Finding A Way
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….
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
must have cost a fortune too. Tiran Porter, bass player from Doobies, was in store couple weeks ago. He has that salt/pepper hair very good looking guy. M McDonald was in town with Chaka Khan to play Mtn Winery in Saratoga so I guess he was in his touring band. But Doobies were hip like 40 years ago. There was a time you could see them for dang near nothing in San Jose when they were just getting started. Now? um no.
Ended up taking the boy to the SJ Giants game Saturday night. Fun night. Of note was Torii Hunter’s son is playing for the Inland Empire 66s, the Angels class A affiliate. He saw 2 pitches and hit them both hard. A drive to the wall, and a line drive single. Beer was ‘only’ $10.00 a pop, and the food was good and cheap. $13.00 seats. Lots of signage of Timmy, the Brandons, and Posey all in their SJ Giants unis.
It was interesting to hear more of Miller with Kruk, as Kuiper was out of town due to death of this father and Flems is doing Little League WS. Same thing on A’s side during Houston series, no Glen Kuiper also no Fosse. Miller seemed to bring out a little more of Kruk since he is so into things and keeps up on players and what they are doing. Just brings more energy to broadcast. Of course all the hits and runs scored first 3 games didn’t hurt.
If the pitching stays strong, and the bats hot, no reason our boys cannot sustain. The qualifier in all of this is that one word…”IF.”
Even if the starting pitching hangs-tough, I agree with your concerns on the bullpen. I just think Watson and Smith are dead-ass tired.
And during times like this it causes me pause in reflecting on the bullpen pieces we shipped-out in the trades. I do like what Z got in return, but there was always the question if post-trades our bullpen could remain one of the best. That is still up in the air, IMO.
Beede, Rodriguez, and Shark for the cubbie series. Gonna be tough.
I hope Beede can capture lighting in a bottle and someway, somehow, provide the chance for a W, and looking for another good start from DRod. Shark will need to keep the ball in the ballpark.
Gonna be interesting and a true test of this team’s fortitude.
i forgot about DRod. He’s gonna have to do it once more for me to believe he’s serviceable again
I agree. He needs to show some consistency and string together some serviceable starts. Hope it happens as I really like him, and believe that if he can be consistent, he has a chance to be a part of the rotation throughout this year and into the next couple of years.
The pitching in September will be the key to still having “meaningful” games with a month to play. Best case scenario? Cueto comes back shimmyin’ and putting up wins, D-Rod sustains the high performance of his last start, and Webb at least appears to be the real thing. I believe those 3 things will happen. I do not believe Beede should be part of this nor should he even start another game. As for the ‘pen, Z picked up what seemed like a bunch of relievers…. bring in some fresh arms, they’ll be needed…
Good read on the status of the game. I agree with most of this article. I miss the strategy of the game as it used to be played. Miss the hit and run, the bunt, etc. I still love the game, but IMO, it is moving in the wrong direction.
https://tinyurl.com/y2m9s5pu
Come on, somebody hits a bomb for us and it’s the best part of the game. Every time. Home runs are still the best part of the game. I wish some of the details of the game were still in play (like the ones your listed) but it’s still the best game out there.
I didn’t say it wasn’t the best game out there. It is, and always will be for me. I just don’t like the direction of the game. Sure, everyone loves a HR (chicks dig the longball), but there is just too much focus on the HR, and too many of them, IMO. That’s just me.
I’m beginning to edge towards thinking this shift stuff is BS. The batters are not countering it, they are not trying to push balls away from it and take hits that are there for the taking. That’s the focus on the HR. In the NBA there is a defensive penalty called for not having defenders near a player. I think the MLB shifts should be limited, though how, is TBD. Batters constantly hitting into these shifts (not just the Giants) is crap and another reason the game is slowly slipping into suckage. This isn’t a softball beer league, but it’s playing like one…
I’m all for more HRs, but I also think hitters should be trained so that when they see a shift, they forego the long ball and beat the shift. It’s the only way teams will stop using it.
I watch the Astros whenever they are here playing the A’s. Michael Brantley might be my fav hitter in all baseball because he constantly beats the shift. He does it line drives up the middle, singles to LF when given a pitch he can shoot that way and still has enough pop to take Blake Treinen out the yard when he leaves a ball where he can golf it out. He leads league in multi hit (not multi bomb) games with 51 and is second BA .335.
Can you imagine what Clemente would hit if a team tried to shift him?
There’s one…
NFL has gotten stupid because of the penalties and the injuries. NBA is ok, it’s just so long and so many games are blowouts. Hockey is just dumb. MLB is the best game left.
Hockey IMO is really good at the highest level, especially playoffs. I just can’t watch it because like many, I can’t follow the puck on TV. I’ve never been to a live Sharks game, but would like to. So damn expensive, though. NFL sucks with endless penalties and replay appeals; unless you are playing this fantasy stuff and betting, which I don’t. I’m trying to imagine an MLB player sitting out because he doesn’t like his batting helmet…
As they said in the old NHL commercial:
You try doing your job on ice skates…
Hitting home runs really has almost always been the best part of the game, it’s just that now it’s the main part of the game. SF’s 3 in 5, what do we remember? Uribe’s HRs. Rent’s 3-run shot. Pat the Bat (til he cratered in the WS). Craw’s grand slam, Posey’s grand slam, Ishi’s HR, Cody Ross’ amazing NLCS. Obviously Bonds and Kent. A hundred years ago, as a kid, I had one of those baseball board games with a little paper disc for each player and numbers on the disc for every type of “batter outcome” that you would hit by spinning the pointy arrow thing. The space for “1” was for HRs and the bigger that space on the disc for your players, the more you knew you were going to win that game. Chicks dig the long ball? We’ve all always dug the long ball. Now we must dig it even more if our team is going to sustain competitiveness.
You nailed it with this comment, Paul:
“Hitting home runs really has almost always been the best part of the game, it’s just that now it’s the main part of the game.”
Agree. I love the HR as much as the next person, but it has become too much a part of the game, and the other parts of the game (hit and run, steals, etc.) are becoming less and less a strategy in the game. I would just like to see more balance in the game.
I’ve seen some ideas proposed vs. shift where IFs have to be on the dirt as a ball is thrown, and/or 2 have to be on each side of 2b. Not sure legislating against it is way to go but I see the value.
As far as NBA goes, since they have taken so much away from defense I think allowing zone would be great. You can do hella lot of stuff out of zone beside sit back and protect paint; by trapping and doubling at various points on the court (including full or 3/4) you can bring lot of defensive pressure to bear on an oponent, plus it’s great set up to fast break out of.
I think it would help liven up the game and promote more ball (and player) movement from the steady boring diet of high screen and roll and the whole James Harden watch me dribble style of offense.
I would be against legislating shift rules, but that’s assuming batters show a league wide interest in beating shifts. They don’t, as far as I can tell. There is no league wide interest in getting off-field singles or doubles by repeatedly manipulating your bat and swing to “hit ’em where they ain’t”. It’s hit the ball through or over the shift…
I saw the Stones a couple weeks ago at MetLife Stadium. Good show. I wasn’t expecting to see Jagger prance around like 40 years ago, but for a guy in his 70s coming off heart surgery, he seemed to move around pretty damn good to me.
how was his voice?
It was OK, was expecting worse, so that was a pleasant surprise.
All these HRs is taking skill outta the game.
What if soccer expanded the goals to twice as long and 1/2 again as high? Same one goalie.
You’d gave 12-10 games, eh, maybe more goals is OK on some level. But, you’d have regular guys smoking goals in from 50-60 yards out, just blasting balls, no footwork, no passes. You lose the skills of a Messi that make goals memorable…
Apparently that ACL rehab isn’t slowing Klay down at all…
https://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/Klay-Thompson-Warriors-ACL-rehab-Mychal-14355954.php#photo-18030541
Well, zone is kind of allowed in the NBA, and teams not promoting beating the shift are retarded (see: Belt, Brandon; Panik, Joe). We don’t hit home runs anyway, so playing the game to our advantage would help. Maybe the new coach?
Home runs are great, but they should be earned. All I hear here is how the game is ridiculously cheapened by home runs, with multiple 3-home run games and check-swing bombs, then in the next breath, home runs are great! If they would just return the balls to their 2012 style, all would be forgiven. Because home run or die baseball IS beer-league softball.
well acknowledging that the ball is juiced and then liking home runs can be done simultaneously.
I used to be strongly against rules limiting shifts, but I’ve weakened on that. I’m just so tired of watching lefthanders pound the ball to the guy in short right field and getting thrown out. That’s tiresome.
Two infielders on each side of second base, by rule, is fine with me. But make it for only the first 7 innings. Then allow teams to make whatever creative late-game shifts they want to.
The analytical wizards cracked the code on the game. Now the rules have to adjust.
I’m not exactly inspired by Beede taking the bump at Wrigley tonight. Maybe the relative distance from Allie allows him to compete with a clear head.
Tomorrow night, I think, although I haven’t looked at the schedule lately.
No problem with him taking the bump tonight. Now tomorrow is a different story…
lmao!
Recent history says Beede tomorrow will be an S show in front of that crowd. It’ll be a miracle if he survives 3 frames…
Yeah, I think so too. Tomorrow and whatnot.
Do the Stones actually issue an album before they go on these tours? I’ve suspected the motive to do them is when Jagger gets low on cash and the alimony and child support fund needs replenishment…
Sometimes there is an album for the tour. I don’t think they play very many songs off new albums at the shows. At the shows I’ve been to (which are from the 1990s onward) it was pretty much the greatest hits, with maybe one or two songs off the new album. It was a good show each time I went. I was impressed that they delivered a good show each time. I’ve never owned a Stones album. Each concert I went to was with a group of friends who were big fans of the band.
The show I went to the Stones played two songs from the 80s: Start Me Up and a Keith Richards song from Steel Wheels (’89) that I wasn’t familiar with. Otherwise, it was all from the ’60s and ’70s.
Read this article in it’s entirety and you’ll know exactly how different the game is today versus the early 1970s and why some HOFs dislike what’s going on. Me? I personally think the game is self-destructing and the people in charge are oblivious to what’s happening.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2791455-i-find-it-very-difficult-to-watch-why-mlb-greats-think-baseballs-in-trouble.amp.html
Love this George Brett quote:
“If they had shifted me back in 1980, I would have hit .600,” Hall of Famer George Brett says.
A real baseball player!!!
Lots of doom and gloom there, but a lot of truth. Baseball was fun to watch because of the athleticism shown from running the bases, running down and catching lined drives, throwing to third on a first to third try on a long single, all that. When 1/3 of the ABs result in HRs, walks or Ks, that doesn’t leave a lot of other action…
Beer league. .
Wow. Garoppolo looks like dogshit. 1-6, 0 yards.
Should of had 2 picks instead of 1 as well..
Yep. Beyond the fact the article being a year old and I’m sure all the numbers are worse this year, it’s pretty spot-on.
Really, it doesn’t bother me that much as I only really watch the Giants, and they play pre-2016 baseball, and I’ll watch the occasional Dodger, Cubs or other NL teams, but AL games? 9 innings in 3.5 – 4 hours? Fuck that. Ridiculous.
Good catch Unca. I was going to emphasize that this was last season, but it would have been piling on.
Heh heh. When it said AZ ws in 1st place I was huh?
I saw something where it’s been 30+ straight days of someone hitting at least 2 HRs in a game. Crazy shit like that is becoming so common now.
Granted it is pre-season in the NFL, but sure hoped to see better fro JimmyG. That was a sweet TD pass by Mullen, and helluva catch by Bourne.
I think the Niners can get out of that deal after this season if he continues to look like shit and/or gets injured again.
He may have Matt Cassel Syndrome…
I watched the Netflix movie Screwball that Flav recommended. Wow, I may need a shower from the amount of sleaze associated with this one. Obviously A-Rod comes off looking bad, but MLB, in particular Selig and Manfred, are even more slimy. All kinds of sordid characters throughout, and as Tony Bosch says at the end, you can’t make this story up. The only thing that didn’t work for me was using kids to recreate the flashback scenes; I’m sure the filmmakers had a reason for doing this, but it was lost on me. Otherwise, yeah, it’s a fascinating look at the steroid scandal that brought down A-Rod and others.
Glad someone watched it! The kids thing kinda grew on me by the end but it was hard keeping track of who was who sometimes. I think they were trying to make it sort of funny/absurd which the actually story turned out to be—-life mirroring art or some shit like that. The fact that dumbass Manfred got promoted AFTER that fiasco shows you how poorly run MLB is.
F/G has column looking at the Korean League (KBO) which altered the baseballs for this season. Results were less bombs, lower OPS and ISO, yada yada. Really an interesting read plus blogger comments afterward. So it can be done if Manfred really wants to do it/admits ball is different in first place.
To me it’s gotten to point of being devalued like the roid era when Brady Anderson hit 50 and Mac and Sosa were at 70. And all the strikeouts just plain suck, period.