A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Juuuuuuust about there. One more win till the cheaters are bounced. For some reason it doesn’t feel like tonight’s the night but hopefully it will be. Atlanta deserves this. They deserve it for their perseverance throughout the year and they deserve it because they did what we failed to do: send the dreaded Dodgers to an early Winter slumber.

Interesting that Lynch didn’t get a single vote—the man responsible for overseeing multiple terrible drafts gets a pass? Ok then….

Gotta hand it to Anderson last night, he had the elements in his favor but he still needed to perform. Did Rosario get any shit for not diving for that ball to keep the no hitter in tact? I had the game on mute so I couldn’t tell.

Sounds like our old friend Drew Smyly is going to get the ball at some point in tonight’s game. How great would it be to see him put these suckers in a 3-1 hole? Dusty, who I love, looks terrible in those black gloves, btw. Looks like he’s about to clean a kitchen sink or some shit. I know, I know, Covid, but that’s not how Covid is spread. He looks like a dope wearing those things.

Weather in Atlanta tonight looks shaky. Definitely favors pitching if they even get the game in. Cold. Rainy. It’s beautiful in the Bay tonight, too bad the game isn’t getting played here. 🙂

Question for Niner fans: I knew Jimmy wasn’t the guy as soon as he overthrew Sanders in the SB. Now that it’s clear everyone knows this what would you like to see happen if you could only make 1 move:

Braves are now really in some hot water. Their pitching staff was a little suspect before Morton went down. Now they turn their weary eyes to…..Ian Anderson? Yikes. He’s not even as good as Fried who got hammered yesterday. At least they get to go home but if they’re going to pull this off they’re going to need all the bat firing on all cylinders. The good news is that Houston’s pitching is far from imposing.

Two teams that got here by blasting the ball all over the yard. Whoever blasts the loudest longest wins I guess….

Feel terrible for the Braves losing Morton like that. They were already pretty thin on SP’s, not sure what their plan is now. Has a team ever been up 1-0 and felt worse than Atlanta does today?

Fried can be good at times, maybe they start 2-0 and just cobble the last couple of games together?

PaulinAsia Banh Bao said, on October 25, 2021 at 6:10 pm(Edit)

So, some here like Houston to win just because of Dusty, others like the Braves to win mostly because of the cheating. How about baseball related? Which team do you like to watch as a good fun baseball team full of good fun players?

….great question.

Freddie Freeman is impossible not to love especially after you see the the story about his mom passing. I’m not going to dig up the link but find it and watch, it’s very moving. He also rakes.

It seemed like every time I played Ozzie Albies or Austin Riley in DFS they’d hit a bomb. So they’re always welcome on Team Flavor. And Adam Duvall, what can you say? We gave up on him too early. Unless you are President of the Mike Leake fan club. Somewhere BassBaldy is sipping a cold one and nodding confidently, ‘Fuck you Big Flavor, I told you so…”

Atlanta also has TFLR Will Smith who it seems pitched for us decades ago…..

I hate all the Astros including that runt Altuve and those defiant bastards Correa and Bregman. I do have a premonition that Maldonado is going to hit some important bombs in this series. He’s such a terrible hitter but he could turn out to be an important piece for them right now when it matters the most.

My gut says Houston wins but my heart wants Atlanta. I still don’t get anyone outside of Houston rooting for these cheaters. Dusty, yeah, whatever. Besides most of the cheaters still being there ask yourself this: was there ever any genuine apologies? All I remember was Altuve continue to lie with absurd excuses and Correa and Bregman being definant. So not only is it the same group of liars but they are defiant in their lying in the face of obvious evidence against them. Sounds a bit like #45 to me if you get my drift.

The Giants rally cry this year became “Resilient SF” and that was accurate, our team never gave up and had some amazing comebacks throughout the year. But what the Braves have done this year really is the definition of resiliency when you consider the stars they lost AND how hard they brought it to LA when the money was on the line.

They are an easy team to root for in the World Series. Look, I like Dusty and all but there’s no way I will EVER root for the Cheatin’ Astros. Plus the Braves did what we couldn’t. And LA getting bounced out of the post season is nearly as good as winning the whole thing. Relax, I said “nearly”.

Chop it up! Let’s go!

Good. Glad they won. This way their vacations are delayed, they have to fly all the way across the country just to have Braves fans do that stupid chop celebration in front of them. This is working out to a tee.

After we struggled so mightily to score against LA (5 runs in 5 games) it’s really astounding and almost refreshing to watch a team pummel them like this. I think it’s clear now that our 107 wins, while legit, were a little over inflated due to inferior competition, specifically in the NL West. Winder noted that in yesterday’s thread and he was right. That isn’t devaluing what the Giants did this year, it was incredible and I’ll never forget this season. But watching the Braves mash the ball all over the yard you have to just sit back and appreciate it, almost with a touch of envy…..

Ah, the highs and lows of sports. Sadly, the Dodgers came back and won last night. Once again hitting led the way to victory. Funny how often that happens, eh? But the Warriors took down the Lakers! Woo Hoo! I still don’t know how they did that.

Well, the Giants are eliminated and there are Boston fans out there celebrating their part time #9 hitter (Arroyo) as a legend. Seriously, is there a dumber home run celebration in history than the laundry cart through the dugout thing? That got played out after one time. And those dopes do it every single time. That’s enough to have me rooting firmly against the Red Sox.

Still, to their credit they should be noticed for their prodigious power this post season. This time of year you need the sticks on fire and they’ve certainly done that. Their TEAM OPS is .941. Ours was .513.

Our season wasn’t determined by some blind wayward ump. We choked at the plate. There’s no other way to say it.

The Braves have quietly put together an incredible season when you consider they lost BOTH Acuna and Ozuna and also one of their better SP’s Soroka. Not to mention the emotional loss of former Willie Mac award winner Stephen Vogt. Can’t put a price tag on that loss.

Anyway they are up 2-0 on lame ass LA so that makes me happy.

In keeping with my staring out the window and waiting for nothing pledge, here’s some non-sports related content for your viewing pleasure. I saw this big boy on my way home yesterday, sorry for the poor vid quality.

Today is the 32 year anniversary of the earthquake world series game. Where were you? I was in my first year at Lewis and Clark and I remember feeling guilty that I wasn’t home. California’s earthquake secret: we don’t have big ones near as often as people think. The last decent one I remember feeling was in high school at Paly. I was in the library and the lights were swinging back and forth. That was ’86. Since then I have felt maybe 3-4 and they were all small. We get lots of tiny ones but very few big ones.

Taking a break from sports till the Breeders Cup. Read Kat’s idea to keep Bryant. Started agreeing with the reasoning but don’t feel like talking about the Giants. Here’s some baseball for ya tho if you really need a fix. Not sure if it will post properly it’s from the dreaded Facebook.

https://fb.watch/8GxT1XmRGe/

Look, I think we all knew where that at bat was going. Flores looked pretty lost, he was 0-17 vs Scherzer in his career, but come on, the game CAN’T end on that call. The SEASON can’t end on that call. That wasn’t even close to a swing. If the home plate ump who is right there doesn’t call it a swing then the only way the guy who is 100 feet away can call it a swing is if he’s CERTAIN it was one. And that wasn’t even goddamn close….

But hey, umpires are idiots. They’re going to make mistakes. The Giants scored 5 runs in 5 games. That’s the reason they lost not because of some incompetent look-at-me rogue fuck who had a plane to catch…..

For those who are incomprehensibly saying this *evened things out* after the Ruf at bat in August: Baggs said it best…..

I went to bed sick to my stomach but woke up feeling much better. That was an incredible series punctuated by one of the best baseball games we’ve ever had the pleasure to watch. After the last 2 years I am thankful for the chance to watch it all unfold. Credit to the Dodgers who just ended up slightly better with the right hit at the right time. We may be knocked out but we have a team to root for. Let’s go Braves!

I still haven’t thought about the World Series for one second. To me, this is bigger. This is like the Galaxy Series. I genuinely won’t sweat anything that happens the rest of this post season as long as we get this game tonight.

And if we lose? Hey, that’s ok too. We let it ride trying to pull down the ultimate prize. I’m thankful we got the opportunity to do so.

We faced 6 elimination games on our way to winning the NL pennant in 2012. The Giants can do anything with the magic of that uniform strapped on. It glows off them towards all of us. There is nothing more magical as a sports fan, to me, than being a Giants fan.

We got this.

The cause of our problems has reared it’s ugly head. We have a team OPS of .524. Our gents have niggled out 6 measly walks in 4 games. LA has 15. Yaz, Wade, Ruf and Flores are a combined 1 for 36. Solano, Dick and Duggar can’t even boast better than that, they have zero hits between them. We are back to the “We Score We Win” days without The Reverend to guide us home.

And yet, somehow, we are tied at two games with a chance to knock this terrible group all the way into a deep Winter slumber.

Think about it, we have hit like absolute crap and they still have their backs against the wall.

Just find a way to get this done.

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Flap stats climbing above 1000+. We want this.

Now THAT was a throwback game. Timely defense, excellent pitching and one had-to-have-it hit—and some luck, too. When Turner hit that ball that was foul by an inch I thought “maybe the ball is bouncing our way tonight.” And sure enough, for the rest of the night it did. When you look back on a game it’s amazing how the signs of a win or a loss are sprinkled throughout the game in subtle moments. Think about it….

Still, this is no time to celebrate, gents. Nothing’s happened yet.

But I can see the sun rising and it might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Imagine if we pull this off…..

This feels like an upcoming….loss. We don’t hit Scherzer well (besides Craw and Stelly) and everyone of their guys hits Wood well. Whatever, that’s why they play the game though, right?

http://dailybaseballdata.com/cgi-bin/dailyhit.pl

I’d like to hope that Wood might rise up to the challenge and Max might finally start to be slowed a bit by his 37th year on this planet but that might just be wishful thinking.

Well, the dream may have been to beat them 3-0 and move on to the NLCS but that wasn’t too realistic. Some questionable moves by Kap last night starting with bringing in Leone for Gausman who was still pitching effectively. I could see it MAYBE if he replaced him with a lock down reliever with post season experience but Leone is just a rando guy pitching in his first playoff game. Whatever, LA seemed pretty locked in last night so maybe they would have done the same thing to Gasman but letting the game get away there was inexcusable.

I’d like to see The Grave Duggar in there tomorrow.

Nine years ago yesterday I got this text from Kokonuts

Now do you guys see why I wanted LA so badly? How sweet was that?

There is obviously a long road to hoe. No guarantees, though winning Game 1 is enormous in a five game series. All I know is that I had some extra pizzazz in my *fuck yeah!* fist pumps last night.

I still don’t know where Log Dog came from or why we deserve this. Since the Bumgarner draft the Giants have had a putrid record of drafting pitchers. Tim Alderson, Kyle Crick, Tyler Beede, Phil Bickford, God those are just the first round busts. There were so many more….But we got Log Dog in the 4th round of 2014. And he was largely underwhelming and easy to ignore. Except for this April when he was awful and I cursed his name. And then BAM! May 11th came and he struck out 10 Rangers and he really hasn’t looked back since.

LA fans didn’t know who Webb or Doval were before last night.

But they goddamn well know who they are now….

I was thinking this morning about how excited Twinfan would be for this series. He’d fire off a furious number of posts to deal with the anxiety. If you can’t get up for this I have bad news for you: I have nothing to offer you in the future as a baseball fan that will top the lead up to tonight’s game. Once the first pitch is thrown this could go any number of ways. Some good, some bad, some VERY bad and some so gloriously nirvanic I might start to weep if I even begin to consider them….

Since SF has never faced LA in the post season I am prepared for this to be the only time this happens in my lifetime. For that reason alone this series is more important to me than any World Series win ever could be. Look, we’ve won World Series trophies and it was fantastic. Now how bout we do something we’ve never done before and send these bitches into a Winter-long slumber they’ll never truly be able to completely wake up from. I know for certain that if that happens I’ll never forget the 2021 season regardless of what happens after……

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BOZO is LOCKED IN

Oh baby here we go! I don’t know much but I know this has the potential to be the greatest sporting moment of our lifetime. Texts from my buddies seemed to appreciate the weight and gravity of what is upon us:

Is this also possibly setting up as one of the greatest sporting letdowns of our lifetime?

Absolutely.

But the gambler in me say LET’S GET IT ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No matter what happens I am all in on this series. Five Niner Super Bowls. Three recent Dubs championships. And our Three Beauties from 2010, 2012, and 2014—all pale in comparison to the pending excitement I have about this upcoming series with LA….

Normally, I’d say a team with 106 wins is very likely to win their play-in game. But don’t understimate the emotional drag this epic lost division will have on Roberts and his band of baby blue idiots. They also don’t have Muncy. And Adam Wainwright, goddamn, at 40 years old is doing things we used to see old pitchers in the steroid era do. The Cardinals are the hottest team in baseball and they have an excellent chance of knocking off the Dodgers tonight despite the rather lopsided career at bats vs each pitcher.

http://dailybaseballdata.com/cgi-bin/dailyhit.pl

While there is a part of me that LOVES the post season format giving us essentially a Game 7 tonight I accept how lame this is. This has to change and it sounds like it will in the next CBA: more teams with all first round series’ being three games. If that happens it will limit the bonus of winning one’s division. But whatever, something has to be done about a team winning 106 games and having to burn their best pitcher just to get in–or, what I think is going to happen, they aren’t even going to get in as St. Louis looks tough on Wednesday.

Still, if LA manages to win I will be excited. As Vicki said in Let it Ride, “nothing ventured….nothing ventured.” And while that didn’t make any sense, her sentiment is mine. The risk of getting knocked out by LA pales in comparison, to me, to the glorious excitement of being the team to knock their sorry asses out.

Honestly that would be almost as good as winning a World Series. Think about it. Something SF has never done to them. The closest we came to that was the Joe Morgan bomb in 1982. We still talk about that and that was just one at bat and it wasn’t even the post season.

Knock them out of the playoffs? Oh yes please, I want me some of that….

Gotta keep this one short and sweet, got a long drive in front of me and I’m late to work. Oh well. Anyway, this one feels different that the others and we are in completely uncharted territory as one of the favorites to take down our 4th beauty.

But let’s worry about later. For now I’m happy to laugh LOUDLY in the faces of LA who won 106 games and still have to burn their best pitcher to make it to the dance. Too funny.

Not much to say about this one. A loss would be devastating as it would force us into a one game playoff with LA where we burn a good pitcher. Then if we lose that we burn about pitcher in the Wild Card game. ‘

I’m with this guy, bring this energy today….

Well, there’s nothing new here. You want something you have to do it yourself.

I did have October 2nd circled on my calendar though:

Closing This Out

Posted in Uncategorized by Flavor on September 20, 2021 Edit This

“I’m going to be in Reno on October 2 with BirdDog and Pasalon and some of my other main men from college. It would be quite sweet if we took down the division on that day….”

So while it would have been nice to finish them off yesterday, let’s make it so today. If I’ve ever been prescient about something let it be this. You have no idea how badly I want to dance on LA’s grave today….

I’m trying to imagine what this would be like if we hadn’t had 2010, 2012, and 2014. We would all be descending into madness. But because of the 3 beauties it feels like we’re mostly grounded, taking all this in stride. In some ways that’s good I guess. Back then I was running with my daughter, sockless, through the rainy streets of Palo Alto. Damn, in so many ways that feels like another lifetime ago….

I had to scroll way down into the archives for this one but it’s worth the read:

Maybe I’m wrong and you’re all going insane about this improbable run. After 3 World Series WINS as the decided underdog it is weird to be pummeling the league with 105 wins while LA weeps at our feet. And yet here we are? I’m weirdly emotionless about it all. You?