A Win!!!!!!!
Well, even average-ass .500 teams manage to win 81 games a year and last night is a good example of how they do that. And I do think .500 is a decent goal. Farhan isn’t going to sell off anything decent at the break, that’s just not how he rolls. So if we get some guys back and Snell manages to offer us literally ANYTHING I think .500 is a realistic goal.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
is Whisenhunt getting the start tonight?
W is a W. I do think the bold faced lineup did have something to do with it.
ESPN writer Jesse Rogers said Giants now have 4 Ws when trailing by 4+ runs, most in all baseball.
I’m glad they didn’t have to use Doval in a save situation. I’d imagine in a Willie Mays tribute game, to bring him in with flashing lights and dancing bears would have been a bit embarrassing to Camilo.
A hell of a win tho.
All I see is Todd Bingle Dingle as our starting pitcher today. Hell of a win after getting stifled by Steele. I just donpt understand how Fence Post decides his pitchers. I said it yesterday and Estes was commenting on it after the game. If Howard is gonna go 4 innings why put him in after 3 other guys? Fucking Inaction Jackson HAS to be DFAed.
My third straight The Giants featuring Spencer Howard event. Nice postgame Stickball Willie projection:
Great idea love pic. Reading TA on Cubs page, comments mirror lot of Giants fans disappointed with manager, FO and unreliable pen and defense.
The level of control over a team’s play fans give “The Front Office” credit for is completely out of whack with the reality. Unless there are other organizational problems unrelated to the team’s play, the fundamental question ownership should ask is “are the decisions rational?” I’ll bet there just aren’t that many “mistakes” being made by baseball FOs. They’re all staffed by small armies of data analysts. The idea that Andrew Friedman could replace Farhan and automatically have the ship righted through his superior skills is laughable to me.
Even in simpler times, a questionable move like, e.g., the Rowand signing wasn’t some completely crazed gamble.
Hmmm. So it’s the baseball Gods that are responsible?
It couldn’t be the cheap owners or mediocre farm system, could it?
Yeah, the baseball draft is hard. It garners more turds than flowers. But really. 6 drafts by Farhan has netted one starting player that is solid.
Farhan’s trades and FA signings are ludicrously bad. 1-2 year make-good deals have netted guys like Gasman and Rodon that rehabilitate their careers and go. Or guys like La Stella and Haniger who are awful. Yeah, they’ve hit on some guys that were obscure, and they can’t be blamed for Soler rolling over like a dead pup, Chapman underwhelming at the plate, But Snell was a gamble based on his track record of not pitching deep in games, and having one good year surrounded by middling ones.
6 years in and the farm isn’t very good, guys come up overmatched, and they have yet to sign anyone decent (Lee could be good) to a long-term deal.
How much time should Farhan get?
The Giants payroll doesn’t suggest that the owners are cheap. Harrison may or may not join Bailey as a solid player. Bailey could become better than solid. Ludicrously bad? You mean some didn’t work out. There is the Wade Meckler 40-man move that Baggarly likes to harp on . . . .
Giants’ pen is the most used in baseball.
Unsustainable…
There was the same worry last year. The pen didn’t collapse and its usage contributed significantly to the third ranked team ERA.
We’ll see in August.
Huh? What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? Giants are currently 12th in the NL (25th in MLB). Worse, their ERA is 4.52 versus 4.02 last year.
Last night they used 5 pitchers against a mediocre Cubs team. Let’s see how that works with the upcoming series against the Bums, Braves and Guardians, i.e., I agree with snarkk’s 9:23am comment.
One other thing – 13 pitchers are no longer on this roster from last year.
Doval 29 IP
Walker 39
Rogers 36
Miller 36
Rogers 31
Hjelle 36
Rodriguez 28
At the halfway point, who specifically is being overused, other than Luke Jackson?
ans don’t forget there is at least a decent chance hicks will join the BP in the 2nd half
I’m not sure what you’re arguing, Blade. The team ERA hasn’t ballooned because of the bullpen this year. I simply pointed out that the bullpen was used similarly last year and it didn’t collapse.
If all these injured starters are still hurt down the line they have to think about putting Jelly Man back into the rotation. Even Howard.
Overused or not, these pen games are no way to pitch. Once in a while, sure, but 2-3 rotation spots is ludicrous.
Just bring guys up and let them try.
Manipulating the 40 man roster is little more complicated than “just bring guys up and let them try.” Top pitching prospect SPs like Birdsong Seymour and Whisenhunt aren’t on the 40, so someone has to be let go or DFA’d. Problem will be what to do with either of these two once Ray Snell or Cobb return. You can send them back down but once they are on the 40 you have to protect more players from Rule 5 in off season, as Giants did with Luciano.
Jackson has been disappointment but doubt Giants DFA him like disgruntled fans want them too.
Starting Hjelle and Howard would at least limit the perception of chaos the injuries have caused. The 40 man constraint does make it a little harder to simply offer one try out after another.
Right. I mean God forbid we lose Trenton Brooks.
DFA’d late yesterday. At least he got a taste of MLB after years in the minors. Doubtful he’ll be back anytime soon. He needs to transition into coaching…
there you go. Flav had corn on the Cobb nailed saying he won’t pitch this season.
Snell might round into form by September but I can’t hold my breath that long.
You can call me Ray? Yet another enigma wrapped in a riddle lodged in a turd.
Not even at the half way point and I count 12 pitchers injured to varying degrees (8 starting pitchers on the roster). Couple that with a team ERA of 4.52, I do not see that ERA getting better, but worse, which is essentially what Tom is saying. Tom correct me if I am totally wrong or state your reasons.
Hey, I loved that win last night, but we were really fortunate for the stars to fall in the right place, at the right time. I don’t see that type of luck playing out too many more times this season.
You’ve got it.
You can’t expect overall staff pitching to get better or even stay as bad as it’s been (down near MLB bottom of ERA) if the rotation is Webb + Hicks or Webb + Harry plus 3 TBAs. (Hicks and Harry are probably going to be shelved to some degree in 2nd half, to protect their arms, per scribe reports). Those TBA pen games are going to eat up a Pen, so I suspect they are somehow going to try to bring up these scrub starters from Sac unless/until Snell, Ray and Cobb get up. Figuring on them to be saviors is like waiting for Godot. I heard on KNBR yesterday that now it’s doubtful Cobb is going to make it up this season. And Snell was quoted after his bad start with Sac that he thought the Giants were trying to “rush” him back. Well, of course they might be, since he’s been a pftttt since he arrived. If he and the Giants brain trust are at odds, that’s not good…
I doubt that they’re going to lean more heavily on the bullpen arms that aren’t up here because of the injuries. They’ve been carefully managed and presumably will continue to be. I also doubt that the current scrubs who do eat up the excess innings are going to perform worse than Winn, Snell, Jeffries, Teng, White did while they were here earlier. If the team ERA doesn’t go down, they will finish well under 500. It won’t matter if it stays where it is or goes up.
An aside on Winn, I’m guessing his crappy performances are arm trouble related. That both he and Beck got hurt sucks.
Padres won last night as they scored 4 runs in bottom of 10th to beat Nats and get back over .500. Their offense scores 4.5 runs per game, Giants 4.4 Padres have played 4 more games yet have exact same number of doubles and triples as SF. They have hit 11 more HRs and have lot more SBs. Also top NL BA .260 (tied with Phils) and top 4 team OPS. Also just put Tatis Jr. on IL.
Padres pitching allows full half run less per game than Giants do, and team ERA is full half run less. They do as of now have injuries to SPs Darvish and Musgrove, and Darvish who was supposed to be back in rotation, will not take regular turn yet.
I understand what an average is but you can’t score tenths of a run so I consider that stat more or less meaningless. Drove Twin crazy with that…
The Giants have scored 346 runs, the Padres 374, but SD has played 4 more games. The average immediately tells you that the SD offense has not been significantly better than SF’s in scoring runs.
Round up.
Like they say, the average American family has 3.2 kids.
That 0.2 kid is hard to feed as he has no head.
The Padres run differential is +15, ours is -33. The Cards are the only team in MLB with a negative run differential who are at .500 or better. And for what its worth, the 3 games that they beat us got them to .500.
Rodriguez will be tonight’s opener.
Wow. Why not Jelly man for 3 innings? See how far he goes. He hasn’t pitched in a couple days, so he’s ready to do 2, 3, or (gasp!) 4 innings.
I don’t get this insistence on running 2 or 3 one-inning guys to start the game. i mean, if that’s the philosophy, start with Action-in-the-bullpen Jackson and be done with it early.
How is Jackson still up, or is he?
He hammered constantly…
“gets hammered”.
Today, WordPress has decided I can’t edit…
Missing Bats, a pretty good series of articles so far in the Athletic:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5584035/2024/06/25/missing-bats-the-athletic-special-series/
The other day Loo complained about a lack of team identity. SF has of course tried to emphasize groundballs ala Logan Webb, which in theory generates quicker outs, allows for longer starts. A counter trend with data behind it, too. You could argue that the signing of Chapman and addition of Ahmed underscored an attempt to start building an “identity,” one that traditionalists would seemingly applaud.
Yes these are excellent. 2024 is turning into 1968.
Funny thing, 1969 Marichal was even better than 1968. ERA went down to 2.10 from 2.43 and he allowed fewer hits and K’d more. On his way to 8 shutouts. Hit this m-fers.
Yes, as was signing Lee to cover CF everyday too, another unfortunate injury to add to the pile. If he’s OK having him and Ramos in RF is 2/3 of very good defensive OF. That was nice over the shoulder grab he had last night.
Upper deck seats, 1B side, so got a great view of it. A pleasure to watch him right now.
It was kind of funny to read quotes from players who talked to Mays about hitting. “Well left handed or right (pitchers), it didn’t really matter.”
Or, “when wind was blowing in from left, I just hit the ball to right.”
When Mays was on the old Giants Vision(?), the talking head (Steve Stone maybe? I don’t remember), asked when a single was laced into the OF if Willie thought he would have caught that ball? Willie said something like “Yeah, I would have caught that ball”. The TH asked him how? Willie said I would have been where the ball hit. The TH was confused and asked him where? Willie said where the ball hit, roll back the tape. They did and when it showed the ball hitting the ground, Willie said, there where the ball hit, I would have been there and caught that ball.
Yep. Vintage Mays.
Awesome story, thanks. I read somewhere from player or coach on another team who talked with Hal Lanier who told him Mays used to position the IF. He knew the hitters and was in on the pregame meeting with pitchers.
J D Davis final victim as 3 Yanks strike out in a row after they loaded bases with no one out at Mets in Subway Series.
Brett Wisely L-SS
Heliot Ramos R-CF
Patrick Bailey S-C
Jorge Soler R-DH
Matt Chapman R-3B
Michael Conforto L-LF
Thairo Estrada R-2B
David Villar R-1B
Luis Matos R-RF
SP: Randy Rodriguez R
⬆️ You don’t know how hard that was..
Thank you.
But well done.
Brooks got his first major league hit a few weeks ago, and the TV broadcast had a camera shot of his family celebrating in the stands. And that may be his MLB career highlight. The first base job was wide open for the taking, and he wasn’t able to do the taking.
There’s often a poignant aspect to the family celebrations in the stands. Sometimes the player just gets a cup of coffee in the majors.
Well batting.120 (3-25)will never ever grasp the job and run with it. Brooks had more walks 4 then hits 3.Just another Z, dumpster filler only cause he was a LH first baseman they needed with Wade out( thank god he’s close to returning) and didn’t want to burn out Mr.Ed everyday
One in..
Thats two.
Giants Trade Proposal Sends $2 Million Center Fielder to SF in 4-Player Swap (msn.com)
I like Jazz, but that trade is DOA in my book. Way too pricey…
Good job by Rodriguez he can’t help himself just following every other pitcher on the staff giving up the obligatory SB that cost him a run..
There is such a thing as a pitch out. It still exists. I think…
https://pebblehunting.substack.com/p/maybe-the-last-timei-dont-know
This might be a good book for me and a bunch of people I know…
SF Giants on X says Birdsong starts tomorrow per Melvin
So that’s what a caught stealing looks like.
Gs can’t stop steals, can’t steal themselves. Almost laughable…
Wisely is supposed to be (potentially) our best base stealer too. Oyyyy!!!!!!!
The Giants should not attempt another stolen base this year. The scandal isn’t how many they’ve given up versus how many they have. It’s the gap between the success rates.
Nice inning from Hjelle. 7 pitches 3 ground balls handled cleanly and they’re back in dugout.
Stay positive, Willie, I may go mad if the Giants keep getting clowned by Hendricks, the most despicable opposing pitcher I’ve seen since Mark Portugal.
Is it necessary to call Pete Crow-Armstrong, PCA just to save one syllable?
Almost as dumb as the morons here who think calling the George Washington Bridge, the GWB is some kind of time saver…
It is an unpleasant sounding name. Last night we had the dignified Raymond Burgos to offer contrast.
You’re stuck with the Cubs too.
Cubs feed.
When doctors on TV are rushing to save a life and say GSW (5 syllables) instead of gun shot wound (3)….
Good one!
Outstanding!
It’s approximately the one-year anniversary of the annoying Sweet Caroline whiskey commercial. I guess it’s never going away.
It’s almost a parody of a Conservative’s nightmare of a “woke commercial.” It starts with a lesbian kiss, and features a multitude of various races and ethnic groups.
The thing that makes the commercial annoying is the song. That song, over and over.
Like I’ve said about all the Jackie Robinson hoop-la, after a while a lot of this this stuff feels more like some sort of guilt-ridden apology than anything else…
If Birdsong pitches decently tomorrow and he’s been solid at Sac, then I’m adding him and Hjelle in the rotation pronto.Black gets sent down after tonight’s game, after hopefully his .957 ERA doesn’t go up more tonight.Wade real close so Villar gone by Friday as well..The Z bus will be moving again with more trash cluttering Highway 80..
Thank god that DP was just out of Rogers’ reach.
CS!
Not a good look by Morel who begged for the challenge then walks towards the dugout before the challenge was official..
James, where can more Tom Tango content be found?
Besides his web site and book, not sure!
Helluva AB from Estrada there. Finally got pitch he could drive and didn’t miss it.
Villar’s AB, unfortunately, was lacking.
Are our guys just slow or get bad jumps, bad leads??
All of the above.
I’m spending my summer with these…
Wisely hit the shit outta that double.
Wisely gets Oracle’d.
Boom!
2 out RBIs, hell yeah.
If you’re not paying close attention to the game, that score box in the corner of the screen can be tricky when it comes to the bases being full or empty. Ya get me?
Yeaaaah, big 3-spot!
Cubs pen doesn’t look sustainable either.
Good not to create too much separation, lest his highness decide the bottom of the ninth isn’t worth his while.
Doval going with the black glove tonight. Why have I never seen his glove changes brought up anywhere?
Soler Sac Fly I almost didn’t expect and Bailey’s ballsy tag up on play got them 2 more runs on Chapman hit..
Ball game.
Very nice win.
Victory!
And the bold italic batting order is now 2-0! I wonder if that’s sustainable…
Hopefully!
FOR NOW IT IS LOO ! SO BOLDLY STICK WITH IT..
It’s working, gotta love it.
Batting 1.000
I had never heard of the original Chipwich before.
Since I left SF, I miss It’s It’s. I get at least one every time I get back in town.
Rough news for the company:
“Totally Cool, Inc., a Maryland-based company, is recalling multiple brands of ice cream products due to the possibility of listeria contamination.
The products were sold by popular brands like Jeni’s, Hershey’s, Chipwich, Dolcezza and more.”
Fun game. Thankfully Soler and Chapman came through. Matos jogging halfway and waiting for the ball to hit 25 feet high off the wall was some really terrible baserunning. Hard to imagine an major leaguer didn’t score there.
Ice cream sandwiches from the Good Humor truck were as significant a part of my childhood summers than anything else… hmm, including popsicles applied to swollen ouchies from a bad bounce on the little league fields…
Ty. Rogers got the win.
The scorekeeper expected him to blow it.
And the fans were gruntled.
The G’s have scored 143 runs in the 7th or later, leading the NL.
Also the only team in the majors with four 4+ run deficits overcome.
They’ve scored at least 3 runs in the 8th-9th innings in 4 of the 5 games vs. the Cubs.