September Blues
Hey, at least Logan was good. I am cautiously penciling his name into next year’s rotation. After the way D-Rod fell off the map though, it’s tough to pen anyone’s name into toeing the rubber next season…..
Young Beedah goes today and I have zero faith that a competitive effort is in the offing.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Love the opening weekend of college football!!! Not for the game but because I tend to hit parlays every year!!! A 4 5 and 6 team set of parlays hit yday thanks to Stanford covering with a fumble in the end zone with 25 seconds left!!
If Northwestern falls on it instead, Stanford would have failed to cover!!! I hit two more games in the evening with Iowa and Georgia covering with late turnovers and converting a
TD and FG respectively. Then had Fresno State cover the +13.5 with a TD woth about 4 min left!!! Nice $1300 payday
I had an 11 team parlay and hit 8 of 10 with ND as last pick…$3 bet would have paid $7000…
Yeah that Stanford cover was lucky. Nice score.
I mostly agree with SD on Cueto. If you do use him It has to be on strict pitch/innings count. The athlete is the least trustworthy one here. why not get more look at the kids? Next year is way more important than now.
The guys who should be shut down are Smith and Watson. They’re done let em walk.
great day of college football. Questions abound for Stanford/USC game next week over QB injuries, Oregon falls apart late vs. Auburn, Mtn West has hella week—Boise St over Seminoles Nevada beats Purdue Wyoming over Mizzou and Fresno gave SC all they could handle. Still too many cupcake games though.
I did have Oregon as well and they were dominant for about 3 qtrs…
Like Flav, I have zero confidence that Beede will perform satisfactorily this season. He just seems lost mentally and emotionally. That being said, his stuff is still elite and I am hoping the Giants can salvage his enormous talent for next season, i.e., someone in the organization needs to work with him 24/7 in the off season and spring training, where his strike zone management does a 180 degree turn.
By the by Flavor, Beede is NOT pitching today. Eye chart is.
Lol really? ESPN had beede. I need to get better at this
looks like Dorian about to wreak havoc on Bahamas. Hope she stays away from Carolinas and all Bozos are safe sound this week.
Dorian is beautiful tune by Kenny Dorham, hope this one plays out with as little damage as possible.
and thx to Mr. Bozo for tip on Trane’s Blue World. Great tune hope to hear entire cd once it’s released.
Yep. Smargle today. Shooting to be the first double-digit win pitcher on the Giants.
In September.
Really happy for Sergio Romo, who bounced to the Twins and has been nails for them. Sergio has saved three games and picking up eight holds. Per the article I read, “his fastball averages 86 mph and he throws almost 60% sliders, but batters are still chasing that Frisbee out of the strike zone after all these years.”
Not as happy about Strickland, but will give him props for pitching well with his new team, the Nats. He has a record of 2-0, with a 1.64 ERA. Not certain if he is closing or will be given a chance to close, what with Doolittle on the IL. GH would probably know.
Stricknyne is the 2nd guy out of the pen from what I can see. Hudson is their temporary guy.
Of all people Cory Gearrin got the W for Yanks yesterday with 2 shutout innings vs. A’s. Man did this guy land in the penthouse or what?
Oh thx man I was waiting for this. Pablo lol I guess he can still hit LH. Hope Shaw serves notice enough to take over 1b next year.
WTF No Jaylin Davis??
I’m beyond PISSED 😡OFF!!
He deserves his shot at the show and get acclimated to Oracle Park’s dimensions.
Like Mike Krukow use to say about pitcher Mark Grant: “Million Dollar Arm but a 10 cent Brain “
That’s where we’re at with Beede, great stuff, but no confidence throwing it to location, and once he falls behind hitters are sitting on dead red, are he completely loses it and walks them, especially a pitcher, which has a manager like Bochy blowing smoke out of his big head and reaching for a pouch of chew to devour even though he doesn’t chew anymore..
Cal’s schedule: on road at UW Oregon and Utah, plus a trip to Palo Alto in Nov. All 4 of those teams class of league.
I thought Garcia would be brought up. Posey will likely be shutdown for the most part (or should be anyway). BS move if he’s sharing time with Vogt and Buster. Similarly, what kind of circus are we running here with Pablo not being shut down?
Agree with AK, Davis should have been given his opportunity. I wonder if this was totally a Mr. Z move or Bochy had something to do with it (i.e., favoring Pablo). Dunno. Just strange.
Just to give Panda 1 AB and a final ovation for Bochy’s bromance boy before he gets his surgery makes little sense to me.
And I’m sure Boch doesn’t want to pull his Ironman boy Pillar to give Davis time in Centerfield,are any spot in the OF plus he needs 1 more bomb for 20,so he will play everyday like Pence use to.Oh didn’t Pence finally breakdown after all that use? Could happen to Pillar as well..
i remember when some here called this guy and Pillar the same player. lqtm
Fairness to Bochy, after a not so good july for Pillar (.649 OPS 2 bombs) Pillar went off in August.
6 bombs slash line of .340 .369 (his top month by 50 points for OB) ,649 for 1.018 OPS. He also has 10 bombs at the O, I’m sure another stat in which he leads the teams beside rbis.
Wasn’t a good month for Giants who went 11-16, but Pillar was great. And this off ML pitching and I think that’s part of their thinking–Slater Yaz even Dick are hitting ML pitching so how do you sit them?
Btw long column in Chron today from John Shea Being Bruce Bochy where they follow him from nearby residence through a day (and an L) at the yard. Interestingly, there is a small reference to analytics guy who sits next to Bochy’s office during the game crunching numbers. Bochy said he plans to be in there with him next year. Says further, “Players are intrigued by it. They want to know. They’re curious. They want to get better. Most of them are all in.”
1. Donovan Solano (R) 2B
2. Austin Slater (R) RF
3. Kevin Pillar (R) CF
4. Evan Longoria (R) 3B
5. Joey Rickard (R) LF
6. Stephen Vogt (L) C
7. Aramis Garcia (R) 1B
8. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
9. Jeff Samardzija (R) P
I am not certain, but how many times has only 1 “core” guy played since our last WS championship? Not too many times I would imagine and definitely not batting 8th.
Cueto looked good last night. Threw 70-75 pitches over 6 innings. Game was slow…not a lot of hits, base runners, etc., but hard to beat Sacramento for a summer nighttime baseball game.
What the hell is a Burch Smith?
If he bombs( most likely) they can always plant a Birch( Burch)Tree in his memory..
I’m with Kat. No Davis is just dumb. Annoying.
Webb is no DRod. Read a good article in the Athletic. just his thoughts, listing EVERY rookie starter brought up over the last 12 years. Lots of names I remember, a few I don’t. Beede was bad in his 1st start, and his velocity down at 90 at the time. Some had good results (DRod and others), but for pure stuff as the criteria. For having stuff that made hitters look silly. For a guy like Machado (A legit star) looking foolish missing a pitch by a foot, that Webb had the best stuff of any Giant in his 1st start since Lincecum.
ok 2nd or 3rd start but you get the idea…
Verlander still with a no no in the 8th.
What a stud. Very happy for Verlander. He’s 36 years old and a war horse, still pitching no hitters in this bomb happy era. Whoa!
Dubon should be playing 2B or SS every game, one or the other.
This guys needs exposure to MLB ABs.
The hand wringing on the radio yesterday and today (including Bochy pre game) of whether Panda gets probably his one last SF at bat, as a PH today, is ridiculous. He goes to surgery Tuesday.
Just phucking give him an AB, whenever it is, in the game. He can get his standing O. This isn’t the damn WSeries, for kreisakes. The game is meaningless. He’s been taking ABs left handed in batting practice, and is fine with that. Seriously, sometimes the Giants chatter including Bochy is just dumb…
great points.
Meanwhile, in between the riveting saga of whether Panda will get a last AB today, there was no pre-game question to Bochy by Miller on — WTF wasn’t Davis brought up?…
well it does take up a roster spot. Maybe after Sando AB they bring up Davis for the road trip..
Not bringing Davis up has to be some kind of contract move.
Maybe they expect him to be really good, and don’t want to pay him a year early.
That’s the only thing I can come up with — Sac playoffs is a red herring.
We know what these other guys can do in the OF…
Verlander’s no hitter — I’m guessing he’s goin’ to get a very warm welcome soon from Mrs. Verlander…
Real question I have about OF is why Rickard is on the 40 man. that definitely does impact Davis (who is not) at least for right now.
Finally, Giants have a guy with 20 dingers.
Pillar ! …
there goes another reason Davis is stuck. There is no way, and rightfully so, he is taking over CF this year.
Why not?
Pillar has his 20.
We know what he can do.
The Giants need know nothing more on him to decide what to do with him next season.
They DO need to know about Davis, which could impact what they would do with Pillar next season…
No. How is this fair to Pillar? He has done nothing to deserve losing his job to a kid. There’s a reason Bochy is well loved and respected by his players, and this is one of them. None of the other young OFs have done anything to lose their jobs and ABs, except for Rickard.
And the idea you would learn all about Davis off what he does in September is hardly accurate. Even M Lurie quotes that one, it’s like baseball in April and ultimately untrustable.
Agree to disagree.
It’s not a question of fair.
This is time to evaluate unknowns. Pillar is a known.
He’s a big boy. He gets paid whether he sits or plays.
Another 25 games of him isn’t going to tell us anything we don’t know about him.
Do you disagree a month of seeing Davis playing against MLB teams in the hunt like Cards, Braves, Doghairs wouldn’t be instructive? Who said we’d learn “all about” him in a month? Guaranteed we won’t know jack about him beyond AAA if he doesn’t play up here at all. Pillar plays, maybe he hits 4 more jacks and makes a few more cool catches. For offseason evaluation and moves, that’s irrelevant…
of course it’s 1.0 who puts an end to this ridiculous streak of years we’ve gone without a 20 home run hitter.
He started today with exactly a 1.0 WAR. 🙂
Good article by Shea in the Chron on Bochy.
The guy is a baseball lifer.
I would not be shocked if he manages the Pads next season…
Nats became the first team in 50 years to have 3 pitchers strike out 200 are more batters.Strasburgh, Scherzer$ and Corbin.
The 50 years ago pitchers in 1969 were Dierker,Wilson&Griffin..
Even more impressive with the 5-man rotation.
AK, Pillar breaking down? Really? It’s baseball, not lumberjacking. And h]who had Pillar hitting 20 at the beginning of the season?
(I’m kidding)
And I’m totally fine with Pablito getting a send-off. His mood seemed to ignite the team when he came on and started hitting the shit out of the ball. The fans love him, and he was instrumental in 2 of the 3 WS runs. His 3 homer game vs Deetroit in the World Series was epic. He deserves a nice standing O.
2 pitches in a row that were 6″ inside.
We need to take advantage of the yard playing ike Coors Field.
There’s no reason to pull Pillar to play Davis. Pull Dick Dick Droopy Dick? Dick Rickard? Sure. But Pillar is having a great year. He deserves to play.
He doesn’t deserve jack. He’s been a Giant for 5 months.
Let’s find out what the younger player can do. He’s the future.
Pillar is at best an arb player next season…
Well, if they have any intention of keeping Pillar around, pulling him to play a rook wouldn’t help.
Smargle is pitching like Meaty Beede today.
I played around with WAR and salaries.
From most expensive to least.
Vogt and Lil’ Yaz have been season long steals.
Player 2019 WAR Cost per 0.1 WAR
Brandon Belt 0.4 4,300,000
Tony Watson 0.1 3,500,000
Buster Posey 0.7 3,168,254
Mark Melancon 0.6 2,333,333
Brandon Crawford 0.7 2,171,429
Jeff Samardzija 2.5 792,000
Evan Longoria 2.6 564,103
Sam Dyson 1.2 416,667
Kevin Pillar 1.4 414,286
Madison Bumg 2.9 413,793
Trevor Gott 0.2 283,750
Will Smith 1.7 248,529
Tyler Austin 0.3 189,533
Alex Dickerson 1.2 45,833
Reyes Moronta 1.3 43,654
Pablo Sandoval 1.4 39,643
Austin Slater 1.4 39,286
Donovan Solano 1.5 36,667
Stephen Vogt 1.5 36,667
Mike Yastrzemski 1.9 28,947
Bravo 👏 nice work Snarkk!
I see the Core is bringing up the rear down the stretch! No surprise!
But like Willied I’m still on board with Posey just for his defense( throwing out runners maybe one of his best years ever)in the hardest position in baseball.He is a magician at framing pitches and gets calls other catchers won’t because of years behind the dish and his good overall standing with Umps around the league..
Do we all want to see the bat improve? You bet, but the past injuries have taken a toll,so the .800 OPS days are over, but he can still be productive in the 7 hole imo going forward…
Do the Giants still have time to do “A Dick Booble Dick Souvenir prize? Are will they just limp to the finish?
This ump is fucking horrible.
In my opinion, both Pillar and Pablo don’t deserve playing time, send offs, standing ovations, etc. Regarding Sandoval, how soon we forget. To wit:
“This is how concerned the Giants were when he played for them … they would make special arrangements at the hotel the Giants were staying in to not allow him to order room service. They would tell the front desk management, “If he calls down for room service at night after games, do not send anything to this room.” They went to great measures to try to cut down on those eating binges, and it would only work for a time because he would find someplace to get food.”
Want more? https://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-sandovals-weight-problem-banned-from-room-service-2016-4
Hey, I am happy for Pablo. He seems to have addressed his eating disorder (much, much more important than his baseball career) and other childish issues he had while with Boston and the Giants. Additionally, they didn’t badmouth him when he signed with Boston . . . but he bad mouthed the Giants. So we are going to reward that behavior? The dude is lucky to still be playing baseball.
Regarding Pillar, as Flav said – this guy has given his all for the team and I can’t even remember the last player to hit 20 bombs here (Pence? Posey? Dunno). That being said, this is a time to evaluate players. Additionally, Pillar is banged up. I would like to see him get healthy and come back next season.
In short, down with what snarkk said, this is a baseball team in the midst of rebuilding and I want to see as much of the youngsters as possible.
But….Bochy. And Bochy is gonna Bochy.
It was Crawfish with 21 in ’14? Tough crowd. Pablo de-honkified the club more than any other 5 guys. Chemistry be damned, he gave a lot to this club this season.
Eye chart pitched a good game. Mostly bad luck sunk him, e.g., grounder over the 3rd base bag.
Abad reliever for a bad team.
lol . . . very nicely done Mac!
So disheartening to see us suck at home.
If they are going to pull anyone for Davis, they should pull the Dick.
Gasp. We may have TWO guys with 20 homers?
Nice hustle by Slater to be on base when Longo goes deep. OB matters and Slater, who homered over CF fence last night, has .919 OPS. You don’t tell him or Yaz or Pillar sorry we’re gonna go in another direction while you sit and watch for next month. Unless you’re the Marlins.
and btw Longo’s OPS is now 6 points less than Machado after bomb #18.
I don’t get the idea of valuing a player by $$$ he makes. to me it’s irrelevant. A ml player should act like one whether he makes $20 mil or half a mil. that’s why Avelino got sent down the night after he stupidly ran through the stop sign at 3b and got gunned down at the plate easily. A player up with RISP who doesn’t get a run in, I’m disappointed, money he gets paid be damned. Relief pitchers throwing BP like Abad just did doesn’t matter if they make Melancon money or next to nothing.
Willie, come on man.
You don’t value a player by the money he makes? At all?
A guy paid millions to be an RBI guy for my squad disappoints me if he doesn’t get a guy in from 2nd, sure. But, he disappoints me more than a guy just up from AAA who does that, and is making $quat.
Every GM and owner values players against their salaries in some way. And so does the player’s union. Otherwise, why have salary negotiations and agents?
That’s how things work in pro sports…
I don’t get the idea of a sliding scale for performance in given situation that’s based on the money. Abad imo sucks he doesn’t get a oh well that’s OK pass for giving up a bomb because he isn’t making any money and is just up from minors. Smith doesn’t either but I’m not yelling “you dumb $5 mil chump.” I can see why people think that way for underperforming players, I just don’t factor salary they make into it..
Irrelevant? So, I guess by your logic, it follows that Craw gets sent down to the minors when he gets thrown out at 2nd on a stolen base attempt? Or how about when MadBum loses his cool and gets thrown out of a game? Does he get sent down to Sac? Sorry, that makes zero sense to me. The money matters for a number of reasons. Primarily, it means that the player has shown long term competence and deserves the benefit of the doubt. By the same token, it means there are certain performance expectations that the team and fans expect to be fulfilled. For fans, this means they have the right to criticize (booing, writing in this blog, etc.) that player. For the Giants front office, they have the right to release the player (see Rowand).
Everyone has right to criticize, all fans do. But I don’t tie expectations of performance to $$$ in a given situation. Belt and Crawford are disappointing, but not because of how much money they make. It’s lack of offense and they’d be disappointing regardless; at this point in their careers I expect them to do more as vets.
I thought we were going to have a bench clearing brawl there.
More on Smarg . . . real bad luck that the Longoria judgement call not to field the grounder subsequently resulted in Abad giving up a bomb, but Smarg being charged with the earned runs. Sheesh, you look at the box score and he looks terrible with 6 runs given up in 5.1 innings, but that’s misleading in my opinion. I thought he pitched fairly well today.
That was probably Panda’s last AB as a Giant.
We’ll ignore the RSox episode, the out of shape stuff, and bad mouthing the Giants.
Gracias for the good times…
Yanks with 2 straight homers in the 9th to walk off a win.
Giants need at least 4 guys that can smoke 20+ dongs a season to compete in this kind of baseball nowadays.
Where are they going to get them?…
I was happy to have Panda come back and he’s been fine. But my feelings about him, for whatever reason, kinda ended when he left. Not sure why, maybe it’s because he’s been playing for losing teams since he returned. I dunno. Later days and thanks for the World Series heroics.
Munoz this is guy my godson texted me about. throws 98/99 out of pen, 20 yrs old set up guy.
yikes 10 fastballs, two of which were 98, slowest of all of them with 4-5 over 100 plus sliders at 84.
The impact of the HR type of ball now cannot be denied.
Giants number of HRs so far and rank in MLB:
148 (26)
The 6 likely division winners — 5 of them are in the top 6 teams in HRs in MLB…
AL East
Yanks. 256 (2)
AL Central
Minnie. 268 (1)
AL West
Houston. 231 (4)
NL East
Atlanta. 214 (6)
NL Central
St. Louis. 169 (23)
NL West
U know who. 234 (3)
AL Wild Card
Tampa 184 (20)
Cleveland 191 (18)
Oakland 215 (5)
NL Wild Card
Wash 196 (13)
Chicago 213 (8)
Philly 169 (23)
Blade..It was Crawford in 2015 that ended up with 21 homers.Seems like a decade ago..
Yeah AK – unca said it was Craw earlier. Thank you.
Well, I’m glad that we were able to take the season series against them, even though it was by the skin of our teeth (where is that idiom from???), 10-9.
Panda did a fuck of a lot more than, say, Zito did. He’ll always have my support. He was naive as fuck when he went to Boston, and he got spanked for it. I mean, shit, the Giants signed him in 2002, ffs. 16 years with the org ought to buy him some love.
Money and performance have to be tied together, but not at the price of everything else. Mainly because in our case, the money they are owed is prohibitive in trading them.
And losing 3 of 4 to the lowly Pads sucks. Fuck those high-priced vets!
I had no problem with the Pablo AB. The rest of this month is gonna suck enough, so why not have a harmless bit of fun with Pablo.
I don’t even have a single microscopic clue who Rickard is. Is he a youngster with a possible future with the team? (Doubt it.) If not, why is he even on the roster (and, even worse, in the lineup)? The Davis thing doesn’t have to be either him or Pillar, they can both play (Davis might be the CFer of the future but why not give him Rickard’s starts). Willie might be right, now that Pablo is gone, Davis could take his place on the roster.
As for Pablo… one of my all-time favorite Giants. And since Pablo and Verlander were both mentioned in this thread, as much as I respect Verlander for what he’s done, the one image I’ll always have of him was mouthing “wow…” as he watched Pablo’s 2nd homer clear the LF fence in game 1. Yep, that was back in the *wow* days.
Hope all you fellow Flappers are enjoying your Labor Day weekend. It’s Monday morning in VN, a holiday here too: Independence Day, Vietnam’s July 4th, from when Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France on Sept. 2nd, 1945 after France snuck back in after the Japanese surrendered. I’ll spend today a) trying to get over jet lag from the US flight and b) looking at apartments (hotel living at the moment since I gave up my old apartment in June before I went to the US). Back to work tomorrow after 8 weeks off. Too much meaningless info I’m sure but I’ve been awake since 4am so I have to do something. Just looking for a little peace of mind these days…
What city are you in now Paul?…
Hanoi, for the time being. Probably back to Saigon early next year…
No question Panda should be in top 10 of all time fan favorite SF Giants for just about all Giants fans.
Is he jersey number retirement worthy? Hmmm, I’d say he’s close, but probably not…
I don’t see Top 10 at all, but that’s just my opinion.
Baseball players do and say dumb things. So do a lot of regular people but I can’t hold it against them forever. Sandoval is good in my book.
Seems like Moronta’s injury will have significant impact to a lot of decisions being made in the next few months.
Yeah Panda even admitted it was a dumb decision to go to Boston but 5/90 made him smarter knowing the Giants were no way about to offer him that much coin..
There’s a chance the Dodgers will clinch the division next weekend while they play the Giants. Not that it’s THAT big a deal, but I’d rather it didn’t happen next weekend.
Top 10 for Panda? I’d let Zito sneak into the 10th spot. Possibly Panda in there, I’d have to firm the list up and see where he’s at.
Top 10 for Panda are you guys nuts 🥜?
He might squeeze into top 25 at best
Mays
McCovey
Marichal
Barry Bonds
Cepeda
Perry
Thrill
Linceum
Bobby Bonds
Mathewson
Williams
Jack Clark
This is just a bakers dozen better and theirs a lot more..
SF, Kat.
Take out Mathewson and only NY guys…
Ha! This is one of those age dividers at the flap for sure. Dude basically came about of nowhere, plays with great enthusiasm and was part of the resurgence that lead to 3 championships. Then there’s the 3 bombs in the World Freaking Series. He’s in the top 10 for me.
Yeah, I don’t know where he falls on my list, but I dig the energy he brings and the goofiness. He is a genuine goofball who has a shitload of fun playing the game. The ultimate non-honky. That didn’t translate at all in Boston.
For playoff players in Giants history he’s aces. The 3 homer game was epic.
His playoff slash line? .344 .389 .545 .935
53 hits in 154 ABs, 13 doubles, 6 homers, 20 ribbies.
Too funny. Joe West got bumped into on a play at the plate and he fell ont the baserunner. The fat fuck couldn’t get up. The on-deck Phillie had to help him up. Then he made the out call. That must be a sign you need to get out of the game.
Hah! and the Phils give up the lead on a WP. Phuck the Phils.
Torn labrum confirmed for Moronta.
Surgery likely.
That is really no bueno, no bueno at all.
Labrum stuff could spell career end, in some cases.
Hope for the best…
Hey Chuck speaking of fat fucks , I missed the Moronta earth shattering fall on the mound, did they need a forklift to lift him up?
Nah, they just brought the backhoe out dug a hole and buried him.
All joking aside it looked pretty bad. First thing I thought of was Dave Dravecky.
Maybe it has been a while since I’ve seen a game on ESPN, but what is with cranking up the volume on EVERY pitch? A fucking pop fly sounds like a .44 magnum going off.
My comment about Pablo being one of my favorites wasn’t implying he was one of the greatest. Obviously if you put Mays McCovey Marichal et al on the greatest lists, Pablo isn’t even close to top 10. I was pretty young and living on the east coast during the Mays years, so… just one of my favs to watch play. Narrow it to the past 25 years once I moved to SF, and yeah, he’s near the top of that list for me.
Yeah P/A I think I read it wrong earlier about a Panda.I thought everyone was talking about top 10 all time, not top 10 fan favorite.In that category he get consideration from me just to please some of the younger flap team..
And no way was I around when Mathewson pitched lol 😂 just read stats where he was a hell of a pitcher that won like 373 games?
You no I might get some shit, but Jeff Kent was a fan favorite of mine if not many, the guy was incredible driving in runs behind Barry, and I loved his line come contract time:”The money 💰 lies in the RBI’s!!” So true!!
Kent was one of my favs too, Kat. An asshole, most likely, but he was our asshole. I guess the same could be said for Bonds….