A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

….and then we play ball. Of course, WE don’t actually get to play until Thursday NIGHT which is still pissing me off. But still, only one more sleep to go.

I kinda gave up on March Madness when it became clear my brackets were much sadder than they were madder. Question for the college hoops experts: Is Gonzaga really this good? Or is it just in relation to the teams out there now. Like back in my day, the UNLV team of (I think) 1990 was the best team of all time. And you just knew it when you watched them. I don’t feel that way about this Gonzaga team but I really haven’t watched much of it.

I dunno, spring training is over, feels right to start me some Summer.

Either way, ST is in the books. What did we learn? Yaz led the team in bombs. Slater and Longo led the team in RBI’s. Doobie led in walks and SB’s. Slater checked in with the top OPS at 1.328.

Our pitching stats were harder to translate. Spider tossed 17 innings, no one else came close to that. Our opening day hero Gausman has thrown 8 so it’ll be interesting to see if he can make it past 3 on Thursday.

Anyway, it’s a pretty exciting time if you think about it. The weather is turning for the better. The country is starting up again with the vaccine rollout in full swing. And fans will be back in their seats, however few they let in.

Today is so much better than it was a year ago. Count your blessings.

Starting to pay more attention to the box scores with real games starting THIS week. Giants still don’t seem to be stretching any pitchers out, not sure what the plan is there. I understand everyone is worried about what’s going to happen to these arms coming off a season of very light work to say the least. But at some point these games are going to count and your SP needs to be able to break on through to the 3rd inning.

We are playing the A’s today. That is all.

I agree with this guy and it’s a good example of why I think Kerr is overrated as a coach.

Now, you could argue “the warriors don’t ever run a pick and roll so they don’t know how to defend it.” And I would say,
“well isn’t that what Kerr is supposed to teach them how to do?”

I know Green was out but that’s another point. Kerr has leaned on that crutch for too long. When Draymond is out and the opponent is running the same play over and over what is your response?

Kerr had nothing.

Look, I admit to being one of Xoot’s wussies who worried that Stix was either dead or back in the clink. So it was a wonderful surprise after a long ass day to get a surprise email from him confirming his whereabouts and health. The blog is different than real life, right? I forget who confirmed Twin’s death but it was just not a natural or cool way to find out about it.

Stix fired off two of his standard epic posts at the end of the last thread so check those out when you get a chance. Would love to get a look at The Ice Palace. Harvey’s sister? And that maple syrup sure sounds good on my pancakes this morning.

Now that all Flap HOFers are counted and confirmed it’s time to get this damn season under way. Let’s go!

What’s our best case scenario this year? Third place in NL West, right? Colorado sucks and is almost guaranteed last place. AZ is a little trickier but assuming MadBum is still terrible and this Zac Gallen injury is legit then the D-backs look up against it this year, too.

Thoughts?

Agree with this guy.

I’ll never give up on baseball, it will always be my favorite sport probably because I played it growing up. But it is not as exciting as it used to be. Not even close.

Tromp with a birthday blast, Yaz filling up the stat sheet and Doobie with 2 stolen bags. A nice little Sunday, actually. I have only heard of 1 of the Dodgers pitchers (the starter) but it’s still nice to drop an L on those losers.

Looking forward to the game today to distract me from the horrendousness of my CBB brackets. I penned an open letter to my league demanding that the commisioner cancel the contest and refund all monies because of the VCU forfeiture. We’ll see if that works. I had Oregon so it’s unlikely to break my way……

Did the Giants not play yesterday?

What’s the Grave Duggar doing right now?

What has happened to Stix? I fear the worst. He didn’t respond to my emails.

My fellowship with San Dawg took a dark turn yesterday as San Diego State, a team I would not have picked in my brackets, fell to PK’s Syracuse. If I’ve learned one thing over these last 12 years it’s to always go with PK over SDD when it comes to college hoops. Oh well, all 3 of my brackets still have the final fours in tact. You know what they say, you don’t win a March Madness pool on Day 1 but you can definitely lose them. This is a lesson my student Pa Salon should have learned by now……

What type of disrespectful bullshit did the Reds drop on us yesterday? I’m not talking about losing, we are going to do a lot of that this season. I’m talking about the WAY we lost. They trotted out 9 different pitchers for one inning each and we let each one stride back to the dugout with a complete inning in the books? We couldn’t run ONE of them to an early shower? Pathetic. Drop a 1/3 or a 2/3 on their sorry asses you pussies!

So, uh, the thrashing didn’t end up happening. Unless you consider getting doubled up by one of the shittiest teams in the league a thrashing. I guess we got thrashed.

We also made our 20th error of the spring. I’m not obsessive about defense but that leads the ML’s and that’s not going to fly.

One idea that isn’t going to happen: If you think the hitting is still strong wouldn’t it be intelligent to start the Grave Duggar at least vs right handed pitchers? The offense should be able to withstand his shortcomings with the bat and if our defense is going to be substandard maybe he becomes critical?

We have a preview tonight of our opening night battle with our *arch nemesis* the Seattle Mariners. Disco goes for us. They are countering with the mysterious “undecided.”

Seattle is going to be terrible this year and they’ve gotten an early start on that goal with a -20 run diff already this spring.

Tool #6 might be on full display and Grave Duggar gonna bury the entire team before first pitch saving the city of Seattle the embarrassment of having to watch tonight’s thrashing.

When are our pitchers going to, you know, pitch? I am not super deep into following ST this year (or any year) but it hasn’t felt like I’ve been seeing much of our starting pitching. Cueto, who pitched last night, has thrown 7.1 innings this spring and that’s tops on the team.

For the hell of it I looked up what’s going on with other teams. 79 pitchers have thrown more than 7.1 innings this spring already. SEVENTY NINE.

That doesn’t seem random.

There are few things I loath more than babying pitchers arms. I know Wood has a back issue and there are a couple lingering things out there but how is it that 79 ST pitchers have thrown more innings than Cueto who has thrown the most on our team?

This is, I think, the 6th year we’ve done Playing Pepper with Daniel @c70 proving once again that as much as I hated the Cardinals in the 80’s it was possible to heal that hatred and turn it into positive thoughts about their fan base. Or, at least Daniel. I like Daniel.

Here’s the link to my answers and two other dudes who played along as well.

Playing Pepper 2021: San Francisco Giants

Grave Duggar seems to have taken Sunday off with only a lonely walk to his stats. Hmmmmm, who else took Sunday off….I can’t remember. It’ll come to me.

Even for the non-believers who are sleeping with one or both eyes open The Grave Duggar’s 1.091 OPS has to be impressing. I know, i know, it’s just spring training. To which I reply, again, what would you rather have guys hitting over 1.000 OPS in ST or guys hitting under? I’ll take the over on that one all day long.

Like many of you, I was struck down by the death of Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Besides Tyson he was the most anticipated fighter of my generation. His bouts were electric, I cannot explain this to someone who wasn’t alive in the 80s, they wouldn’t understand it.

There’s not much more to say. I miss those fights, I miss that time.

If you look up Grave Digger at wikipedia this is the picture they use:

This striking image was drawn by Viktor Vasnetsov, a Russian artist from the 1800s though he died in 1926 and it’s certainly possibly this piece was created in the 1900s. For more information about this interesting fact and to learn where you are all going to end up if you continue to doubt The Grave Duggar and all of his powers, please refer to these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Vasnetsov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravedigger

I’m jones’n for some real baseball so I checked the schedule. Giants open in Seattle. At night. Lol, I had hoped that was an April Fools joke but sure enough we open against our *arch enemies* on the road in the dead of night on April 1……

That’s ok, bring it on. I am getting pretty stoked for Chi to post that shit about staring at snow melting or kids playing outside his window or whatever that poem says….

Wotus was on KNBR this morning and said we have 45 pitchers in camp. LOL I knew it was a lot but FORTY FIVE? Anyway, they asked him if SF can compete with LA and SD this year and he basically said *yes*. He included like 12 conditions that would have to unfold but he said Yes.

Yes.

Some nice action with the bats yesterday from some of our more preferred fringe players. Chuck pointed out that the wind was blowing out and WilleD noted that the Arizona air skews the hitting stat to which I reply “what would you rather have, them hitting in those conditions or not hitting in those conditions?” Because if you can’t hit in optimal conditions (and there were several Giants yesterday who couldn’t included Lame-onte) then that’s worse than the guys who were raking, right? We like guys who rake?

These were Daniel’s questions for his Playing Pepper series. SF Giants piece goes up March 16th.

1) Baseball in 2020 was like nothing we’ve ever seen before.  What are your thoughts on that season?  Did you like the rule changes? How was following baseball the same or different during the pandemic?
2) Former Cardinal John Brebbia is going to be part of the Giants this year.  When is he expected to be ready and what are your thoughts about the club adding him?
3) Joey Bart got to make his debut when Buster Posey sat out the pandemic season, but now Posey is back.  What does this mean for the young catcher and what impact will he have at the big league level this year?
4) What is the most pressing need of this club right now?
5) What is your expectation for this team this coming season?
6) Overall, what sort of grade would you give this organization and why?

They must remain closed. I did some light googling and couldn’t find anything that said what the team plans to do with this. Anyone else?

I greatly enjoyed watching our park play more normally last season and with a deadened ball (supposedly) we will need every advantage afforded the hitter.

Well now that The Grave Duggar has blasted away from his lower rung competition with yesterday’s spring bomb and I have once again proven to have the keenest eye for spotting true baseball talent it’s time to move on to more important things:

Heliot Ramos needs to be starting opening day. I’m not saying that because of his two home runs. Although those were real real nice. Ramos looks like a ballplayer, he walks like a ballplayer the ball comes off his bat in ways our Bore Core could only dream of replicating.

This year is going to be ugly. Baer will bill it as a swansong for the aged vets and that’s a total cop out. I don’t need a year of losses to say goodbye to the past. A few knowing dude head nods will suffice. Hell I can do that in two seconds.

If we have to watch the boring what’s wrong with sprinkling in some exciting? Isn’t that what this is all about? Entertainment?

I know it’s just a minor league deal but it’s still irritating. Z is the master of the underwhelming. Trot a home grown guy out there over this beer league softball castoff.

Anyway, 32 year old Justin Bour is here…

If any of you follow me on twitter you’ll notice my #freePoole tags I’ve been sprinkling on that godforsaken site over the last 2 weeks. And now you know why……

Trying to come up with a reason for Grave Duggar’s slow start. Only thing I can think of is that he done dug too many damn graves. Shoulder muscles worn all the way down to the scapula.

So while I stand in solidarity with San Dawg, Loo and the throngs of others who support him I fear his best years may be behind him. Can he ever recover from this injury?

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Ok, you guys have been good sports about my Grave Duggar threads so I am rewarding you with a video San Dawg sent me yesterday while he was awaiting his second vaccine shot. If you remember, Diggity and his boys bought an RV some years back for the princely sum of $1200. It’s always been a dream of mine to tour Harvey but alas he never leaves San Diego county. I had no confidence Diggity would be able to fire up the great beast. Watch and see if I was right or wrong……..

Ok, 3 threads in a row highlight the great Grave Duggar is probably too many, even for me, President of his swelling fan club.

Did I read that correctly? The Giants are the only team to not homer this spring? That’s shocking considering the fire power they’ve been sending out there so far.

Where is Brandon Belt? Is anyone talking about this?

I didn’t hear the game but heard on the radio that Lame-onte Jr. scored our only run on a sac fly. Typical. Dude was probably born on third base thinking he hit a triple, motherfucking silver spoon in his mouth. All the while the Grave Duggar grinds it out, daily, waiting to take over.

So much for hard work paying off…..

Lame-onte Wade Jr. gets the start today. No Jaylin. No Grave Duggar. Freaking Lame-onte Wade Jr. I think I’d rather see Sr. out there.

Regardless, I know it’s spring training but these line ups are a joke.

Now the REAL Spring Training games begin. Grave Duggar in the line up. Assuming they pitch to him, unlikely but they might, I expect at least 0-2 extra base hits and let’s say 6-12 highlight reel catches in the outfield. There’s nothing he can’t do.

Who’s your spring phenom pick this year? *you know mine…..