Fortuna Spineth Downward
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:
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Bochy gets to end his managing career with a measure of dignity. That’s something.
For him. Not for us.
He gave a lot to us.
he got a lot, too.
Hard to see present group of players plus prospects acquired as one to “burn up horrifically.” In May I wound have agreed with you, now no. They’ve shown they can hang with top half of the league. Bochy’s team will win somewhere btw 75-81 games which will mark a wonderful achievement and look forward to future gains. He will still be part of the organization upstairs somewhere and will have been involved in getting team turned around in right direction. And part of that will include some kind of new deal for Bum, who has much love and respect for him.
And no one can say he isn’t playing the young guys anymore because of vet love either.
Assuming Z was bullied into standing pat with Bum and Smith because he feared player/housewife outrage, this probably set us back a year in the resurrection. Obviously that’s just a guess and I don’t have any idea what he was offered for those 2 but had we ditched them we would have gotten to the top faster, probably.
I doubt ZMan was being offered anywhere near the haul the Dbacks got for Greinke, since he has 2+ years left on a deal, and Bum was a rental. That’s why they should have traded Bum a season ago. But Smith was probably worth a good deal of talent, since ZMan got some nice on paper Brewer talent for that PomPom+Blechhh combo. When Smith walks after a likely no-WC ending to 2019, that will not be optimal…
Flav, that’s certainly a possibility in the absence of actual information/facts. That being said, I DO NOT BELIEVE IT. Wander over to the right of the blog and read the Post Of The Day (which I endorsed and emphatically agreed with before it became the POTD) . . . Snarkk nailed it – Z is playing chess, while the rest of the world is playing checkers.
Additionally, despite his extraordinary analytic abilities, you still need 2 to tango. Consequently, we’ll probably never know what happened regarding Bum, Smith, and the rest of the roster, because there’s 29 other GMs that you have to factor into any and all trade equations. Sometimes, the best deal is no deal at all. Z knows this.
hey, I hope you’re right. I think there’s also the possibility that a rookie GM got bullied by the players (and god forbid the fucking facebook housewives) into keeping Bum and Smith to not rock the boat and keep this 5% fantasy alive for a one game sudden death crap shoot.
Nice Hues Corporation reference…
Nice Def Leppard reference…
I was going with Neil Young but I see your point here, too
I caught the Neil Young reference. 🙂
If the Giants were to somehow make it to the Wild Card game, Bochy would be a strong contender for manager of the year. Wouldn’t that be an amazing turn of events. Hey, I’m daring to dream. 🙂
Think it is likely that no one (will Yanks, Twins, Braves and Brewers live to regret this) was willing to offer top tier talent for Bum so that really ended up becoming a non-starter. I think the analystics is not doing Bum much favor and he had pitched much better last couple months but not to the level where teams in need viewed the two months of Bum worth dealing top-tier talent.
I’m surprised Will Smith did not get done because one would think any of these contenders would have preferred him to either Dyson or Melancon…so I take it no one won the LooPool???
Did you read the post?
If the offense goes quiet because they lose one guy (Dick), that obviously won’t cut it, nor will the current pitching staff. But I don’t see a major crash-and-burn just because their newly found improved competitiveness wasn’t sustainable this year. Z managed to “thread the needle” with his decisions thus far and now he’ll need to fix the major things that need fixin’ in the off-season. The team is already better than it was at the start of the season and last year, and there are now more hopeful prospects a year or so away, so they’re trending up, which is all we can ask for. If Sabean was still in charge, I wouldn’t be so hopeful, but it’s looking like Z will get this team sustainably more competitive even by next season.
More important than all this other stuff—-what was the Def Leppard reference?
they also have a “better to burn out than fade away” lyric but I was going with Neil Young all the way, man, all the way.
what’s Def Leppard?
only half-kidding…I know they’re a rock group but beyond that I know minus ZERO
Not a band I would ever recommend to anyone.
Why you always gotta hate on 80’s hair metal Zum? Yeah, they looked kinda ridiculous and they weren’t trying to solve the world’s problems with their lyrics, but the riffs and musicianship were damn good and they put on a helluva an entertaining show.
I’ll take Def Leppard over someone like Springsteen or U2 8 Days a Week.
IMO, think this is how real men should look…
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him, Loo is the guy on the right in the striped pants…
As hair bands go, Def Leppard was head and shoulders (snicker) above the rest. Pyromania is a solid album across the board.
big shoutout to DJLoo . . . I got the bonus prize today … I would paste a photo if I could. THANKS, Loo!
i’ll pop it into the main thread soon
You’re welcome, Pawlie.
It’s good to look at once in awhile, just to confirm that it really happened…
I am reading ‘Dylan and Cohen: Poets of Rock and Roll’ by David Boucher. Some good stories. Thoroughly researched, the kinda book I could see zumieeee reading. (But honestly, who writes ‘rock AND roll’??)
Yeah, and it’s getting hard to even think what the phrase “rock and roll” even means anymore, anyway. I almost never use that phrase.
Along with ‘jazz’ it originally had sexual connotations…the Dictionary of American Slang goes on for pages about ‘jazz.’ If memory serves, you’d not be far off if ‘jizz’ came to mind; so, you’re not as dirty-minded as you thought. (‘You’ being generic, referring to any reader herein.)
I am not as glum as you are, Magnus, about this year’s band of misflirts. No question, this last bunch of games has sobered me up from my delirium tremens of irrational optimism (DTOIO). But still: if that’s all it ends up being, it provided some fun along the way, and a dollop of optimism for the future. I am not certifiably insane. In the craziest, the most Lunatic Fringe (tip of hat to Sabes) of scenarios, SFG will not be in or win the World Series (insert capitalist prostituted registered trademark). They might win the one WC game, if they get there (yes, virtually impossible but not quite), but won’t get much farther. Back to your regular negative programming, fuckwads.
All I can assume is that teams thought we were going to roll over with bullshit offers for Madbum, or they were concerned that all he wanted to do was come back here anyway after the season ends.
Will Smith I don’t get. He should have gotten a pretty decent haul.
Other than Game 2 of the 2016 NLDS vs. the Cubs, which he lost, tonight might be the biggest start of Smardzj’s Giants career, given that this is the first of 7 home games vs. teams very much within striking distance for the WC.
Next 7 games will determine their fate. They somehow go off and sweep the Nats( and a possibility since their not facing Strasburgh&Corbin) they move past them and then 4 with the Phils who they could pass as well.So starting with a win from Shark who all of a sudden is one of the hottest pitchers in the league(4-1 2.09 in July) this is their make are break moment..And yes bring up Jaylin Davis&Conner Menez now for the stretch run, nothing to lose& plenty to gain..
I’m snarkky about the Giants not trading Bum and Smith but hardly devastated by it. Personally, I would have wanted 2-3 guys who MAY have turned into the next Acuna. I’ll always take a shot at something like that over keeping what we’ve already had, what we already know. Somehow, some way we need to start finding bats that are STARS. Possibly Ramos is one, we’ll see. But time is ticking, I want this to start as soon as possible, we wasted years of falling back on *the core*. The Core brought us 3 beauties, then they became obsolete. It’s time to move on from them, Bochy and everything else. It’s the only way to get what we want…..
And Mac you are absolutely right. This is an enormous start for Smarge, we need to recapture some momentum and a loss tonight would probably have triple the negative effect on the team psyche than a win would have. They dug themselves the deepest of holes, this is what they were 1% 6 weeks ago. They have to play 650–.700 ball THE REST OF THE WAY to leapfrog ALL those teams and then secure a spot. .500 ball now or worse ain’t gonna get er done.
I never really liked the sound of the Def Leppard recordings. They’re going for loud and dynamic, and they just sound really thick and muddy to me. There’s a bunch of mid-range sound that I’m not sure what it even is. Lots of echo, I guess, on all the instruments and vocals. A lot of their recordings have this kind of SHOOSH sound in them. I’m not sure what the producer, Robert “Mutt” Lange, is doing on these recordings. I’ll give them the fact that it is a distinctive Def Leppard sound. “Photograph” is a great song. I can listen to that one.
Everyone did that in the 80s, Zumie. Mutt Lange wasn’t the only one. ZZ Top remixed al the drums on ALL their earlier albums to get that echo-ey effect to very bad results.
Dig the Neil reference. The Rust Never Sleeps tour was one of my all time favorite shows.
We must of been at the same show Chuck,1978 Cow Palace, yeah that was an awesome show!
Hey Hey My My Rock&Roll will never die!!
The smoke with the glowing eyes of the ewoks/monk wardrobes were incredible to watch.
Yep, the Cow Palace! All the giant amps and shit with those little guys running around was so crazy.
Def Lep is cool man. At the peak of their popularity their drummer was in an accident and lost his arm. Instead of moving on and just finding a new drummer they built this elaborate drum set that allowed him to still drum for them. I’m assuming that since this happened in the 80’s it was a huge pain in the ass to construct. I think he still drums for them today.
Yeah, they just got elected to the RnR HoF. An institution up there in idiocy with the baseball HoF.
It took a lot of courage for the drummer to do this and for the band to even entertain it. It was the 80s, political correctness didn’t exist, it was beyond shocking, at the time, that they went so far out of their way to keep that dude as the drummer
Yeah, he’s still the drummer. Some sort of early computer drum repeater thing that he used. Never did see ’em.
Today’s the anniversary of the myth that Robin Ventura got beat up by Nolan Ryan. It’s a strong myth, because it’s a myth people want to be true, so it gets passed on as being true.
I’ve heard Ventura’s side of the story in an interview, and it’s clear from watching the video that his side of the story is true. He had just gotten traded to his new team at the trade deadline. He was told by his new teammates that they were tired of being hit by Ryan, and they decided that if anyone gets hit by him in the game that day, that player must rush the mound. Well, it turns out Ventura gets hit by the pitch, and he has no issue with Ryan and he starts running to first base, but then he remembers he’s supposed to rush the mound (he probably heard his teammates yelling), and he has no desire to hurt Nolan Ryan, but he can’t lose face with his teammaters, so he runs out there and grabs Ryan around the waist and just holds on, throws no punches, allows Ryan to punch him. Later both he and Ryan said Ryan was mostly pulling the punches. Ryan didn’t want to hurt his pitching hand. So, Ventura ends up helping create a myth that the old Texan pitcher beat up the young punk. Not true, but whatever. It’s a myth people want to believe in.
And George Washington told his father he cut down a cherry tree. And George Washington threw a coin a half mile across a river.
The Bible has some doozies too
How did Cain and Abel populate the entire world?
All the kids started fucking each other? Lol, who knows.
Adam and Eve had 2 kids. Cain and Abel.
Yeah, either that or that’s the story Ventura came up with to justify getting his ass kicked by Ryan.
The interview was years later. He knows the event is part of the myth of Ryan now, and he doesn’t want to really detract from that. It’s probably the only time he ever talked about it.
Ventura played with the White Sox from 1989-98, so in 1993 he hadn’t just been traded to a new team, he was a well-established player for the ChiSox.
The thing goes on longer than people remember. Bo Jackson was in the middle of it, and Ivan Rodriguez. I think Micky Hatcher ended up with a cut over an eye. Ventura is out of the scene relatively quickly just pacing the outside of the mob. Probably just happy that his part was over. Little did he know it would get turned into a big thing
Ryan doesn’t look like he’s pulling punches there. And, messing with Bo Jackson? No thanks.
Pawlie by the way Congrats winning the prestigious Loo Pool Contest! That 3 World Series Championship picture is fantastic!
Story I heard is that Rangers owner George Bush II was ready to charge onto the field, but decided against it when he saw Bo Jackson out there. Crazier is Ryan wasn’t ejected, and he won the game.
Yeah, DJ, that is pretty fucking cool.
@ Zum–as much as I disagree with your take on Def Leppard, I agree with your take on Robin Ventura. Totally forced story by the media and everyone has eaten it up for years. Fake News.
Sucks that is what Ventura is remembered for when he was a real good player.
…and like me, a Central Coast native. (Santa Maria in Ventura’s case)
Surprised to see he fell about 100 hits short of 2000.
Fun Fact–Melky Cabrera is less than 100 hits from 2000—and is still playing. (Pirates)
You are from Santa Maria, Dawg? My wife was born at St Mary;s hospital, and went to St Mary’s catholic school in Santa Maria. they lived on East Tunnel Rd.
Oh nvrmnd. Ventura.
Dawg, any thoughts on the cliff collapse? Incredibly tragic. Extremely rare event?
With all the mass gunmans and loss of lives, some people might just want to reflect on life and go to the beach.Jesus you can’t even do that anymore!!
Condolences to this family and all the families from Gilroy,Elpaso,and Dayton..
Yes, very rare. Although Highway 1 was closed or months due to a huge landslide south of Big Sur.
On Facebook, Flannery seemed to be saying he knew the people.
I guess I remembered part of the Ventura story wrong. I do have a clear memory of him saying he didn’t share the hate of Ryan his teammates had. He never threw a punch in the fight, which seems to validate that.
Not true . . . Ventura got in about a half dozen punches using his head. Ryan’s hand must have been pretty much beaten up/black and blue after that pummeling. .
🙂
Well, yeah, it’s hard to throw a punch when you are in a head lock.
How is that physically true?
They talked years later and signed some shit together. .
You can get anything signed for a price…
If Oswald had survived, him and Ruby would’ve cleaned up autographing this one…
Yeah I can see that Loo, it would of made of made Robby Thompson’s “Shot heard around the World” obsolete..
It looks like Buster’s not about to move from behind the plate.Zman wants Bart to be even more flexible by fielding balls at 1st and 3rd. That’s cool if they trade Belt this off-season which I think they will, and help accelerate Bart even faster to the show.Buster’s value now with his weak numbers(Hr’s &RBI’s)are more valuable behind the plate then at 1st compared to all 1st basemens imo..
You’re right AK. Like I said yesterday, the “core is rotten” and all of them should be shown the door (hopefully, by the start of next season). Minimally, you bring in competition for these guys. I mean come on! Buster, Craw, Belt, Panic, and Longo’s numbers are wretched.
Buster has low numbers for a catcher. They are likely 30th for a 1st baeman.
Mathematically possible:
Giants-Mets WC Game 2019 @ Citifield
Bumgarner vs. Syndergaard
Torn hamstring for Cano.
Panik time?
For Frazier?
lol
I guess if they waived him and the Mets claimed him, the Giants would save a few bucks anyway…
Panik has been worthless for years. No power, no speed, and no team just grabs you for defense if you offer literally nothing else.
His family might buy some tickets…
1. Brandon Belt (L) 1B
2. Mike Yastrzemski (L) LF
3. Buster Posey (R) C
4. Pablo Sandoval (S) 3B
5. Scooter Gennett (L) 2B
6. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
7. Kevin Pillar (R) CF
8. Steven Duggar (L) RF
9. Jeff Samardzija (R) P
I know this in slow motion, and that can skew things; but I don’t see a tremendous beating going on here. The crown of a head is very hard. Nolan isn’t going to do something foolish and break his hand.
Some of the “blows” are with the bottom of his hand.
The fight actually gets more real when other people arrive on the mound.
#16 of the Rangers wins the award for most worthless fight breaker-upper.
yeah. #16 doesn’t even take off his glove. WTF was he planning on doing, catching someone?
#6 kind of dances away, too. Pretty funny.
Dean Palmer is the gloved #16 for the Rangers.
he hit 275 bombs in his career. Huh, I have no recollection of him. He was once traded for tom goodwin, lol
This angle does dispel the myth that Ventura was taking uppercuts to the jaw.
I don’t know that’s still a pretty good knuckle sandwich Ryan is peppering Robin’s head with that’s gotta hurt his knuckles some.
I want to know who did the damage that left a big bloody gash on Mickey Hatcher’s forehead?
Once an angry Bo Jackson arrived on the mound, the guys on the other team needed to take note.
That’s for sure,and where was “The Big Hurt”Frank Thomas?Between him and Bo they could of put a major smackdown on the Royals..
I remember Palmer. Lots of strikeouts too as a I recall.
Zum–there have been a few of those cliff collapses down here over the years, but all or mostly in the northern part of county, where I haven’t spent much time over the years, so it all still seems a little abstract to me.
Gets me thinking about the time I spent recently in San Pedro though, where a couple of times I was climbing around on ruins with my dog in that restricted “Sunken City” area.
Chuck—I was born in San Luis Obispo and lived there until I was 8, so that’s my connection to the central coast.
My cousin (Joe) lives in San Luis Obispo and was an alternate on one of the Olympic track and field teams back in the ’80s when he went to university there. He owns Running Warehouse in the area and through their partnership with +3, they support the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo University Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Teams. He loves that town and area. I always enjoy visiting . . . great area!
Say Dog, Do you remember a place called Shaw’s (early 80’s)Restaurant in Santa Maria? A bunch of my buddies&I stopped in their after a 3 day bowling tournament San Diego and we took the coast highway home.That place was the BOMB,gotta a steak that was hanging over the plate, it was so dammed good,and it was cheap, place was busy so I figured he had to be a local favorite..
you see Fedde drop his head when Belt hit that? That’s a bomb in any park and should fucking be in ours. BRING THE FENCES IN!!!!!!
That’s for sure happening in the off season. It’s going to blow our minds.
The two teams’ bullpens will be crammed next to each other, though.
Holy shit how can you not love Kevin Pillar? Half-hurt and laying his motherfucking body OUT to make that insane catch. What a stud.
Tremendous catch.
unfortunately his hitting is going to still lag with that hip. I’m not sure where he expects to go with that, probably not an injury that heals on it’s own this season without a lot of rest.
A guy called Jaylin Davis itching to play center..
For all of you *gorkhead* truthers out there….
Maddox is better then Pillar and I can verify it, I watched him at the Stick track down EVERYTHING!!! Also one of the best outfields ever with Matthews in LF and Bobby Bonds in RF!
Leave it to the Giants to fuck up a good thing and break up that trio..
l liked the all Gary outfield (Gary Thommason)
Herndon was bad ass as well.
I’ll give him Maddox and Herndon. Pillar has inexplicably dropped easy catches though.
The entire team is reverting back to pre-July. Smargle at 75 pitches in 2.2+
The other stiff has thrown 18.
Fuck me. Smargle, don’t flip your calendar.
82 pitches for Smardzxxxs in 3 innings?
That’s insane…
And only 1 run allowed!
Kat—I don’t know that place in Santa Maria, but you paint a pretty picture!
I’m taking MapDawg up to Cal Poly SLO next month, so I have a little taste of the Central Coast coming up.
Well, there you go. Smargle looks like Frank Zappa and Joe Walsh had a kid.
That’s like 3 crushed balls right at people.
Ahhh, SLO Dog. Love that area. Going to Santa Barbara next week. For a free vacay through Kathy.
Got to take advantage of this. Fedde is looking wild now.
Now Kruk is not tracking outs.
Bochy better have somebody greased up in the Pen. Smardzxxx didn’t really get a blow in that inning, he was on base most of it…
It’s not even a topic this clown 🤡 Haft is talking about.Maddox won 8 GOLD GLOVES I don’t even see one on Pillars resume..
ROY as well.
Matthews was ROY, not Maddox (looked it up)
Maddox only won 1 of his 8 GGs as a Giant…
I had no problem with that uniform.
Wouldn’t mind a little change next season…
Yeah Loo only 1 with the Giants,cause they were dumb enough not to allow him to win another 7 with them by trading him..
AK, wasn’t there a Shaw’s in San Mateo? On 4th Ave?
Yeah but that was that famous ice cream parlor Shaws ..where the servers would run around in goofy red&white stripe outfits bringing you a ice cream Zoo ( shitload of ice cream whipped cream hot fudge nuts cherries etc)
This place in Santa Maria was called Shaws Steakhouse.old school restaurant with huge steaks, I just googled it up, Its still there! 40 years later, though now it says closed, so I’m not sure they still show all the yummy dishes..
Coulda sworn Maddox won ROY.
The Belt/Craw/Posey axis just sucks the life out of the offense.
3 waks. Wow.
Double wow. Coonrod is playing his way to sactown.
3Walks and a Balk holy Toledo!!
If Miller says first base is open I’m gonna scream
There’s your HOF CFer. Fuck. Dugger couldn’t see it as well?
3 walks, a balk and a lost fly/double. Yeesh.
He could solve that one:
“A triple and a double, catcher’s and fielder’s, and Dolly Parton”
“Name two big hits, two big mitts…..and a famous country singer!”
Crickey, listening to Giants pitching so far, I feel like Dustin Hoffman in the dentist chair in Marathon Man…
What a fucking dreary showing by the Giants.
Def leppard was a great band in the day. High & dry rock of ages bring on the heartbreak photograph all winners. Graduated from HS in 83 and they were big then. Great memories. I’m gonna get over it eventually but still pissed we kept Smith the most. No housewives outraged if her were sent somewhere!
Bottom of the 5th and we’ve thrown 150 pitches.
It’s not too much of a stretch to say that if The Dick had never shown up this year we’d possibly have the worst record in the NL except maybe the Marlins?
Agree he was the ingniter to get them rolling..