Playing Out The String
One more sleep till the Niner game. I just don’t have any interest left in our boring baseball team. The players, and the way the team is managed, has taken all the emotion and joy out of watching the games. Losing doesn’t help either.
I’ve had a lot of epiphanies in the last couple of days. One of them is that I’m not going to blow off texts or phone calls anymore. Nothing I’m doing in the moment is more important than talking to a friend or a family member.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Hear hear, here here….
Good call on seeing friends and family as much as you can, because you just never know. Last night and last week, I was on calls for two highway wrecks that we had to bring a helicopter medevac. The guy last week survived, the one last night didn’t. You just never know.
Yep. I hadn’t talked to my friend Kevin in a few months, and he caught me at the wrong time, but I ended up talking to him. Per usual it turned into an hour and a half conversation. He was gone 6 days later. He’s the one who put up the deed to his condo to get me out of jail for the New Year’s Day playoff game back in 1988. The tickets were sitting on my coffee table while I was sitting in the Redwood City jail.
Giants 5-24 in last 29 road games.
That’s horrific in anybody’s book.
Giants defense is the worst in MLB by several metrics, including most errors.
Dead last or near it in stolen bags.
Their outfield defense and offense needs a complete offseason makeover.
Other than that, a playoff contender…
Good points snarkk, particularly about defense, e.g., this fucked up defensive sequence with the Snakes illustrates the hapless Giants perfectly:
https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/38443579
For the Giants, they are so poor in offensive production, that their defensive lapses are magnified. You have two ways on defense to address that – pitching (which overall, is their lone plus); and, fielding (which they suck at).
Flav, just read the previous thread – sorry for your loss. Heartbreaking to lose someone so young.
Yeah, listened to the game yesterday, and Miller was incredulous at the botched throw to 3rd and then the bad throw home to allow 2 runs to score. After of course the HBP to start it all off with 2 outs.
Defense is even worse than last year. And Flores at 3rd was iffy as he rolled a couple thrrows.
USA Today in today’s issue has the Niners at #1 in their power rankings.
It really feels like the sports page has fully turned on the 2023 SF Giants.
Back in the 1980s and ‘90s, that’s about all we were asking of the Giants: keep us interested until the Niners start their season.
Yeah, the real disheartening thing about the Giants is they closed last year on the upside. They crawled back to ,500 after having a pretty suck year.
This season had it’s share of suck but they were in grest shape by the time the trade deadline rolled around. Their indifference sure seemed to take the wind out of their sails as they are in a 2 month long tailspin as they are now falling back to . 500 after being 13 games over not too long ago.
Next year will be year 6 of the Farhan era so the wonder now is why Conforto, Haniger, Joc, Slater, and Crawford are even getting ABs. They should be just playing the young guys as much as possible.
I mean, the kids can’t fall out of the playoff hunt much faster than the Bore Core II.
That entire list you just made, Unca, should be dropped the day after the season end. Haniger has to come back under his contract, I dunno about Conforto, he probably has a player option he’ll likely exercise? Conforto and Haniger deals have the smell of the Tommy LaStella debacle. Johnson gave thumbs up to Farhan and Gabe for next season. Sometimes the vote of confidence is anything but. I would not be surprised if Gabe got the ax as a scapegoat move, but what decent replacement would come to manage with the GM obviously on a year 6 hot seat?
Giants just suck in team speed( one if not the slowest team in baseball and that’s been for 3 years atleast)they have 53 SB’s for the season Dbacks 153 that’s a 100 more with guys like Corbin&Thomas going off and who can run down any baseball hit their way.Their terrible on defense both infield and outfield and can’t get to balls that other teams make!
Off to good start. Wade having fine season.
Bailey really is an error machine these days.
Carroll 2 singles, 2 stolen bases (with an E-2 on 2nd one), 2 runs.
And there you go. More unearned runs as Webb looks to pick up another loss with little run support.
Mac in other words no Giants player can create the havoc that Carrol creates..
Or a follow-up to your 12:30, haha.
Thairo has something like 18 steals or so. He was out a month.
Nobody else has more than 4.
Yeah, 4.
That is astoundingly bad. You might find that OK for a team that hits a ton of HRs. This one doesn’t do that, either.
You could say it’s a little amazing they are where they are, at .500. They’re early-mid season pitching made them look better than they were/are…
Giants getting beat by Carroll & Merrill.
Lol can you even dream about the giants developing a rookie like Carroll?
Carroll 4-4, yeesh.
They are teeing up on Walker.
Yeah 2024 is year 6 of the Farhan regime, and we have one rookie starter who looks even remotely viable, and that’s the suddenly error-prone Patrick Bailey.
Those two errors yesterday were both on Flores.
Looked like a shit throw to me, but whatevs. His throws have been a bit erratic lately.
I left work early to go get some blood tests done and I was driving there listening to D-backs tee off on Walker and I was like “Why am i listening to this bullshit” and switched over to the Bone to rock out the rest of the way there.
Same exact thing happened to me yesterday. Got acupuncture for the first time for the ringing in my ears. Driving home, I heard the 2 run double, the walk, the wild throw, and then the next wild throw to allow 4 runs to score. Was like, what’s on 107.7?
Same for me, heard the Marte bomb, click, back to Sirius.
Baseball writer Jeff Passan recently called Bailey the best defensive player in MLB. Not even just best catcher, but best defensive player, overall.
“MLB Insider Jeff Passan is a huge fan of San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey’s game. Passan has come out with his 2023 MLB season awards, naming Bailey as the one player scouts can not stop talking about.
Passan was impressed with how a rookie catcher could look so locked in behind the plate. He calls a good game for his pitchers, frames well, can block anything near him and has a tremendous arm.
Notably, it is Bailey’s arm that sets him apart from other catchers in the league. He has gunned down 24 runners trying to swipe a bag, which is the most in the National League.
“He’s already the best defensive player in baseball,” said Jeff Passan.”
Go Niners.
We need Luciano to be our Carroll next season. It would be fun to see Luciano up right now. Just DFA DeJong.
Or Fitzgerald, having good season and playing many different positions including CF.
With Cobb out, Harrison should get couple more starts too.
Let em play.
Slater, Joc, DeJong, Haniger, and Conforto should all be jettisoned. Bring up Matos, Ramos, Hunter Bishop’s brother, Luciano, anyone with a goddamn pulse.
Crawfish can have his last few games, then goodbye.
Flavor, your blog past two days sobering reminder of our advancing years and frailty of life.
As for our Giants, Pathetic. Putrid. Painful. Many critiques we all expressed during year – overused bullpen will be exposed in August/September, anemic offense lacking powerful punch, only two established starters every five days, shoddy defense – have sadly been borne out past six weeks. Post mortem on Giants team best saved until end of season. But barring miracle finish this year resembles all others since 2017 except 2021: mediocre and uninspiring baseball with failure to close widening gap with Dodgers & Braves. I’m frustrated.
Well said, but…everyone else in NL has a “widening gap” with Dodgers and Braves. AZ is fun team (that also only has 2 SPs), but they are 13 games behind LA, have a minus run differential, and have played under .500 ball for last 2 months. and they’re second WC behind Phils.
Fair comment. You’re right Dodgers & Braves have stood alone as standard bearers in NL past few years. But Phillies and Padres proved last year that strong starting rotation combined with deep lineup can keep you competitive with Dodgers and Braves and upend them in short playoff series. My frustration with Giants is that excluding 2021 they haven’t even been at second tier level in NL for many years and aren’t constructed to pose legitimate threat to Dodgers or Braves.
this is SPOT fucking on
https://x.com/KNBR/status/1704641155085009187?s=20
Agreed.
This is most obvious in the key area of deficiency in the Giants over the last 40 years. Outfield. Ofers need to be athletic — fast, quick, strong, great instincts. Who now has that in the veteran OFers of the Giants? Nobody. Like I’ve said before, I would trade anybody on the Giants position players roster except Thairo and maybe Bailey,
Yep, Baggs was saying the same thing, “Their lack of athleticism hurt them in the outfield, too. Mitch Haniger had just a 20 percent catch probability on Perdomo’s hit in the second inning, which dropped in the grass as the left fielder slowed up to keep it in front of him.”
When I heard the 20 percent catch probability from Kapler, I wondered if it was only a 20% chance because of the route Haniger took or just because it was Haniger. It sure looked like it was a catchable ball to me.
I remember a very athletic Melky screaming across the LF grass to grab tougher fly balls than that. Man, he had some juice.
Juice, indeed
Especially compared to DBax. Their OFs turned few well hit balls today and yesterday into outs showing off their range. Perdomo is good looking SS too.
5 different guys in lineup have OB better than .340. So they run well and get on base/don’t make outs.
Type of guys Giants should be developing.
Cueto in as reliever for Marlins vs. Mets, I didn’t know he was with the Fish.
Harrison is back with the team says Slusser. Cobb perhaps to IL. I think only an injury could let them deoption Harry so soon. This would’ve been an interesting move if the Giants had swept the rox and at least split the snakes. Now? He’d probably be better off winding down for some rest and general rehab.
Winn has Covid she said, so rotation pretty thin.
Melissa Lockard had great column in TA on minors standouts.
Among other pitchers she mentioned Mason Black. Like other SPs, Giants have only allow them to go 3-4 innings, something she had trouble finding valid reason for. Black made 28 starts/118 innings total. why do they do this I wonder?
Harrison started 21 games in minors, and pitched 67.2 innings; for SF 5/24. Year before 25 starts 113 innings. Could Harrison be 150 inning guy like Cobb next year?
Harrison lost his voltage quickly when he had to push through 5 mlb innings. Seems strange not to stretch the milb SPs out as prep for call up. Are they supposed to burst out of their cocoons under bright lights? I’m sure the AI has a rationale.
Lockhard like Slusser is a lifelong A’s fan. (Comeuppance for L now as beat writer for that fiasco of a franchise.) But I’ve always liked her milb coverage for SF. No homerism.
Brooklyn legend and Rutgers great, Phil Sellers gone at 69…
Oh, 2008 and 2009 were tough. But we had hope.
https://x.com/codifybaseball/status/1704641945463923103?s=46&t=k0FDC_rVBvlG86Y-OHTiNQ
Fascinating. Since Opie, Alcantara is only guy to get within 20% of his late innings total.
Snell with 3. So teams have to have both–Cy level SP guy like Burnes and multiple relievers to cover 3 more innings after them. And the guys on that list are best pitchers in NL, but aren’t going much longer than 6.
That Sweet Caroline bar commercial is a zombie; it’s relentless, and just won’t go away.
Hit mute or just shut the damn TV altogether like I do when that fuckin Citizens Bank commercial comes on with that ding-ding/suck-a-dicka suck-a dicka…
The Tigers defeated the Dodgers. It can be done.