Expect Very Little Today
When Farhan got hired the writers asked him to describe his style. He said “no move is too small.” I’d counter that by saying “some moves aren’t big enough.” Zaidi has to appreciate the optics of this incredibly lame Pollack pick up. With other teams making bold moves all around MLB he simply can’t do a deal like this and expect to not get absolutely slammed. Especially if this is all he does. Saw a tweet today from someone that made a good point:
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
What I’d really like to see Z do is some addition by subtraction (as opposed to winning the deadline) so Giants can finish the season without Wood and Pederson…no coincidence couple ex Dodgers.
Wood cemented his uselessness last night by blowing 2 run lead Giants had. Others on staff have adjusted to whatever role is being asked of them and team (key word here) has profited from it to tune of 14-5 in opener all hands on deck games.
Joc, with his penchant for bunting off LHPs and taking fastballs for strikes last night in his last AB, can take his goofy act elsewhere pls.
side note: I’ve watched Yaz and Craw struggle when forced to hit LHP but both have recently not only got some clutch hits, but have managed to lay down successful bunts when called upon.
I’d like to see less of Craw. He’s looking pretty much done at the plate. Luciano needs to be playing everyday.
Wade’s season has fallen off a cliff for whatever reason.
After getting a glipse of these supposed *can’t trade* youngsters, which ones do you still find untradeable? Schmitt? Matos? Patty Bails? The point is, there’s no guarantees with young players. Trade some of them and hope they don’t turn out to be stars which they very likely won’t
Schmitt looks lost these days. He seemed like a keeper earlier in the season. Now, who knows?
Bum turns 34 today. That seems incredibly young for how long it feels like he’s been in our lives.
If you start early in the majors like he did (20), that means sometimes you end early. Not a lot of Nolan Ryans out there. There are only so many career pitches in a pitcher’s arm, IMO. That’s why I think top prospect pitchers should be brought up fairly early to get major league pitch coaching and see if they can stick or not. If yes, they spend down their career pitch inventory in the majors, not the minors. If no, go back down and work on it…
Agree snarkk, “. . . top prospect pitchers should be brought up fairly early” for the reasons you stated.
Mad Bum, and Cain before him, both came up early and put a ton of innings on their arms. Timmy as well. Cain was pretty much done at 27. Mad Bum 26. Timmy 27
Matos is up to 140 plate appearances with one HR. I’m kind of forgetting why I was once excited about him.
Bailey is probably untouchable.
Matos ceiling at the moment looks like nothing more than Marvin Bernard or Darren Lewis but at 21 I’d give him time to develop.
Casey is a mess…
we have a lot of guys who grade out with potential. Most will fail. Why not trade some of them for help now?
Here’s to better things!
Schmitt, Matos and Bailey are defensive studs still learning to hit mlb pitching. Crazy to trade them. Compare Joey and Heliot. Or Villar. Luciano is as promising as promised. Even crazier to trade him. Now this is a great sports stadium feature:
and they may or may not figure out how to hit MLB pitching. What’s crazier is to hold on to EVERYONE. Waste of resources.
Other teams know that. It factors into the market value of the resource. Bailey has high value, but we need a good new catcher. Luciano, similar. Schmitt and Matos wouldn’t bring nearly as much in trades. Hell, people around here are ready to send them down now.
Farhan ….Just go after Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty dammit!!!, he’s a bulldog of a throwback pitcher with great stuff and would instantly compliment Webb&Cobb at the top of the rotation.He’s only 27 as well,and I don’t think he ends up being a rental but another foundation piece,(Z would have a few mints to hammer out a new deal,once he sees how his stuff plays at a pitchers park and with a team moving in the right direction instead of the Cardinals who tanked out.not the dinosaurs the Giants usually throw in the rotation.I believe if they got him here and working with Catcher Bazooka would help his career as well it’s a win win!!Now give up some prospects and make it freaking happen
Pollack for a PTNBL looks like a nothing deal, with a slim hope for a lightning in a bottle Cody Ross type of result. He’s not been in much discussion of any kind re: Mariners up in the Seattle sportstalk. My guess is that if/when Yaz comes back from this latest recurrence of his hammy, Pollack would get the boot…
None of the young guys were supposed to be here playing ML ball except for Villar. Injuries to Estrada and craw along with Villar suckitude forced Giant hand, with Wisely Schmitt Luciano Diaz yada yada having to come up and play. Luciano had week of AAA ball before call up and began season rehabbing back injury before reporting to AA Richmond.
Same with Matos, who was in A ball last season, hurt and not hitting well. Since the only CFs Yaz and Slater are hurt, he’s up. Losing Haniger leaves them even more short handed in OF. Ideally all 3 of them would be September call ups only and would be tearing up Coast League now.
Give them all time to grow and mature and see what happens, pls.
boring. I don’t get the contingent at the blog that just wants to give up on a season. We only have so many to watch you know
Building, not boring. This team with all the bad luck injuries is NOT winning the World Series, rentals or no.
More later. Nothing boring about last night or the entire season to me. But I understand lot of frustration, as I see lot of it around blogosphere.
For some reason, my auto log-in to the blog is back on again, and my edit capability is back on, too…
Mine too. Are you using an apple?
Yep, iMac.
I did nothing I know of to cause the problems, nor to solve them today…
Yeah me either. If I use my Acer I never have this problem. It’s older and not as powerful. I never owned a Mac before and am pretty lost learning things on it. I guess slowly but eventually I will get it.
“The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.” – Albert Einstein. Food for thought for Giants front office on day of reckoning.
That’s nonsense. The person with both succeeds.
Says the guy who gave us relativity.
Think it’s true that the speed of trains and close analysis of timepiece inventions at the Swiss patent office led to all that?
“The most valuable commodity I know of is information”
-Gordon Gekko
Everytime I start complaining about this team they go on a win streak. So I am complaining in my mind.
Well, good for Bailey.
He’s a better cheater than anybody else, might as well be our guy.
And, another reason to have computerized home plate umps…
Buster might not make the HOF without similar accomplishment in his game. They know how to play the position and have the talent to do it. Cheating. Ha.
The constant excessive framing is really annoying to me and might be part of why the HP umpiring is so bad…
I’ve waited 4-5 years for these young guys to come up to the show and to get rid of one or all of them after little more than a “cup of coffee” in the MLB is plain dumb in my opinion. Particularly galling is getting rid of guys who are age 21 (Matos and Luciano). No one here on the Flap, MLB analysts, or other teams, expected the Giants to do jack shit this year. Agree with Willie and xoot; and, moreover am down with whatever Z decides.
I see Reynolds, Cepeda, Foster, Alou, Clark, Wheeler, Nathan, etc., when I think about this shit potentially going down.
Keeping all of them? How many you think will work out? To do nothing right now is what’s dumb. We have a good chance to make the post season this year if Z stops sitting on his hands
How do you figure he’s standing on his hands? He’s the SOB that put together this team and for that reason alone, he’s the ONLY one that knows what he’s doing. Every last Flapper here, including myself, thought this team was a big zero during the pre-season. Umm, I think I will trust whatever he does.
you support picking up some shitty retread in Pollack and then doing nothing else. Got it. What a waste of a season. Also you listed off draft picks that worked out from a long time ago. One of them like 6 decades ago. Now do a list of all the ones who didn’t pan out. This is currency man. We need to spend some of it.
Never said that. Read my 2 posts again, i.e., I gave the caveat that I am “down/trust” in Z doing whatever is best for the team. I lack the information that he has. Same deal for you and others here. Sure, we can all have opinions, but the bottom line is this – do you trust him to make the correct decision? Again, I do.
I tend to agree. As long as there is improvement in their game I would give the youngsters the benefit of the doubt. One problem is the media says all kinds of stuff and some of it is bull. In the case of players like Bart that really haven’t shown much of anything it doesn’t really bother me to unload. Even if he does well somewhere else.
Who’s giving up? If I have 90 lotto tickets instead of 100, I’m still playing.
btw, i am not giving up on the kids. I just know they aren’t all going to pan out. In fact a small percentage will. If we can spend some currency to make it to the post season this year and give it a run it’ll be worth it.
Giants don’t have enough of mid tier pitchers are hitters to get Jack Flaherty?
Hell they have pitchers likeBlack,Looppe,Biccota,Seymor,etc, plus hitters like McCray,(actually want to keep him) Brown,Meckler,Wyatt Bishop etc .Cards just want controllable players not anyone from the roster that the Giants won’t move..Giants don’t need a crazy contract like Verlander at his age but a young talented player in Flaherty that has Bob Gibson traits in his game and will go inside unlike most Giants pitchers, probably why they get hit more then any other team cause nobody Man’s up to protect their hitters..
They do and they should
I’m not convinced that Haniger is that great even if he’s healthy. That said, this team with Haniger and Thairo healthy, and a acquired decent 3rd starter, might have a shot at winning a first WC series. After that, I don’t think the roster would be strong enough to move forward in the post season. The question is whether that post season path is worth giving up really good prospects for a decent starter. We’ll know in a few hours…
Weird year, Villar and Bart were slated to be our starters, but they both couldn’t cut it. Because of injuries or busts, other young’uns were brought in, Schmitt looked great until other teams had a book on how to pitch him, Sabol shines one day and looks completely lost on another (to me he’s like a Dubon kinda guy who will probably be DFAed next year), Wisely won’t be taking anyone’s position, Diaz has the glove, so we’ll see. Bailey won’t be Buster but he doesn’t have to be if he keeps cutting down baserunners, Matos and Luciano were both 16 when we signed them and right now they should both be at AAA, but they’re getting trial by fire.
Trying to stay competitive while doing tryouts is tough and not normally very successful, but right now SF is still holding on and, in a position, to go for it. No team is going all the way with just their opening day roster, when you have a shot ya gotta go for it, like most teams in that position are doing now. Sorry, but I don’t consider Pollak as going for it.
By the way, Zaidi didn’t have to empty the Farm to make a deal, he could have used some lower-level prospects and also included guys like Wood and/or Joc.
By “going all the way,” do you mean winning the WS? If so, do you really think the Braves couldn’t have made the WS this year without their acquisitions? The Orioles had no chance without Shintaro Fujinami?
OK correction, very few teams will try to go all the way with their opening day roster.
Are you saying Zaidi shouldn’t bother to strengthen our chances and should stand pat like the Braves are apparently doing? Because, I think he has an opportunity to make this team better.
I think he’ll pull the trigger on a deal that has a good chance of making a difference, like he did with Bryant, but won’t make one that he thinks is too expensive. I’m ok with that because of the huge role luck plays in the post-season.
True, luck does play a huge role.
We really haven’t consistently played the best ball this year, but here we are right in it.
So, if Farhan does make an impact type move, and with our relief staff holding strong, the “kids” getting this playing time and a fired-up Vet mix, we could surprise em all.
Reading something from Baseball Prospectus written about early 2000s era seasons. Chapter on teams that won then (yes Angels Yanks BoSox ChiSox Marlins) talked about importance of luck of the draw as much as solid additions, making case that adding payroll didn’t always translate in winning it all. As in Luis gonzalez bloop single off Mariano Rivera etc.
Giants luck, except for getting more time for Wilmet, has mostly been bad with all the injuries. right now beside ineffective DeSclafani, Brebbia Harrison Winn and Whisenhunt are all hurt, plus of course Estrada Haniger. Yaz and Wade Jr Slater are compromised, as is Flores.
Lucky to be where they are maybe with success of bullpen games and fill ins, but otherwise more like “Born Under Bad Sign.”
DeJong off the board. Blue Jays got him.
we don’t have this to spend? Fucking class A guy
this guy isn’t even in the Blue Jays top 30 list. DeJong would have been some nice right handed pop. Instead we get nothing except shitty broken down Pollack
For what it is worth, Pollack is an ex Doghair, although I think he was there after ZMan left. I think all he is here for is a warm body to sub for Yaz as long as he’s out again. Trouble is, 3rd time out in 4 months for a hammy means to me you need an off season to really heal it…
DeJong has 13 bombs in 306 PAs, Pollock 5 in 138.
13 bombs would put him second on our team. And if you think broken down Pollack is in any way equivalent to DeJong in the power department you might be clinically insane.
Pollock has hit HRs at pretty much the same rate this year. Dejong has had an ok rebound so far this year, but he’s been pretty shitty since 2019. There isn’t the night and day difference your hysteria suggests.
for starters, Pollack is only going to play against LH pitching. DeJong hits vs both. And that’s assuming that his old broken down ass can even get back on the field. You Farhan defenders are hilarious. Sitting and watching nothing happen must appeal to you but I need a little more action that the same bullshit he’s peddling.
You think DeJong would have put Craw on the bench? I’m skeptical.
I thought the trade deadline was yesterday. I feel a big trade with the Mets is pending.:
Giants give up: Estrada, Harrison, and Reggie Crawford
Mets give us: Verlander, Guillorme, and Pete Alonso
On Opening Day 2024, the Polar Bear will eat Lou Seal
Verlander not gonna agree to come here
Nightingale is saying Verlander is going back to Houston.
Cease is on the market now.
Given triples alley at Oracle, my FAs and minor league talent target would always be RH’d HR pop, not LH’d. And for FA’s that are LH’d, target quick athletic dudes with doubles power and high OPS …
Pollack isn’t going to jack up the Giants’ OPS from 21st in MLB, or dent the teams 3rd highest Ks in MLB, or middling scoring (16th in MLB).
No wonder they can’t score, with massive K team rate, they don’t get contact that would put runners on even if by fielding errors, or move runners over and in. No conga line. Middle of the MLB pack (15th) in HRs doesn’t make up for the astounding K rate.
Braves lead MLB with jaw-drop team OPS at .832 (closest is Texas with .799), and still have 6th lowest total Ks.
Barring major injury, Atlanta looks to me like the WS winner, over Baltimore…
Verlander traded to Astros for Drew Gilbert their top OF prospect..
Morroco Mole still sleeping in his hole only cricket sounds,as now another starter goes off the board..
Detroit SP Mike Lorenzon traded to Philadelphia
2 hours . . . .
The BP arms will be dead come Sept 15th.
Probably not when the bullpen consists of 11 arms, with more to come on September 1st. You can question that strategy, but nobody is throwing an inordinate number of innings.
Giants have thrown, by far, the most bullpen innings in MLB this season. You can hope they add arms who are just as effective but hope is not a plan. And the guys they have can’t keep up this pace.
Those bullpen innings have been shared by a lot of pitchers, whose appearances have been fairly well spread out. You made the same claims about the bullpen arms in 2021. It didn’t turn out as predicted. Maybe the collapse will happen this year. Maybe not.
Still think this is wave of the future–less innings for SPs (who ever goes even 7 now?) and more for pen guys. Ergo teams will use and need more of them to be effective, as Giants are by using these guys and openers more and back end starters (Manaea Wood Stripling) less.
With Buehler out for year, and Opie still rehabbing, how many aces do Dodgers have? Urias ERA is almost 5.00, Gonsolin and Miller 4.25 and up, Sheehan and Grove 5.77 and 6.75 They’ve started 3 rookies and added Lance Lynn lol.
AND E-Rod just rejected the trade to the Dodgers. That’s hilarious.
Tyler and Camilo have just pitched three days in a row. 11 arms get stressed in pen games, esp extra inning pen games. It’s gonna be a long august vs good teams (well, two games in Oakland). I would’ve been pleased to see a deal for another pitcher — a long reliever, a late inning guy– something.
Define inordinate. We lead the league in BP innings.
Jake Burger traded. He would have looked good in orange and black blasting bombs to LF
Phils just designated Josh Harrison. I’m sure Farhan just creamed himself. Bet we pick him up.
Burger doesn’t thrill me. I’d rather stick with the Davis/Flores sharing of 3b.
If we’re not going to get Arenado.
Flav’s 2:08 re: Eduardo Rodriguez voiding trade to Dodgers is interesting. Wonder what Harris will do with him now, or why he and Z couldn’t agree on something when Giants were in town earlier.
If Jake Burger ends up hitting a lot of 2-baggers could we call him a Double Double Burger??
Sure. We can call that fuck whatever want!
Krueger, lol. guy is just clueless, always has been.
you want to refute those stats Luna listed?
Nope, not the point. It’s krueger talking nonsense, per usual. Mr. Luna hoped to see another bat, so did I but it didn’t happen. so be it. But what Krueger said doesn’t apply to “knowledgeable” fans, only those who think like his lunatic ass.
Wrath. Krueger is an idiot.
both you and WillieD, predictably, are focusing on the wrong thing. Our hitters are terrible. And Farhan did nothing. Enjoy the rest of the year as we slowly fade from contention.
Krueger is a brain dead sports hack. He can’t focus worth a shit. Nor can knowledgeable fans abacinated by their own wrath.
Xoot, do you have stock in dictionary.com?
As I said the other day, Farhan has been focused on his big poops…
3 minutes…….
So is Twitter still called Twitter, or do people actually call it “X”?
No one seems to care. It’s weird–it’s like staying rent free in an office tower after your sublessor goes BK and leaves. It can go on for half a year.
Goddamit Farhan it shit! Flaherty was a perfect fit and a much needed starter in a rotation of overused openers from here on out!! I’m pissed off 😡 u can’t even make a trade but hell let’s go get another x Dogpile who’s useless but atleast Pollock has a history of injuries which I believe u prefer.. Fuuuuuuckkkkk…
you speak for many Giants fans today……
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I guess the dead rats under the dumpster weren’t even inviting.
The FB Kruk & Kuip pages must be going gonzo.
several guys are getting DFA’d right now including Harrison and Segura. Dim the lights, it’s Farhan time!!!!!
Searching for the roaches under the dead rats.
Haniger as savior doesn’t really light my fire. Estrada will be a welcome return.
well, i’d like to hear the FarHeads at the blog defend this. Pathetic display by a guy who is getting paid a lot of money to do more than he did today.
FarHeads — I like it.
Couple feel good stories: first, Thairo set to join Sac tonight and could be back up by weekend series with A’s. Also Harrison pitched 2 clean innings in rehab start in Arizona League and will rejoin rotation at Sac this weekend per Z.
If the Giants are going to fade from contention, one “bat” isn’t changing that. Neither would a third starter. They got a “bat” in Bryant in 21, and his impact was relatively minor. The foundation has to be solid over 162 or the deadline moves meant to bolster it aren’t going to matter. If the foundation is good, you’ll stay in contention whether you add to it or not.
yeah man, i got it. We needed MORE than a bat and we needed pitching. We got nothing. Enjoy the slow slide that the rest of the Summer holds for us.
So, you’re saying the roster got us into a good position, but it was time to change some major pieces before the underlying weaknesses inevitably start to take a toll. More like restructuring than enhancing, with clear cut improvements at a couple of positions and a SP. Getting that right sounds like a tall order, especially when I look at the players that were moved today.
Ok I’ll bite per 3:54. First, no one here has any idea who or what was discussed with whom by Z at deadline. You can speculate but it’s all in your mind. No one knows who he checked with, who was offered to him, what others wanted in return or who he inquired about. It’s all behind closed doors or phones and out of our hands.
Second, I don’t find this season boring at all. this is development building time (not let’s rent Ohtani time) and giants are in way better place than they were a year ago when it took late winning streak vs. imploding Rockies just to get to .500. Most interesting is new direction in player movement in minors-2 more were promoted to Sac today from AA Richmond. One OF hitter who has done very well (.880 OPS at Richmond) Wade Meckler and a pen guy Juan Sanchez w good ERA and FIP. Is this new GM pushing Z to be more aggressive? I think this is very exciting to follow along with and there are promising players that could impact Giants now and in immediate future.
Injury to Winn not as severe or season ending as originally thought. So along with Beck being back and if all goes well Harrison too giants have pitching reinforcements on the way.
i don’t give a shit what was discussed behind closed doors. Results are all that matter.Tons of deals went down this week, most had buyers giving up very little. But whatever, he couldn’t get a deal done. We’re stuck with this situation. I’m moving on.
Harrison doesn’t appear strong enough to pitch down the stretch. Next year, for him, I bet. We’ll see HJelle again, now. That doesn’t make me glad. But anyone who’s ever made deals knows that turning down bad ones is good. If the Giants make the PS with this SP, this OPS, and this lack of team speed, I will be glad. Hell, I’ll be stoked.
Here it is Aug 1 and Giants have won one less game than the Los Angeles effing dodgers. Could anyone have envisioned that as season started?
No. But that doesn’t mean you give up and just ride out the rest of the season. Did you see how many deals got done today?????
pretty sure there was only one: Verlander. And if that caused Zaidi to pack up his toys and run home to mama then he needs to tighten up his game.
Farhan seems to be predicting a Harrison call up soon. Well, ….
yes. But what if it’s Josh? He’s gonna be all over those DFA guys you KNOW it
See? Farhan & co. — just too woke.
Rodon is getting shelled by the Rays.
Boone may not make it through this season.
he shouldn’t.
sorry, i thought you said Cashman. Cash should go before Boone
You KNOW Tommy Pham hits home run tonight.
Will he even be in SF for the game, coming in from KC?
Yeah Pham will make it he still wants to bitch slap Pederson around with Fantasy Football Draft coming up..
Voice of reason from Baggs yesterday in TA:
“Teams don’t win or lose the trade deadline. It’s not a point scoring exercise. It’s just an opportunity to get better, either in the present or the future.”
And as he further notes, Beck was added in Melancon deal 2019, 4 years ago and just paying off now.
guys need to calm down, enjoy game and stop overreacting.
interesting take. Counterpoint: you need to stop underreacting.
I was glad to see that Baggs was not contributing to the commenting class’s frenzy this time, as he did during the Judge/Correa Zaidi indictment.
Those nazi commenters.
Not every Nazi is a moron, and not every moron is a Nazi!
Oh! It’s a diverse class. I see.
It does share one crucial trait.
I thought the Giants would at least get some sort of starter.
The two-starter and 3 opener thing I don’t think is sustainable.
The thing that non-move tells me is they’re definitely bringing up Harrison soon.
Basically, they picked up nothing.
Acquiring Pollack is really not a serious move. Any PTBNL transaction is by definition a shot in the dark thing…
Allegedly, the guy who founded the Outward Bound program that provides seriously challenging expeditions for young people said he came up with the idea after post disaster search and rescue operations. He was amazed at how many of the survivors were elderly. “We’ve been through worse,” they all told him.
A super frustrating day. It puzzles me how any fan can be happy when we did nothing.
Any of you ever play fantasy baseball? The teams that do nothing always lose. It is a fact that the players like it when the teams leadership tries to win. The winning teams are always trying everything to win, just like business leadership. Are we doing what we can to win everyday, to dominate? Farhan may be thinking we are good enough, but the veteran players are getting the message that they are not. FUCK!!
I was happy when they picked up Bryant. He was irrelevant. I was happy when they picked up Beltran, who actually performed very well, unlike Bryant. I would have been happy with some good new players. They might have helped, but probably not.
My counter would be the Warriors. Win a title? get another. Lose in Finals, get Durant. Pay money. Lots. Durant is gonna leave? Sign and trade him for Russel. Doesn’t work? get Wiggins.
Poole loses it? Trade him. Move on, move up, move fast. I love rooting for the Warriors. Right now as I type this? The Giants. Not so much.
And yes i know tomorrow I’ll be back on board..
Who on the Giants is equivalent to Curry, Green, and Thompson?
Luciano gets sent down, and we get to watch Craw try to keep his batting average over .200.
That does bum me out. I guess Schmitt is more versatile.
He hit the ball hard and seemed to adjust to mlb speed of game before our eyes. He’ll be back soon.
See problem for me about not knowing who was on table in exchange for whom etc. is this: If we knew Angels have offer on table of Trout for Harrison Luciano and a current SP, we could say that’s ridiculous or do it NOW. But we don’t, so beatching about lack of deals is pointless because we’re all just guessing about everyone involved.
. We don’t know if Z could have gotten anyone of value that was dealt, or how much other teams wanted in return. I’d have taken anyone in exchange for Alex wood, but he’s still here. End of story.
so how is it all these other GM’s are pulling off all these trades trading marginal talent? Shit the guy St. Louis got for DeJong wasn’t even in Toronto’s top 30 prospects!
Wow 3 high fastballs and Davis is gone.
The strike outs roll on.
Cashman getting the Zaidi treatment on twitter
Uh oh. HBP Sabol. We may see Joey sooner rather than later. I don’t understand why the Giants aren’t beaning and bitch slapping the way other teams are.
That was not a good AB by Matos.
He looked blind.
The combined stats of Diaz, Walton, and Wisely defy all logic.
Mets sending $54 mil to Astros so Houston only paying $29 million for 2.33 years for Verlander. Out of the box thinking…
They did have the incredible genius of the Scherzer deal to model their own high IQ move.
Can’t come down too hard on Kuip for doing that again…
And Just missed a bomb.
man how bout being an Astros fan? They get Verlander and a couple hours later Valdez throws a no hitter.