A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

The Padres presented as expected: a team who has completely checked out. Good for us. Bad for Melvin who seems to have lost the team if that’s the best effort he can get out of them. And that wheeler dealer gun slingin’ GM should probably get shitcanned, too.

Where’s the accountability in San Diego?

Gonna be very interesting to see how the Padres play this weekend. Rarely have we seen a team underwhelm more spectacularly than this talented group. As it is with the Yankees, it’ll be very interesting to see if the SD manager and GM can hold on to their jobs after this lost season.

I know SF fans are going to show up in San Diego. So we basically have home games this series.

Let’s wipe ’em out.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was at my mom’s house in Palo Alto picking something up and had the radio on in the background. 1990. Scotty Garrelts had a no hitter going in the 5th inning and in order to not jinx it I decided to stay and listen. Out after out recorded, finally it’s the 9th inning. First out in the bag. Second out in the bag. This is really gonna happen. And if you recall no Giant had thrown one since The Count did in 1976. I was ready to jump into the ceiling.

I don’t remember who was up but he lined a single into left field. I threw myself backwards on to my mom’s couch, devastated. So close.

That was against the Reds, too.

What a game pitched by Cobb.

Now THAT was fun. For a fanbase that has had to endure years of boring ass platoons, not a single HR strongman (we don’t have a guy who’s hit 30 in many many years), as well as a bunch of faceless underwhelming *prospects, we finally got a taste of what teams like the Braves get to experience. Harrison was a revelation last night. I can’t remember when I’ve had more fun watching a baseball game.

I used to say I didn’t care about all star appearances and MVP’s and CY’s because we already had those 3 beauties in the bank. And I felt like individual accolades were just shiney baubles designed to distract a fanbase away from their team not winning the world series.

But I was wrong.

You need your players to do exciting things. In baseball there’s nothing more exciting than a home run or a triple or a stolen base. Or a starting pitcher who hangs 11 K’s on your ass.

The Giants are LAST in MLB in SB’s and triples. That’s pathetic when you have a park with an area on the field called “Triples Alley”. And the only reason they aren’t last in HR’s too (they’re 22nd) is because they had an outlier month of hitting them early on. Since then they’ve been last by a mile.

Thank God for Kyle Harrison and if we could please be gifted a hitter or two who could do the equivalent I would be eternally thankful.

Ok, I didn’t get much done yesterday other than watch the game and get wordle in 3. I get migraines, not as many as when i was younger but at least a couple a year. And when one of them hits that day is OVER for me.

Maybe this was just one of my many symptoms but it seemed like the ESPN broadcast was off by like a tenth of a second–like you’d hear the ball get hit just before it actually did get hit. Anyone else notice that?

If we could get 3-4 stud innings out of Beck, to me, that’s how an opener should work. I know it seems like the same thing if you have him go 1 and then bring in “Manaeain’t” for 3-4 but it’s not. If you START with 3-4 out of an opener that gives Kap more flexibility as the game goes on. And as the year progresses and these arms continue to tire you are really playing with fire to keep running 5-6 pitchers out there every game. One of them (or more) is not gonna have their stuff that day.

Not feelin’ too well today. Here’s a new thread for the 4pm game.

Well, again, this wasn’t a surprise. We have serviceable hitters but not enough to take down a guy like Strider. One thing about Wade/Estrada/Flores/Pederson/Sabol/Davis/Dejong/Meckler/Matos: While there’s something to like about each of them, there isn’t one of them a pitcher fears. There’s no Acuna or Harper or Ohtani or any number of other feared hitters in the league.

We get by with our boring collection of batters who sometimes do enough to get the job done.

This is the team Farhan built. I don’t see much changing in the future.

Strider again. At least we have Webby. The O/U on this game is 7.5 and if I was betting on it I’d take the under.

We are still smack dab in the middle of the wild card race. Come on. What else do you have to do? Root for it to happen.

I know I only caught the last 4 innings of that game but man that was EXCITING. Probably more so because we won. Had we lost that game I’m not sure I could have found a single thing to be positive about the remainder of the season.

DeJong and Harrison to take us to the post season. Universe, make it so…..

Tough game. That’s only the 2nd time Doval has given up any runs in a game since July 3rd. And that stupid deflection was just bad luck. The loss didn’t sting me much as I have pretty much given up on the season. But it was great to see Harrison who looked legit to all eyes who saw him pitch.

Day game today vs this Lorenzen dude who has to have been one of the more unlikely no hitter pitchers in recent years.

Heard Kyle’s dad’s interview interview today on KNBR. Really interesting. Obviously a very smart guy, talks a lot like Kap with that boardroom-speak. He’s WAY involved in this man, at one point Murph said “as a guy who’s seen every pitch your son has ever thrown….” and I didn’t hear if that was confirmed but if that’s true, WOW.

One interesting tidbit: his dad attributed his wildness in the minors to the auto strike caller. He said Kyle’s shit is just too electric for it to track. LOL. This could be something very exciting to watch.

To say I’m rooting for this local kid to succeed is an understatement.

Nice bounce back win. All in all, that was about the best we were going to do in Atlanta. It doesn’t get any easier today traveling to Philly to face Nola with another Opener.

It’s tough to watch the Giants with football starting and the team losing and flailing the way they are. I watched almost all of the Niners pre season game and like 5 minutes of the Giants game. I dunno, I’m just finding it hard to care about a team that has settled into a positively boring rut. I look forward to none of their at bats.

Ronnie Bell? It seemed like he got targeted about 387 times last night. Did the Niners find gold again in Round 7? They shouldn’t be allowed to make 3rd round draft picks. Do any of them ever work out? This kicker looks like a massive mistake.

Come on, this wasn’t a surprise. Guys like Strider and Glasnow, they are going to shut our terrible offense down with the greatest of ease.

Now if this Yonny guy does the same thing I’ll be surprised.

Strider.

Lol.

You can get +115 on Strider going over 8.5 strike outs. 8.5+ is a massive K number to try to hit. But does it also….almost……seem low?

They live or die this year depending on how they do the next the next 16 games or so,……..

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.

A 7 run win. God, I don’t remember those. Meckler could be the burst of energy this team needed at the trade deadline. We’ll see.

Madonna turns 65 today. Not sure I’ve ever felt so old as when I read that earlier this morning……

Our old *friend Zack Littell takes the hill tonight vs one of our openers. I think it’s going to be Junis. Can anyone recall a single pitch Littell threw for us? We scooped him up while shopping the Brebbia Aisle, right?

We still have a 66% chance of making the post season. Don’t forget that. An extra arm and a couple of bats would have bumped that number up substantially. There would have been a psychological bump that the team desperately needed had Farhan done something at the deadline. I know some of you don’t like things that can’t be measured.

I can’t remember a time recently where one swing of the bat changed the collective mood of so many Giants fans. This was headed towards one of the worst home series sweeps of all time. Heading into that at bat SF was 1 for 24 with runners in scoring position in the series. That “1” of course was by Bailey who thankfully provided #2. Outside of Patty Bails it was complete and utter failure this weekend with runners in scoring position.

It was fun to see Boch again. He looks happy and healthy.

Conforto bomb, Ramos bomb, both nice but not enough to overcome the unraveling of Cobb. And it’s wild to me that Wood still gets to pitch. Like, ever. He’s the worst.

Win today and avoid the sweep at home.

Nice call Unca Chuck.

It’s not the hardest thing to understand. Why aren’t they hitting like they did earlier in the season? Conforto hasn’t hit a homerun since July 8th. This probably means we’re stuck with him next year btw. Thanks Farhan. No Yaz. No Haniger. Crawford is like a million years old. Estrada is overrated. And our leader did nothing but sit on his hands at the deadline.

This is what we get.

Bochy back in Bay tonight. It’s wild, there’s this phenomenom happening, at least around here, where fans are rooting for the Rangers tonight. Just because of Boch. I obviously get all the love for my man but come freaking on.

We want Bochy to lose tonight, Saturday and Sunday. This isn’t that hard. We are Giants fans not Bochy fans.

We have an opener tonight who really isn’t an opener anymore (#Striplesslingrecently) and then our 2 aces.

We should beat the shit out Texas this weekend, lol.

mrsprtdude said, on August 9, 2023 at 8:41 pm (Edit)

Estrada useless since he came back. GRR

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The Estrada phenomenon is an interesting one. At the time we picked him up Loo gave it a thumbs up saying some guy at his bar says he’s extremely underrated and I remember generally agreeing with that. I don’t know we’d have to go look it up.

And he has definitely overachieved in terms of what we spend to acquire him. I think we just paid cash for him ala that stupid pick up of Pollock.

But is Estrada really that good? He nudged his OPS above .800 the first year he played for us. That was nice. But never since. He’s got some speed and a little power but nothing that should have justified all the “wait till Estrada gets back” nonesense I heard on KNBR for weeks.

He’s a nice player who isn’t going to help take us anywhere. We have a lot of players like that……..

MIssed last night’s game. Ohtani tonight. This should be fun, I’ve never watched him pitch an entire game before.

Angels only -135 tonight, I would have expected that line to be higher. I’d put them closer to -240. If we get more than 4 hits off this dude I’ll be shocked.

Imagine being an Angels fan. Your owner decides to inexplicably go for it in what appears to be a pathetic attempt to keep Ohtani who is likely 2 steps out the door anyway. You trade some of your decent prospect for some ok bats and Giolito.

And then you go 0-7.

That’s wild.

Personally, had Farhan done anything I bet we’d be 6-0 🙂 But maybe that’s just the eternal optimist that resides within me.

Swept by the A’s. THE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s both outrageous and hilarious.

It’s clear now that Farhan was and is counting on his existing players to ride out the rest of the season and hope for a miracle. He probably viewed getting Estrada back as some sort of trade-like move. Supposedly Harrison will get called up at some point. And Haniger…..oh god it’s just all so positively boring to even think about.

I am of the opinion that we all only have so many baseball seasons left to root for in our lives. That’s hard to argue against, right? So why not try your best in every one of them?

He just punted this season for no reason and I’m never going to forgive him for that.

Losing to The A’s. No loss is greater. Our offense continues to be the worst in the league. Not really sure where you go when you’re losing to the worst and you are the worst at something.

Tonight is an exercise in what happens when a lesser futility faces off against a greater futility. Who wins? Stripless is terrible but he’s not as bad as the A’s. Is he? We shall soon find out.

Blade seems to think I was contradicting myself. LOL. Whatever, I was definitely “on one” yesterday. I appreciate all you guys, I hope you know that. I certainly don’t think anyone here is eating Tide Pods to pass the time. But there are things we are never going to agree on and after a while mean words might start coming out. Although I’d argue that *bedazzled is a rad word and should get used more often in all contexts. I’d also argue this place is nothing like it was back when Twinfan ruled the roost. That can be taken good or bad I suppose.

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Steven Melikean	Thu, Aug 3, 9:27 PM (8 hours ago)
to me

You can post this if you are of the right mind . . . 

“Only someone with blinders can’t see the upside”

“I seriously don’t get how educated people get sold on his bullshit.”

“what’s always hilarious to me about you is that you tout stats to only suit your take.” 

“It was fucking stupid to not trade some low level bullshit for him and it’s even stupider that you don’t get that.”

“But we already had him. We needed more and Farhan did nothing but his typical Boardroom speak that too many Flappers got tricked by.”

“i get why some of you are bedazzled by Farhan. He’s an excellent talker. He sells well. His boardroom speak is peak. But if you look behind the talk that’s all it is. It bums me out so many of us here have been fooled by his words.”

So, let me get this right . . . Typical Flapper is educated, but blind. Although we are educated, we are stupid and sometimes even more “stupider” than just stupid, despite our education. We also have a tendency to be tricked, bedazzled and fooled by excellent talkers, particularly if they are behind a boardroom lectern. Despite all of these traits, we Flappers are a hilarious bunch.* 

* We still love ya Flav!

Blade

My main main Scott Alexander getting the start tonight. Open that shit up. Wide. I’m all in on The Opener now since I have to be.

Just checked the relief pitcher appearance leaders. The Reds have 4 guys in the top 3 somehow. That’s impressive. We have 2 in the top 3. Amazingly, Alexander, who seems to pitch multiple times a day, isn’t in the top 10.

I realized yesterday that I have more in common with the SNOHEHO Indian than I realized. The SNOHEHO wanders the earth cursing the white man for stealing his land. I walk the earth cursing Farhan for stealing my hopes at a 2023 post season run. We are not that different, he and I…..

And yet there is one difference. My anger and regret isn’t as strong and entrenched as it is with the SNOHEHO tribe. In fact, despite Farhan’s shocking display of indifference at the deadline, he actually built a team that wins more than it’s fair share of games. And they never give up. I gotta give a nod to Gabe for that. He must play a role in keeping those guys positive and focused on the task at hand.

While there may be no hope for the SNOHEHO as their fate was sealed many years ago, I am not giving up on this season.

We still have a chance, however slim it may be……

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:

The Giants players are holding up their end of the bargain. They just keep winning games. Farhan needs to get busy. He almost always disappoints me this time of year.

Irritating blown save but the Giants deserved that win and in the past those are games they’d lose. They handled Boston all game though and JD came through with not just the walk off but a bat flip for the ages.

What is Farhan doing right now. That’s what I’m thinking about this morning.

it’s wild to watch this offense fall off a cliff like this.

April: 46 bombs July: 21 bombs

And you can question whether they fiddled with the ball all day long but there’s this too:

April BA: .248 July BA: .203

TWO OH THREE!!!!!!

That’s outrageous incompetence for a team in one month.

Need hitters. Need starting pitchers.

Time ticking away.

Blog title today is an inside joke with someone…….

Anyway, MLBtraderumors is saying the Giants are interested in Paul DeJong. He’s most notiable for hitting a home run last summer to vault me into first place in the $4 tourney that landed me 4k. So I will have a softspot should we pick him up. He’s got power but also a lot of holes in his game.

Outside of that, we need another starting pitcher desperately. Rental preferred.

This is the time of year I begin to get especially irritated with Giants management. There is no reason not to go for it this year. We have the prospects to make trades that will improve the team. Get into the post season and anything can happen.

Well, not with 1.5 reliable starting pitchers. We need another one. Badly. But instead of going out and getting Lucas Giolito which the Angles did last night (for a mediocre price I might add) the Giants traded the guy with a bunch of L’s at the beginning of his name for someone no one has ever heard of.

Come on Farhan, just throw the fans a bone. Not a sabermetric bone. A bone we can all chew on.

It has to this. The Giants need to beat the A’s, handily, to prove to Farhan that this flawed team he cobbled together is worthy of an add-on or two at the trade deadline next Tuesday. Speaking of “cobbling” something together, there’s no better time than now to see if Cobb can reset the direction of his season. If he can’t wipe out Oakland then I fear it’s all downhill for him the rest of this year. Same for SF.

Detroit is still awful but they have arguably their best SP going so this might not be the cakewalk it appears to be. In fact, with Stripless listed as today’s starter maybe the Tigers are the ones viewing this as a cakewalk?

I’ll post Castellani’s post game wrap after each game. If you don’t follow him on twitter, it’s fun to see how far that kid has come in just 3-4 years. He’s open with his autism diagnosis, his depression, alcoholism and bulimia. He loves baseball, man. He’s an easy guy to root for.

I was seriously bummed out to hear he died. There are a handful of games I remember going to as a kid. That game vs LA was one of them. I remember everything about that moment. Where I was sitting, what everything smelled like around me. The brilliant sunshine that day.

I’ve said this before but that was the loudest I’ve ever heard anything in my life. I couldn’t even see straight it was so loud when that ball went over the wall. My first concert was Van Halen at the Cow Palace sitting right next to the speakers. That was nothing compared to that Ivie bomb.

Mike Ivie gave me a moment I’ll never forget and he’ll always be special to me for that.

Glad I’m not watching any of this. Losses piling up. San Diego, on the other hand, is wonderful.

Our 1 good starter goes today.

Make it so.

Keeping Cobb cobbled together for an entire season was always going to be a chore. Are we down to 1 reliable starting pitcher? Methinks we need more.

I’m off to San Diego with TBO.

Missed the game. In Bend now. Open is on. Our other reliable starting pitching going tonight.

What an exciting game last night. When they were down 4-1 my mom, who knows very little about these things, said “well they’ll come back, they always seem to come back.” And sure enough they did. More than once.

I look at the Yankees in last place. Sad Diego floundering 10.5 games out. St. Louis doing the same. It’s just outrageous to see the Giants 13 games over .500 and but a game and a half out of first place.

The Reds have an exciting young offense. Hopefully we close out this suspended game today.

Luke smoked me in yesterday’s round then drove back to Portland wearing my favorite shirt.

The indignation was high.

mocking me from his kitchen this morning. It’s a little big on him

I was too busy getting my ass handed to me on the golf course by my friend Luke to see any of the game. These 3 great Flap hall of famers didn’t miss it though.

Last night we had the annual long drive contest. We head up to the 14th tee at Big Meadow and each let 6 drives fly. I lost by 13 inches. Thirteen motherfucking inches. Luke’s longest was 310, mine was just short of 309. But it gets worse. He didn’t want the cash prize I owed him. He wanted my shirt that just says “Candlestick” on it. I was wearing that shirt. He took it off my back.

Terribly disappointed right now.

Got to catch the last couple of innings last night. Heading out now for Black Butte. Both the Giants, and me, keep winning…..

Didn’t see the game but it appears to be a nice and tidy 6-4 W. It’s funny how many Giants fans there are in Portland. It’s like the Bay Area, everyone loves them.

You all will be happy to know that I won the putting contest I flew up here for yesterday.

This is a good way to re-start the break. Pittsburgh sucks, man. They started out ok but were destined to come back to earth. Rich Hill is supposedly going for them–that is, unless he dies of old age.

We should smoke these fools like an old lady smoked a cigarillo in the 70’s……

No baseball till tomorrow and that’s when my vacation begins. I’m headed to Portland then Black Butte and after that down to Del Mar. Will change out the threads as always but my interactions will be more limited.

If you’re itchin’ for some action it’s Opening Day at Saratoga so there’s that. I bet Loo has some fond memories of this day.