A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Below .500. And sinking further. They say we got a good haul for Rogers. Eh, whatever. Apparently, Verlander is on the table. I could see that, even though he’s only got the 1 win he’s clearly still got the velo (for an old man) and there are probably playoff teams out there who would want his experience for the stretch run.

Who else do we have to trade? Maybe Yaz to Boston just to give their fans a little of the old “feels”? Doval? Oh pretty please!

Disastrous year any way you slice it. I can’t remember a Giants team that ever went from the best team in baseball (record wise, you can look it up they had the best record at one point***April 26th they had the 2nd best record with a .643 win %) to the worst team in the league. In the same season.

Pathetic.

Didn’t see the game, was traveling back to the Bay Area. Box score indicates more of the same although we finally got Wizzy up here. That wreaks of desperation which, I suppose it’s time for. Melvin is a ghost. How can a ghost be reasonably expected to lead the living out of this deep hole we are in?

That was a tough one. Yes, they only scored 1 run (again). But The Hooligan’s ball was a home run in 29 other parks. And Bailey smashed his. It just got caught.

Bad luck.

Well, that didn’t work. Shut down by a bunch of rando’s in our own park and Webby checks in with his third shitty start in a row.

Concerning…..

Didn’t see it but the box score looks real real nice. And JV finally tied Hubie Doobie for 1 win each this year.

I guess there’s some things you miss if you don’t actually watch the game. To wit:

djloo27 said, on July 23, 2025 at 11:50 am (Edit)

You ask me if there’ll come a time
When I grow tired of you,

Devers my love, Devers my Love…

Can’t get shit like that from just reading the box scores.

Golf all day after the drugs kick in. Later.

Seriously, what happened. I have a vague recollection that it starts with a W but after that I got nuthin’.

Agree with James about Schmitt. If he has learned to even pretend to lay off those breaking balls then he’s going to make it up here and be incredibly valuable to that line up. Goddamn he hits long home runs when he hits them.

I still don’t understand the point of Devers at first base. He’s going to give up more runs with his shitty defense than he’s going to produce with his bat although I admit that yesterday was a good start.

Kruk was on KNBR yesterday morning saying all of Birdsong’s problems were mechanical (shocker) and that we’d know in the first inning if he’d figured them out or not over the break.

0.0 innings completed.

I guess we got our answer.

Well, at least Elder only struck out one, he struck us out 12 times back in May.

Progress?

The all star break didn’t really do much to rev me up for baseball again. We’ll see what happens if they ever win another game. I’m headed to Oregon for a week, I’ll try to keep the thread changed once a day.

A little known fact is that San Dawg has been going to these games in Toronto. I believe he’ll be there again today, too.

Heart surgery AND his house burned down? Goddamn. Loo reminded me that Twinner had his house burn down, too. Apparently Flappers shouldn’t play with fire….

We suck at baseball. End of the season can’t come soon enough.

In light of that horrendous, awful game where literally everything bad that could happen, happened I bring you an email from Stix to distract you from the misery. Sounds like he’s had a tough time lately but he’s alive and that’s more than you can say for JV’s arm right now…..

Carstie Clausen	Fri, Jul 18, 8:31 PM (8 hours ago)
to me

Craig:  Been awhile.  Had some medical issues, but kept up on Gigantes.  Tonight’s shutout by Toronto was, well, disenchanting.  Giants actually outhit them by 11-10.  So our HOF probability is currently 0-8.  Chances are, with the Deadline looming, he gets one more start.  He didn’t fool them in the first couple frames…but that third inning…In comes Tristan Beck and he goes 4.1 IP, giving up exactly one hit, gets a couple K’s and walks precisely nobody.  He kinda made up for his first relief stint which went haywire fast.  Seven ground-outs and one fly out is kinda comforting after yet another fiasco from a guy who may get selected for the pen…or maybe could take on a pitching coach role for the rest of the contract.

 Something I was expecting was that Scott Alexander got designated and is now a F.A.  With his record, only the dearth of southpaws in the pen got him the call. 

So here comes the heartwarmer: Lefty reliever Matt Gage, was initially drafted tenth round by SF in 2014.  He sojourned through the pipeline for a few years and then got picked up by other organizations and even did a season in the Mexican league.  Gigantes picked him up again and at age 32, maybe, maybe.  He pitched a reasonably clean inning, following Beck.  His 3 team pipeline stint added to a 1.43 ERA over 37.2 IP, gave up a couple dingers over the span, accumulating a pair of walks v.15 k.’s. A WHIP of 0.93 was the frosting on the cake.

 SacTown has a couple of possible sooner than later possibilities.  One is the Taiwanese Kai-Wei Teng, who was scuffling in the pipeline for a few years and then appeared to find himself as a starter and pretty good strikeout artist this go-gound.  He’s given up all of three taters, along with a 3.78 ERA, sporting a tightwad 18 BBs against 82 K’s.  Maybe he has learned to pitch, perhaps well enough to be a #5 starter in an MLB rotation.

 So far as I know, Teng is not on the 40-man…and so is the second intriguing prospect, Grant MCcrea, a speedster outfielder.  His production level has included 61 runs scored along with 59 Rib-Eyes, for 120 runs produced on 99 hits.  With 34XBH’s are 16 doubles, five triples and 13 homers.  His only downer is 44walks against 115 strikeouts.  His BA is a reasonable .269, an OBP of a decent .343, an SP of 446 for an OPS of a comfy 789.  Icing on the cake are 26 stolen bases as against getting thrown out exactly twice.  Logically, he would replace Matos, who does get the occasional tater, but outside from that…not much.

Here’s one for the real stats freaks:  BBIP.  Giants record on those drives to the outfield which get caught, particularly the liners, has got to be right near the unluckiest in MLB.  It happened again tonight.  Yes, there were the usual strikeouts and a dp or two, but the proportion of batted balls which discovered leather seems to have been a pattern this season.

Wilmer must be stewing right about now.  Not so long ago he had for a day or two the highest number of RBI’s in MLB.  Now, he’s mostly butt on pine.  Not likely a happy camper. Could be that he, Encarnacion and Matos may be on the trade list. Some team, close, but not quite there might caugh up a nice deal for our erstwhile Rib-Eye griller.

 Hoping all the guys are still on board at the Flap.  Been a wild and strange season for me these past few months.  On penultimate day of November, an extremely cold and windy one, the old homestead house burned down.  Then to add some black pepper, there was a heart attack on Easter weekend.  Double bypass surgery.  Still in recovery mode, but energy levels not quite up to par.

 GO GIANTS!  -Stix

I had a nice, needed break from baseball. Didn’t watch the Derby or any of the all star game. And The Skipper provided a nice trip down memory lane of some great Giants history.

Interesting choice to have Verlander start today. He actually pitched pretty well in that 13-zip demolition at the hands of the Phillies. I’m going to lean positive here and say he kick starts the second half with a good start and we don’t have to stare at that ugly 0-7 any longer.

So I just heard back from Skip Pitlock. lol. I missed all the baseball this week. Still got a sour taste from last weekend’s games.

Anyway, this is great. Enjoy.

skip pitlock

To:  me · Wed, Jul 16 at 1:25 PM

Message Body

Hi Craig,

Sorry for the nearly 2 month delay in answering your question about the game against the Houston Astros on August 8, 1970 when I hit an inside the park home run against Wade Blasingame in our park. I had to look back on the inning by inning stats. I thought that Blasingame had a no hitter up till then, but I just read that McCovey had the 2 prior hits off him. It was in the 5th inning that I hit a routine single off WB. But Cedeno tried to make a shoestring catch in left center. He dove but came up real short. The ball rolled to the wall. Cedeno had to pick himself up and go get it because Jimmy Wynn in left field did NOT move one step. I didn’t even have to slide at home. Word had it that Wynn was having a big problem with their manager Harry the Hat Walker. Wynn just stood still and watched the play. I was fortunate not to get the loss in this game. I was losing 5-1 in the 8th after John Mayberry hit a 2 run homer. But we scored 5 runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by Mays 2 run walk off single. No, I didn’t get the win— Don McMahon did. I didn’t get the ball either. As far as 7 walks, my control was the reason that the Giants sent me down to Triple A in 1971 for 3 years before I escaped to the White Sox and emerged on their big league club for all of 1974. I was fortunate to play with 8 HOFers, 4 in 1970 and 4 in 1974. Mays was the best and Dick Allen was a close second! Thanks for your questions Craig, it gave me the opportunity to relive my youth from 55 years ago.

Skip Pitlock

______________________________

this is what I sent him:

Big Flavor

To:  skip_pitlock@yahoo.com, and 1 other · Tue, May 27 at 10:15 AM

Message Body

Skip– Hi there, i have a non mortgage related question for you. I run a popular SF Giants blog that usually just banters back and forth about the game that day. Sometimes the bloggers start discussing old players or players who didn’t play very long for SF. Your name came up recently. I know you only played a single season for our team but one of the bloggers noticed you actually hit one home run in your career with SF. I looked up the box score, man that was quite a game that day! 

I’m wondering if you might find a moment to share your memory of that game. I’m assuming you never got the ball you hit? You walked 7 that day, can you imagine that happening today? What was it like to play with Mays? 

You certainly don’t have to answer any of those specific questions, just anything you like. 

Baseball can be such a shitty game sometimes. Devers rockets a ball to the wall that should have won the game but it gets caught. Freeman bloops some bullshit out there and they win it.

The Matos moment was so cool but if you don’t win the game, eh, whatever. JT Snow’s bomb was cool too, but……

Honestly, we just don’t score enough. One run on Saturday. Zero on Sunday until the fluky Matos pinch hit bomb. I’m not sure what they’re gonna do about this offense.

Frustrating to waste such good pitching on a loss like that but we’ve become quite used to that this season. Winning today would be enormous going into the break.

Well, there’s that third win I had hoped for vs the Phillies and Dodgers. Modest expectations, I know. With 2 games left before the break let’s get greedy. It’s painful to watch Devers run that dude needs some time off badly.

Look, this is very doable. They’ve lost 6 in a row. They have injured hitters and pitchers. It’s in our yard. And, most importantly, Hubie Doobie isn’t going to any of these games.

Some of you may have seen Lee Elia passed away. Here’s that epic rant from the 80s if you want to listen to someone go off. He sure doesn’t like that 15% “who don’t work.” Lol.

Hubie Doobie and his wife Donna made the trek from Sacramento to see the game yesterday. I knew we were doomed. Every time Hubes tells me he’s making the trek to the game they lose. He was on like a 10 game losing streak until they broke it in Sacramento last week with a win against the A’s. Two in a row was too much to expect.

At least ‘doobie and Donna have a win to brag about. Verlander is jealous.

Yeah, I didn’t see that till this morning. Wow. You know what SanDawg would say: “our park sucks man, we gotta move the fences in.” He’s not wrong.

One thing to notice about the Pagan bomb, take a look at the nod he gives Flannery at the 2:08 mark. That’s a man confident in his 3rd base coach. I’m guessing Williams doesn’t get head nods like that.

And just for quick comparison, here’s Bailey’s. Kuip has REALLY lost a lot on his calls in the last 12 years, goddamn. Sorry, this one’s the entire inning so you gotta scroll to get to it. Bailey’s Bounce was more glorious than Pagan’s, too

Doval is going to be this team’s undoing at some point but for now at least we get to celebrate a win against a good team. I’m not really sure how you could look at his velo and his command and think “yeah let’s keep running this dude out there.” He’s a time bomb that he’s about to detonate. Again.

I know I should be more grateful for 2 wins vs the A’s but goddamn last night’s game was infuriating to watch. Birdsong has no earthly idea where the ball is going. And in the first couple of innings we couldn’t have taken any lamer, stupider swings vs Lopez who, I think, struck out 7 of our mates in a row? Is that right?

Philly isn’t going to be nearly as easy to beat. These next 2 series before the break are going to be sink or swim time. I’d be more than happy with 3-3 but I fear it won’t be that good.

So all we needed to do was get Chapman back? Seems like an easy enough fix. Summertime is when Adames always heats up. It’s go-time.

at least the Dodgers lost 18-1.

If we’re gonna skewer Farhan for all his pointless moves we need to give him props for his good ones. Trading Haniger and Disco (who I don’t think are even in the league anymore) for Ray was brilliant. Fitting to celebrate his complete game on July 4th. Happy 4th you guys!

I was trying to envision an alternate universe where Doval blew a save AND a win in back to back innings. What would have happened? How big would the explosion have been? Would part of me have ended up on the moon? Could my rage have tested the boundaries of sound?

Well, nothing like that happened so I guess we’ll never know……

Hey! Whattya know, we scored 2 runs again!

San Dawg texted me that he liked the Melvin extension because Posey was essentially saying “if you want to point the finger at someone point it at me.” I suppose that’s an admirable position for Buster to take but it avoids there being any accountability anywhere in the organization for this epic meltdown the team has undergone. Like, ok Buster is taking responsibility for this but nothing is happening. No heads roll. No changes made. We are still just stuck with shitty coaching and failure up and down the line up. What’s Buster gonna do, fire himself?

So he takes the heat off the coaching staff a little bit. How does that fix this mess?

Two more runs scored. Tonight will probably be 2 or less. Every game, nothing but the barest minimum effort to not get shut out. Or No hit.