PirateSwept
I know we had to come back not once but twice to beat that terrible team AND we blew a 5-0 lead but that was still a pretty sweet ending. The Giants aren’t very good and have some massive holes that Farhan decided to do nothing about. But it’s still baseball, it’s still summertime, and we are back to .500 baby. We’re 22.5 games out of first place? Pfftttt go ahead and make it 222.5, Flappers don’t give a fuck. Let’s roll as far as this leaky train can take us…..
Be honest, how many of you are rooting for Bumgarner tonight and how hard are you rooting for him?
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Ha, good one Flav–like to see Bum do well and then SF beats pen. Too bad AZ mgr. wouldn’t let him DH for as long as he’s in there.
Giants are 3-6 vs. DBax so there is some payback due. By sweeping Pirates they are 6-6 in August. After 14-7 April, they were -1 in May, even in June, -6 in July.
Beat his red ass! We’re on a mission from God.
Pirate swept. Pirates wept.
What Unca said. Maybe a month from now when the Giants likely will have little or no chance for the playoffs I could root for MadBum. But it’s mid-August, there’s still a pulse, and MadBum stands between the Giants making it 4 straight and having a winning record for the first time since July 24. And as Wille noted, Giants are 3-6 vs. the Snakes, that’s gotta stop. So yeah, pound his red ass.
Pirates suck. Giants sucked a little less to get the sweep.
If the Gyros take 3 of 4 from the Dbacks, then maybe there’s a glimmer for the last WC spot.
But, as shown yesterday, this SF Pen is just this side of stinks, after Dovall. You don’t go far with a bad Pen…
Yeah, I can’t root against the Giants unless a Giants loss would somehow knock the Dodgers out of something. Seems like most here have the same opinion. Nice win but we still stink.
I just saw the story about Lincecum’s spouse. Quite shocking. Just learned of a friend’s passing last night overseas in Bahrain and lost one of college fraternity brothers about 10 days ago first night back from vacation. Rare lung cancer tumor and then he contracted covid. Terrible one two punch.
Sorry for your losses GH . . . This period going back to the start of the pandemic has been a mf.
Crazy life
Even with the sweep hard to pay attention to the season that I did not know we had the Douchebags and Bum tonight…
The NFL will no longer require the unvaccinated players to be tested regularly for Covid. What could possibly go wrong?
Fangraphs column had a woman reporter that covers Jays talking about teams not being at full strength coming into Toronto due to unvaxed guys left behind. As she noted, entire Jays team is vaccinated and also has to be in order travel in and out of US on road trips. Can be done.
Not to rehash that trade yet again…..but the Reynolds trade bit the Giants really hard yesterday.
Hope Bum has a good outing and turns the game over to the bullpen, and we beat their sorry asses. Will always have a soft spot in my heart for Bum, but he is the enemy, now.
Politicization of vax is one of things I most hold against former Prez. This has cost untold needless deaths across America and his own ego (I think I’ll fire Fauci, to wild applause) helped exacerbate the rift. Those in Britain that loved or hated Boris Johnson were vaccinated in efficient fashion by National Health Service, and Brits just announced approval of Moderna booster to combat new variants.
I was visiting friends yesterday who were watching Fox News for a while. Disgusting nonsense, with full screen ads for him amidst the typical “radical left” attacks on anyone they don’t like.
Yeah I agree with Chi and others even though Bum will always go down in Giants laurels of a fantastic clutch player and W/S legend he’s not wearing the Orange&Black anymore so he’s like any other non-Giant just the enemy that needs to lose..
Though just to spice things up I kinda wish with had Puig just for this one game just for a potential brawl between those 2, then I would be all in on Bum kicking Puig’s ass landing one his country wood chopping combinations fists on that all talk no action pussy..
I really have a difficult time blaming anyone in the FO (Z) for what is happening this year, particularly at the trade deadline. Zumiee alluded to what happened last season (without specifics) on how we came back and won last night. Here are the specifics (info taken from an article a few days before last season ended, so some of the numbers increased):
– Go-ahead bombs were their thing in 2021. The Giants hit 188 homers in either tie games or down one run.
– In plate appearances in the seventh inning or later with the Giants tied, ahead by one or the tying run at least on deck, San Francisco smacked 33 home runs.
– The Giants blasted 93 of their 241 home runs in two-strike counts. That’s nearly the same as their count when hitters are ahead (96). Even when a pitcher thought he had the Giants on the ropes, he really didn’t.
– Eleven Giants set or matched career-highs in home runs last season. The list: Brandon Belt (29), Mike Yastrzemski (25), Brandon Crawford (22), Wilmer Flores (18), LaMonte Wade Jr. (18), Darin Ruf (15), Alex Dickerson (13), Austin Slater (11), Steven Duggar (8), Donovan Solano (7), and Thairo Estrada (7).
Giants’ batters led the National League in home runs (241), slugging percentage (.440), OPS (.769), intentional walks (45), pitches per plate appearance (3.99), stolen base percentage (83%), and pull percentage (30.2%).They hit 18 pinch-hit home runs, a major league record. Of all NL teams, they had the highest batting average (.280), on-base percentage (.368), slugging percentage (.461), and OPS (.829) from the catcher position, the highest slugging percentage (.588) and OPS (.969) from the first base position, and the most RBIs from the shortstop position (108). They were second in the NL in runs (804), RBIs (768), walks (602), and batting average (.249).
The team’s pitchers led the NL in fewest home runs (151), fewest walks (416), and strikeouts/walk (3.43). They tied for the league lead with 56 saves and fewest hit batters (63).
Oh yeah, we broke the team record for victories (107), where you have to go back 117 years to the NY Giants in 1904, with 106. Kapler began the 2021 season with a coaching staff of 13 that included nine who had never been on a major league staff before he hired them, and most of them were young enough to be playing themselves. In the 2021 regular season, his Giants winning percentage rose from .483 to .660, the 12 overturns caused by his challenges were tied for the most in the majors, and he was one of only two managers who were not ejected during the season. He used more pinch hitters per game than any other major league manager for the second season in a row (2.60), and the second-most pitchers per game (4.7).
So, here we are a .500 club and is it any wonder? Not only was 2021 a “Haley’s Comet” like season, but just about all the key players have gone pfffttt! this season or retired (Posey). Bruce Bochy was spot on when he used to say you need players to have the best seasons of their careers to have a chance to win the World Series . . .
I don’t think anyone has reason to be disappointed in the front office or Kapler. Last season was a once in a lifetime occurrence, which by the by, ended in heart break (i.e., Giants failed to put the NLDS away in Los Angeles after taking a 2-1 series lead and losing the last game on a controversial check swing).
Just my take, but I think Kap, coaching staff and Z are doing an excellent job. This is on the players.
It’s my take, too. I’d add that valuing each spot on the roster and expecting a significant contribution from every player is a sound strategy. 107 may be once in a lifetime, but 90 wins without a line up full of stars isn’t. The misfortune and performance drop offs really piled up.
“Brandon Belt (29), Mike Yastrzemski (25), Brandon Crawford (22), Wilmer Flores (18), LaMonte Wade Jr. (18), Darin Ruf (15), Alex Dickerson (13), Austin Slater (11), Steven Duggar (8), Donovan Solano (7), and Thairo Estrada (7).”
That list just gobsmacks a person. Especially Belt and Craw. As Loo mentioned the other day, Craw has been terrible since day 1 of this season. What happened? Belt is back to his oft-injured status. I don’t like to think it was because those two were in contract seasons last year.
mm Makes me wonder if Z/H had Plan B or not. As in, suppose we don’t hit as many HRs or slug the ball as well can we still score enough runs? where they are now is 6th for bombs and 8th NL for slugging and OPS. They lost Posey and Bryant and the only add was Joc, who was fine for short while and then reality set in. Trading Ruf for Davis should help. But they went in short RH for OF and they still are.
They didn’t get much help from farm when injuries hit, so except for Gonzalez, there wasn’t any help available except Mariners rejects. So are they willing to look outside system this time?
Or, another question–suppose our pitching that allowed 2nd fewest runs NL instead ranks 9th? do we have reinforcements in system should bullpen struggle or not? Answer is pretty clear. Rodon has been fine but chances are he isn’t coming back. He has team best ERA lowest WHIP best FIP and best K pct. so if giants are unwilling to meet asking price that’s a big loss.
Add these 2 into rest of Division getting better and not same as last season. So hopefully they have recalculated what they have and identified areas of need not within system.
Plan A and B was to win 88-90 games and make the playoffs. How many GMs have a plan C? The criticisms are illogical and absurd.
What you said. Furthermore, I would say adding or subtracting players at the trade deadline was a fool’s errand, as Z didn’t know if the existing cast (team) would continue “south” as a sub .500 team, play .500 ball or begin winning and become a play off team.
Crawfish was in chubby shape in 2020. In 2021 he came to camp ready. 2022 he looks more like 2020. Old and slow.
The FO sure didn’t account for the old guys possibly breaking down. I mean, fuck, the bore core has played like 4 games together. The pen mess was also pretty apparent early in the season. The starters have been pretty good, but they aren’t going deep in games, and leave too much up to the overworked pen.
They may have been banking on lightning striking twice, but the issues with this team were pretty apparent early. They COULD have done more before the break to shore up the team if they were serious about making a run.
I guess one could also say that the reason we won 107 games last year was because of the players and not anything that Zaidi/Harris or Kapler and the coaches did.
Seems to me the three things that Zaidi/Harris failed to do this year was not realize how much the juiced baseball helped the players last year, not to have a few true DHers that could bat higher than 8th and 9th in the order, and not having a higher regard for defense in the plug and play lineups.
Just my opinion.
You forgot to mention that they should have anticipated the decline in the bullpen and swapped them all out except for Doval.
MLB isn’t using the juiced ball anymore that was used from about 2016-2021, and batting stats are down all over MLB this season; but still, the Giants’ batters drop-off from last season is pretty sad, even accounting for last season having a lot of career years.
“MLB isn’t using the juiced ball anymore that was used from about 2016-2021”, 2021 for sure, and it seems to me the career years were assisted by that juiced ball and the FO and coaching staff didn’t adjust their strategy for not having it.
Did the league release a statement saying “we aren’t using a juiced ball this season.”?
I thought they announced that in the off season and I haven’t heard anyone mention it at all this year. If it’s still in play this year, the Giants sure aren’t seeing it much.
mlb first “juiced” the ball Aug. 2016, when the mid season batches of new balls got delivered after the AS break. They’d decided to use a slightly different type of yarn — a bit thinner — and all the pitchers griped about the seams, and all the hitters went wild. (Posey, coincidentally, went into a hip-injury slump just then.) The first squirt of juice may have been an accident. mlb seemed caught by surprise. Took them a couple of years to figure out how to manipulate the ball to their liking. Lately, they’ve divulged some manipulative details publicly pre-season; who knows what they divulge confidentially to the teams.
Does Crawford still hold the bat high, as the ten batting coaches trained him to do last season? Buster gave that up half way through the year. Did the other twenty-nine supercomputers in the league figure out the Giants’ systems? No matter. This year, Z and Kapler did not have the talent across the board that showed up so brilliantly last year. Sometimes, they try to program the team to play as though that’s not the case. Those instances of AI failure piss me off. But I started out enthusiastic in April — my son and I considered a time-share club-level season-ticket opp then — but as disappointed as I’ve been since, I still like these guys.
I confess I always want to see MadBum do well, unless it’s a *meaningful* game against the Giants. I don’t really see this game as all that meaningful, so, yeah, Bum over Laundry. But that doesn’t mean I want the G’s to lose; I kinda like the views expressed here, sure, let Bum do well but then G’s win it against the ‘pen. As for Z and this team, IMO it wasn’t the non-action at the deadline as much as the FO didn’t do enough in the off-season. Don’t know if they really thought 107 was sustainable with this crew, but adding only Pederson was insufficient. You always try to make the current team better. As for Rodon, I may be alone in this, but they should do all they can to re-sign him. They didn’t trade him for prospects at the deadline; that would’ve been the time to let him go. Since they didn’t do that, they should try to keep what I think is already a post-season ready rotation. Difficult to replace someone like Rodon. They need to focus on the starting 8 positions moving forward, IMO.
Walker Buehler officially out for the year…
looks like he’s headed to his second TJ
but for Urias, bums SPs are not the usual suspects as they head into another suspect PS
Looks like Bum didn’t sell many tickets…
He might be 40 pounds heavier than when he came up…
Man, Cobb sometimes looks absolutely filthy out there.
His signing is never credited for “making the team stronger.”
the big dog behind the knothole gate seemed to approve of Yaz’s play on that deep drive.
good throw from Joey. He gets any lesser runner with it, imo. Krukow, ruefully: “If it was on the second base side of the bag . . .” That is second base, Mikey.
The first base side of second is always preferable to the shortstop side, which may be better than the third base side.
Which side of the 2nd base bag is the 2nd base side of 2nd base?
And then Cobb starts walking guys.
Kruk needs to get off the ‘base open’ shit when there’s 2 on.
Bummie getting testy.
that’s one of the most beautiful bunts in the history of bunts
Gonzo shoulda bunted.
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAnd it stayed fair!
he mixes it up. And Es tra dAAAAAAAAAAAA, etc.
Hey! Gonzo didn’t hit the mound. Couple nice plays.
This is the latest thing I could find on Mac Williamson’s lawsuit.
I guess it’s still going on…
https://webapps.sftc.org/ci/CaseInfo.dll?CaseNum=CGC20587701&SessionID=9C6941D21FDE39DDF2E9DBD7B77531A3A7C20D65
Send your inquiries to: mlb arbitrations, black hole, fuck you all, 666
‘Bout time, Longo!!
Longo hit the shit out of that.
JoJo was a man who thought he was a batter
Now he does the best he can
Unca, you’re killing me. I just got that tune out of my head after visiting the Rock and Roll Hall this weekend. There was some sort of Beatle retrospect going on and Get Back and Let it Be were playing nonstop.
lqtm!!
Bart almost got that one out.
At Yankee Stadium that’s in Row 15…
that’s the swing I had in mind when I said a couple of years ago that he’d tag the first opp splash hit. step by step, I guess.
“tough sky! Bart can’t see it. Belt can. But … ah, Belt can.”
Threading it nicely there!
Kapler is already dreading the Tyler Rogers inning. He knows that Rogers is basically the same pitcher as last year, and that he’s been fairly effective overall. But there’s a 1 in 3.3 chance he’ll be scored upon, and every time that happens, to the hoi polloi, it may as well be Byung Hyung Kim in the 2001 WS.
Put this one away. At least far enough for Tyler.
Soooooo, 3 more runs.
Joey Bart is having himself a night.
Bart is killing it.
What a pleasure to look forward to Bart’s ABs.
Jo Jo hit a single versus Arizona.
On the California grass.
Charge the mound, Luis!
Bart torches Bum again. Surprised he’s still in there.
Rogers might be same guy but I do think there’s something to notion league has adjusted to him over years. He’s walking more guys as hitters lay off the unhittable stuff and slugging pct against is way up, as is OPS. Statcast knows more than I do surely, but just sems like he has less room for error 2022.
Sure, and then there’s the fact that, except for a handful of exceptional relievers, most are susceptible to year to year fluctuations in stats that have little to do with intrinsic ability or how they’re throwing the ball. They will always have a small sample size, even at 80 innings.
Speaking of relievers Ruf went 2 innings for Mets tonight. 1 hit 0 runs as Braves won 13-1 at home.
Who knew Z got rid of one of our better relievers?
Bart up to .234…
Nice throw Longo. Jesus.
Jesus, Your typical Rogers inning. IF hit, squibber to 3rd hit batsman (HAH!)
aaaaand . . .
the walk
God I can’t stand watching Lame Ass Rodgers pitch anymore, even if James thinks he offers value..
The numbers say he offers value, Kat. He’s been no worse than Leone this year, and Roger’s career stats are very good. The league isn’t making better contact against him than it did last year. His walks are up, but still below 3 per 9 innings. He’s given up fewer HRs this year.
Facing 5 guys and getting 2 outs is a quality hold I suppose. Since Young bailed him out.
Luplow’s great Uncle Al went 7-15 with 3 HRS vs. Marichal in 1966…
Nice game, boys.
Hey, they’re over .500! Sorry MadBum.
Joey’s working hard to get better, and he’s succeeding, slowly, in many different ways. His D’s pretty good and getting better. As a hitter, he showed up briefly, couple years back, with both pull and oppo power. Then he tanked in 2020. Nothing, either way.
When he returned this April, after a full year at Sac, he confidently destroyed mistake pitches to LF. He also crushed some top spin LDs that way. Nothing oppo. And then he fizzled totally.
Since he’s been back, he’s crushed top spin LDs to the left side at a reasonable rate. And that’s fine. But tonight he went down to get a pitch on the outside part of the plate and launched it (as they say) with bottom spin, to the top of the RF wall. Is that his range? Maybe he needs some hip swivel lessons from Loo’s dancer to be able to cover the field. Keep him away from Pablo videos, though.
“Absurd”? hmmnn probably would have been Zaidi’s response had someone told him around April 30 the team he had put together was a .500 team that would be 8th best in NL.
Yet here we are. Since 14-7 April, they’ve gone 44-50 over larger sample size of 3 and half months of play, and “winning 88-90” will take some doing.