that guy plays? Absolutely criminal and negligent of Bochy to do that.

I thought the last trip through Colorado would go poorly and they swept. For some reason we are right back in Nepal. Pretty quick turnaround. This one looks ominous…..

Too much happened yesterday to go over every deal but the Giants are universally getting “winner” votes on twitter—as opposed to the Yankees and Dodgers who are consistently getting “loser” votes. That’s a shame.

Scooter Gennett is the one to watch this year. If he’s over his groin injury then it’s exciting to see what his .874/.827 OPS of the last 2 years might bring to this team. I’m not holding my breath since he is really scuffling in 2019 and Oracle Park is unlikely to help his lefty bat production. But I think we are all ready to watch someone new out there. Panik has just been here too long……

Regardless, Young Z was wheeling and dealing like a madman yesterday. I still don’t understand how he got Atlanta to take the rest of Melatonin’s deal and getting anything for Pom and Black is astounding. When you look at what he gave up for The Dick and Pillar it has become clear that he gives up absolutely nothing for these guys. I’m exciting to see how his drafts unfold……