Stripped
Typical Stripless nonsense yesterday. Nobody gives up a bomb like Stripless.
Travel day before an absolutely brutal stretch of games that will likely doom us.
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A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Back from our week in the Adirondacks and detour back to Niagara Falls with couple of the kids. Made for a very long day at about 15 hours from point to point…ugh!
When we saw AA Richmond last month in Harrisburg, Meckler made absolutely zero impression. That call up makes zero.zero sense to me. Has he even looked worthy so far??? Seems like a complete panic switch move after the Pollack disaster. Sadly we got a little high on the team before the all-star break and those first five games against Pirates and Reds. I think I said this earlier this season that the team is really who we thought they were at the start. I suggest they looked above average in comparison to what we had seen in the NL this season because I have argued it seemed most of the NL sucks. Even if we make the playoffs, which I would be shocked to see, can we make it past the wild card round? Think that is best case scenario and we will see how far ahead of us the Braves our coming up.
Like 2021. We should have made it past the Dodgers in Game 5 besides the shenanigan umpiring, but would have been murdered by the Braves then. Sending Matos and Luciano down also makes zero sense to me along with Mighty Casey. Let them play because they are playing next year. Get as much of the learning curve and rookie mistakes in now. These Mecklers and Pollacks are just the “Farhan Dive!!”
The guy who made the biggest impression last night in Sacramento was Wisely. So much for impressions, although he did look like the player the Giants pilfered from the Rays: 3 walks and a double ripped down the RF line.
Meckler PH situation and Kap getting tested about being questioned over it, as Xoot mentioned on last thread. was big point of Baggs story in TA today. I’d bailed by time this came up in the game, but Slater isn’t doing anything these days and can’t run fullspeed. Kap let kid Meckler hit the other day and K’d, but couldn’t have done any worse than Slater GIDP.
Giants haven’t been doing well in opener games lately and I misstated record, as Baggs said they’ve lost 5 of last 6. But obviously Strip blew the game not Walker. Phils are heavily weighted LHs, so maybe Harrison starts there on back end of road trip.
Baggs chimes in responding to some of the comments on that column and seems pretty measured in his response to fanbase disappointments and larger concerns to how things going lately.
Reds Phils and Cubs all won yesterday. So did AZ, now only 3 games back of Giants.
Giants 1.5 ahead of Fish, Cubs, Reds. All four off today, so Giants are safe at least ’til Saturday. And dare I say it, should we root for the Bums this weekend? Marlins are at LA. Jeez, what a dilemma.
Here’s the Kap klip. I also bailed early, and missed the crazy Rays HR.
“Meckler made absolutely zero impression. That call up makes zero.zero sense to me. Has he even looked worthy so far???”
Overall, he’s done pretty well so far. He.’s batting .300, and shown some speed, though not much power.
He’s played well in the outfield. Shows good range.
Kapler should’ve said “On Monday I used my intuition. I’m mixing it up.” The inherent trolling of most reporters’ questions deserves a lot more fuck you responses than they get.
Last night’s winning pitcher in Sacramento was bullpen guy Nick Avila, who’s now 14-0 on the season for a team with a 49-66 record.
He’s the Steve Carlton of the minors.
There’s always a point where struggling young hitter with options is gonna get sent down to regain confidence/get back on track or whatev, vs. being in and out of lineup on platoon and watching half the time.
Schmitt and Wisely weren’t doing much to help big club offensively, Matos either for that matter. Once Estrada got back and Ramos came off rehab and started to hit again these moves make sense. All of above I think benefited from time in SF and fit long term plans, especially if Crawford Joc Conforto no longer around next year. Ramos surely helps vs. LHP, big weakness.
As lot of others have said, up to the vets not named Wilmet to carry their weight.
Agree with Zum’s 9:28am . . . I mean come on – the kid has had 10 at bats. Small sample size, but he has performed.
You have an 8th round pick from 2022 and he’s reached the big show. Who doesn’t like that? More important, he’s already the fourth player from the 2022 draft class to reach the major leagues, after leading “. . . qualified players in full-season affiliates in both batting average (.379) and on-base percentage (.463) while jumping three levels in 2023.”
ISN’T THIS WHAT FLAPPERS HAVE BEEN CLAMORING FOR, E.G., THE END OF THE “BORE CORE” ERA???
I love all these new guys.
I love them all, too. Only Bailey is a definite mlber, potentially a long-time good to great one. The others are just as young, 23-24, except 21 year old Matos (who probably will gain strength and power). They’ll all improve (see Heliot).
In April, I didn’t expect to watch meaningful games in August. Not a high bar, but with only one SP and a dwindling team OPS, a nice surprise. Id like to see Meckler in CF a lot through the end of the season. I’m not surprised that he’s somewhat overmatched at the plate so far, but aaa is not mlb. Check James’s take on that after last night in Sac. Also, Meckler only played ten games there before the call up. Who knows if he would’ve leveled out a bit. But let him play in SF now. And recall the other aaa stars, too, as much as possible, esp if the team continues to lose these meaningful games. We fans will enjoy watching and rooting for them.
Agreed. Lack of offense lately is depressing but watching all the rooks play has not been so and for most part they’ve been at least adequate defensively with some stellar plays mixed. Breath of fresh air, much needed.
That long Baggs Athletic piece WiliieD recommended is excellent throughout. At one point, while discussing how hard it is for players to maintain poise during team slumps, he slipped in this double-edged insight:
“… so many of their left-handed hitters (Joc Pederson, LaMonte Wade Jr., Michael Conforto) either need to be shielded from left-handed pitching or haven’t faced them in so long that they’ve forgotten how to hit them.”
Good point by Baggs.
Rare minor solecism, pitching instead pitchers. Overall, the piece is as intelligent and skillful as usual.
Highly skillful, yep. My lone complaint is the blanket defense of Mr. Emerman and the perfectly “ordinary” question he asked. If it had been phrased something like “I assume you did this because Slater has a track record and Ramos doesn’t, but was there something else that went into your decision to explain what seems like an inconsistency in your approach?” the answer would have been a bland, curt “No.” But that wasn’t the desired effect. Instead, by asking another of those endlessly repetitive – inane, to quote Baggs – questions, one of the reporters finally got the manager to lose it, just a little bit. Mission accomplished.
That would be using an argumentative preamble to launch an even more argumentative leading question. Kap might’ve jumped out of his chair and glared at the upstart college student. In my experience, Baggs always defends his fellow writers, even those many who said nothing after the network fired him in the wake of the Pagan-led boycott against him. I suspect he may be a Buddhist.
Some reward for the Sacramento Kings for doing well last season; it was announced they will be playing in 22 regular season nationally televised games this season.
I don’t know about this Wander Franco thing.
I’ve heard many stories of “respected” American men flying to the D.R, for specifically the same reason…
Insomnia strikes again:( I did watch this awesome video about Timmy L. In hindsight, Bochy wrecked this guy. WAY to many pitches early in his career when the team was terrible. Stretches of 10+ starts of over 100 pitches as a 24 year old. Many 120+ in 25 yo season:(
and the 10+ comment was 10+ in a row…