A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

Maybe this was mentioned on the broadcast or twitter but I certainly can’t recall the Giants winning two games in a row with pinch hit bombs. What Kap is doing is incredible. He’s a decision magician. I don’t feel confident about this team winning games but I’m 100% confident in their ability to stay competitive and for the manager to have the right match ups as the game wears on.

I’m embarrassed I once used to refer to this stud as “Lame-onte”. Bombs like that are what make seasons like this one special. It still feels like LA is going to zoom past us. But with guys like Wade doing their thing it’s possible I won’t even notice or care when they do.

That home run was as important as the Tauchman catch vs LA.

Just not our night. No timely hits. Wood was fine. Using two of our ex-mates to beat us was particularly irritating.

All the Dodgers do is win. This is starting to slip away…..

Pacific Classic today! Man, there was a stretch in my life where I went down there every year for this race. Del Mar is just a magical place.

When was the last time a Bay Bridge Series meant this much to both teams? Giants 2.5 up, A’s 2.5 back. The Dodgers are going to win at a minimum .625 clip the rest of the way, probably more. All we can do is win and let the chips fall where they may.

I hate playing the A’s.

Getting done by 1.0 like that was….predictable.

Just an absolutely awful game made worse by the terrible Greenwald on the radio. I finally had to start watching it on tv and Miller made that a little better. But then Longo failed as well as everyone else.

Look, LA is coming. Hard.

Blade: I just saw on FB that you’ve evacuated. What fire are you threatened by? Holding good thoughts for you, my man.

Hey guys, no time for a thread today so I will just be changing this one out and saying “GO GIANTS!!!!”

If you didn’t know, now ya know. Kris Bryant is the anchor we needed for this stretch run. And with the Dodgers now in full flight to the wire he is a pick up we desperately needed.

Mac Dog’s vacation continues it’s upward swing, he sent me these photos from the game yesterday. Thanks for the content, my man!

It’s New York everything tonight with the Mets and Mac Dog and his buddy all in the house. The Mets are a weird team. They seem like they should be better than they are. Maybe without deGrom they just don’t have that anchor they needed to get over this .500ish hump.

Or maybe this is just what the Mets always do?

I dunno, you east coasters would know better than me.

GasMan dominates tonight…..

Last night was a celebration of baseball and of life. Both intertwined, one can’t exist without the other. People say the Flap started all of this but that isn’t right. Baseball started all of this. It’s been a part of us our entire lives starting with the people who introduced us to the game. Last night was just the most recent way we chose to celebrate our love for baseball. Our team lost but we won. Again.

Exciting day today! Flaplooza going down at Oracle. The Great Mac Dog arrives from the East Coast. We storm the building shortly thereafter.

I’ll try to post pics on twitter so follow me there if you want to see any of the action.

Go Giants.

Five games up on the Dodgers. On Auggie freaking 13th. That is incredible. This season is going down as the weirdest one of all time.
I have been remiss on changing out the POTDs. The aged and bedraggled POTD from James lasted so long I lost momentum on that section of the blog. But, on this the penultimate day before another Flapalooza, I will try to re-dedicate myself to that task.

Now that we’ve sent those poor D-Back bastards on their way we get…Colorado for 4? Oh my, more banked wins. The only hiccup to this looks like an undecided pitcher for Saturday’s Flapalooza.

Everyone is saying Logan Webb is our best starting pitcher now. L-O-G-A-N W-E-B-B. We are 32 games over .500 and I bet 98% of casual baseball fans have no idea who Logan Webb is.

That was a crazy game against a terrible team but you know what? Those guys are still major leaguers and we still came out with a win.

When you’re this many games over .500 you need some wins like this one.

Arizona again? Lol I could get used to this. I’ve been doing a slow burn ever since I found out The Sarge nailed Sunday’s score cold as ice and yet he wasn’t awarded a free dinner for 2 at Original Joes. What the hell? So not only do you have to nail the score cold but then you have to sweat out some rando we’ve never heard of picking a winner out of the 8 correct guesses? Nonsense.

Fatten up on the D-backs. Next stop for this train is FORTY games over .500. Why not?

“Against all Odds”…..”Shocking Win”…..”Another Shocking Win”…..the headline writer at Flap Industries is getting a WORK OUT lately. Every day though, The Giants find a new way to win. And not just win but compete. They never stop competing. It’s really the essence of who they are as a team.

We are THIRTY GAMES over .500 right now.

Belt keeps hitting. Cousin Flavor keeps surprising. His arm might fall off but until it does I shall enjoy the ride…

Sunday’s are for Johnny Cueto….

Bobby Bowden and Markie Post died. Markie and I had growing up in Palo ALto and then going to Lewis and Clark in common. Plus, I loved the show Night Court. San Dawg always said my dad sounded like Bobby Bowden.

Tough loss but, besides Belt’s swing, we couldn’t come up with a big hit. We’ve got another tough pitcher today. Let’s see what they can do. On paper this is an L with the dreaded Sanchez starting. Susan Slusser was on KNBR yesterday, I really like her. She tells it like it is. She said Sanchez is not a team guy because he doesn’t want to work as a reliever and has told the SF staff he only wants to start. No place for that attitude on this squad. Good riddence.

Through 8 innings the best part about yesterday’s game was the sweet burn I busted on Doug Greenwald:

Flavor said, on August 5, 2021 at 2:53 pm(Edit)

Greenwald sounds like he’s got a cold doing the game from SpoongeBob’s pinapple

I know, I know, thank you….

Then the most insane inning since 1993 happened and they win and when the dust finally settled I had found my long lost first cousin:

djloo27 said, on August 5, 2021 at 8:06 pm(Edit)

Anybody think Jake McGee could pass for a relative of Big Flavor?
Maybe a first cousin?

We get a win and I am reunited with my blood relative.

I didn’t see either one of those things happening yesterday…..

Nice. One more game to fatten up on the dregs of the league…

What’s this? The US is in the gold medal game for baseball? How could that be? Who are those guys? They’re playing Japan, I’m assuming they have their best players going. But what do i know. Anyone got a US team roster? I’d love to see who’s leading the charge there.

Bumgarner beating us is irritating but it’s more irritating that a team with a .315 win percentage beat us. I actually liked to see a little fire out of Kap last night even if it didn’t totally make sense to me why he got so bent. He did say the “BS” word though. Oh my.

Big start for Gasman tonight. Estes was on KNBR yesterday saying this was all mechanical with his split and it’s an easy fix. Ok, well, let’s see it fixed tonight.

Not much to say about that game except it’s over and we got a win….

It has come to my attention that the great MacDog is making his way out west. It is time for another Flapalooza. I’m looking at the Aug 14th game, 6:05pm start. That’s probably the only game I can go to that he’ll be here. We can fiddle around with ticket ideas later, I personally like the Club section because you can walk around. But maybe we head back to the outfield bleachers? Let’s just gauge who can go and do the rest later. MacDog I am in regardless of who else can attend.

Sorry about the late thread, today has been some bullshit.

Time to fatten up AZ.

Bumgarner tomorrow. That’s gonna mean more to most of you than it will to me. Once you’re gone you’re gone (in my book). I wish Bum well and appreciate everything he did for us but he’s not a Giant anymore so, whatever.

I’m still super irritated with KB for lollygagging his ass to town. Turns out we didn’t need him but that is a BAD sign as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure my irritation will go away once that first bomb flies out of the park….

Two flap up salute to the passing of Dick Lamm. He was the dad of one of my best friends. We are at the age where our parents are starting to pass on–it’s a heavy, unknown burden to bear, one that I’m not sure how I’m going to handle when it happens to me. I’m thinking of Scott and his family today. I’m so thankful I got to see both my parents this Summer. You reading this dad? I love you!

Looks pretty good doesn’t it?

Honestly Yaz is going to have to pick it up if he was to avoid the /Slater at the end of his name.

And what happened to La Stella? I know he hurt his thumb, is he done for the year now? What a worthless signing that was.

So it appears all I had to do is give up on Z and say I’m headed off to the casino for the day.

Farhan I apologize. You did not choke. The moment wasn’t too big for you. We just scooped up THE BEST BAT ON THE MARKET!!!!!!!

Conflicting reports on who we gave up but if it’s Wade and Bart……

Look, Z’s specialty is scooping up waiver wire guys like Wade. He could probably find 3 of them in his seat cushions if he looked hard enough. And Bart? Eh, whatever, pay up NOW for a known stud like Bryant. I’m not gonna shed any tears over Bart going off down the road and he could easily turn out to be nothing.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! We got a bat baby!!!!!

Ok now i’m off to the casino, later.

The Great DJ Loo said that….

I am out of town and maybe I have missed something but it appears LA and SD have made massive moves and we did squat. That is very hard to tolerate.

I understand this season is “found money” nobody expected this, etc. And I’m not saying mortgage the future. But to just do nothing is a loser attitude and you have to wonder what the players think about that. I know I said last week that the players trust Z and Kap but how can you look at what LA and SD did and go “well, our front office must really believe in us.” Human nature doesn’t work that way.

You have to try to win every year otherwise what are you even doing? Some years that’s not possible and in those years I understand not taking the risks of trading to try to improve your team because that would be pointless. But we have the best record in baseball. Why do you throw that away and sit on your hands as the Scherzer-led Dodgers just steamroll you?

Assuming Z does nothing today, and really what can he do at this point with so many impact players scooped up, I will have to grade this trade deadline as an F- for him.

Well, that was ugly. That’s actually how I expect every game vs LA to go but, luckily, I’m usually wrong. I have very little faith in Cueto these days but we have no choice but to support him this evening.

I’m surprised at the Max Scherzer news. I never thought they’d trade him unless it was for a king’s ransom. I guess that still might go down like that but it’s starting to look like Washington would take less. I’d still way rather have Berrios than Scherzer.

I went to youtube to try to find some vid clips of Sax and his yippy throws but there wasn’t anything obviously available. That surprises me, that’s a name that, to me, will always be crystal clearly associated with terrible throws.

And now you can add another Dodger to that list.

How many balls does one throw in a lifetime? Just a regular person like yourself. Have I thrown 25,000 balls in my life (baseball, softball, whiffle)? I would say easily. And never in my life have I thrown a ball that was as off line as Belly’s wayward throw last night. I don’t buy that he didn’t have it gripped properly. You know what you do if you don’t have a ball gripped properly and you’re not an idiot? You don’t throw it. Sweat on it? Maybe that was it and it just slipped out of his hand.

Or maybe he’s got a little Sax in him?

Wonderful, cheapo win last night that was certain to send their fanbase into the deepest of doldrums……

With the deadline fast approach, if you were only able to swing one trade who would it be for? I went back and forth on this. I think we desperately need Craig Kimbrel but the haul it will take to get him would be high. I think we need a RH power bat to play first base and for me that’s either CJ Cron or Jonathan Schoop. Neither of them should cost too much, Schoop obviously more than Cron.

Knowing Zaidi’s penchant for the underwhelming, I think the most likely and best move he makes is for CJ Cron.

thoughts?

Dark day till we get LA again. At least we proved to the world we can beat Pitt.

Question of the day: How many of you are watching the Olympics? I haven’t seen a single second of it and am wondering if I’m missing out.

Every year there is a team we can’t beat. This season it is the Pirates. Makes no sense. Just looking forward to good riddence and not having to play them again. I’m sure they’ll light up Wood. Let’s just get this over with already.

Well, whatever, right? Win the ones you’re supposed to lose, lose the ones you think you’ve got in the bag. Was there a letdown? Who knows. It’s hard to be up for every game especially coming off whatever the hell that LA series was.

Would like to think we’ve got the advantage with GasMan on the mound but truthfully none of us know what is going to happen. It’s baseball. Anything can happen in a game.

Happy birthday to the GREAT Barry Bonds who turns 57 today and who could still probably be an asset to team.

I think it’s safe to say that in the 2,529 meetings between these 2 storied franchise there has never been a 4 game series that had games end like that. Anyone feel like doing the research on that or can we just go with that claim?

I’m not going to wonder wistfully what it would have been like to sweep them. Last night’s game probably should have ended on Ruf’s swing. But if I learned anything from this series it’s that baseball players are nothing like their overreactive panicky fans. And I also learned that literally no baseball game is truly actually over till the final out has been recorded. Time is irrelevant in baseball. And that’s one reason why it’s my favorite sport.

Such a shame to see this shithead so upset.

Well it turns out all my handwringing was for nothing. “No trust”, “never forget”….yada yada. It almost seems like the hard lessons from my childhood have no impact on how the Giants play baseball at all! How could that be?

How could this be?

I’m not going to dream about what it would be like to be 3-0 this series. There’s no payoff in dreaming of things that never happened. I still don’t understand how they are doing any of this but I am enjoying the ride. Man, Twinfan would have loved this season, aye?

Just a devastating loss. If you think all losses are created equal, well, you and I look at things differently.

I don’t trust our late inning guys. No trust. Maybe you guys grew up in a happy home filled with puppy dogs and candy corn. Your parents stayed together. Trust comes easy to you.

Not Big Flavor. No trust.

This loss was the equivalent to the loss that Pujols bomb WOULD have delivered had Sock Man not saved the day (and the season). Let’s see if this one has any lasting effect. I bet it does….

Sorry guys, lot going on here today, no time for a legit thread. Too bad, it’s so great to get Game 1 in the bank.

Scoring 2 runs in the last two games is probably not the momentum you need heading into a critical series against the stacked Art Dealers. Every time I look at our line up of hitters I shake my head and say “but how?” Almost all these guys are castoffs from other organizations. And yet we are 3rd in runs scored (NL) and first in home runs (NL). So I just accept that Z knows more than everyone else and I move on. But it’s hard to do when I go back and look at Ruf, Solano, Slater, Grave Duggar, Flores, Estrada, Wade, Sock Man, Dickerson….etc

How does this team ever score ANY runs with this hodge podge collection of rag tag scraps?

The Giants lost but that matters not as I have my coffee brewed, The Open is on and I am alone. Literally a perfect morning.

Some of you guys have asked about Black Butte. It’s in central Oregon, my family has a house there. I go there mostly for the golf but I usually try to wheez out a run in the morning. This is the meadow I run through, I stopped to take a video because it was literally a perfect morning. Just like this one.

51 years ago today Mays got his 3,000th hit. This picture looks more like a painting than a picture.

Ok, in town for a bit before jetting, I only have 8 trillion things to do today.

No Gausman? No problem.

Disco today, it would really be nice to see us turn the tables on this Kim gimmick guy.

Catch you guys during the game hopefully.

The second half of the season is about to kick off and thankfully Daniel has done all the work for me with this comprehensive breakdown of the series vs the Cardinals.

https://cardinal70.substack.com/p/giant-consequences

As I am still on vacation this is greatly appreciated. @c70

I don’t put any stock into the 2 games we just played them. I like our pitching line up (Gausman, Disco and Cueto) and they seem pretty lost in that category with Waino and then the dreaded “undecideds” after that….

Morikawa fires a 64 today to get the Open off to a rocking start! And down at the Old Del Mar…take it away Bing….

This is the headline at ESPN right now:

I’m not going to read the article. But it’s nice to see the national scribes recognizing that the Giants are truly on top of the NL West.

And yet tonight we get the choice of watching Boston vs NY or NY vs Boston. Take your pick. Boring.

A great pic that came across my timeline. Munson about to get barreled by, I think, Boog Powell

I only caught bits of the all star game. What I did see didn’t seem that interesting…….

The shift needs to go. Players can’t beat it. Pathetic, but true.

British Open this week, my favorite of all the majors. And Del Mar, too. The summer of Big Favor forages on…..

Whatever, I guess Z knows what he’s doing. If he thinks he can find all these rando hitters off the scrap heap, and he is apparently quite good at that, then I support the idea of stockpiling pitchers and praying you hit on one or two.

I see Loo’s prediction of an injured child finally came true. I didn’t see it, was it bad?

Crawford gets one at bat tonight maybe? Bomb to win it?

By any measure that first half was the most surprising in SF Giants history. I guess you could point to ’78 but that was a long time ago and there’s no way that team was more surprising that this one. We have the best record in MLB. Unreal, unbelievable…..

I’m excited for this Bomb Derby. I know they use juiced balls, I don’t care. Ohtani is a deserving favorite. But I’m surprise Perez is lower odds than Soto. Mancini winning, while improbable, would be the best Bomb Derby story of all time.

Someone will get hot and run away with it. I’ll take Ohtani even though it’s such an obvious pick. He has the biggest longest swing I’ve ever seen. +380 might end up looking like a gift.

Here we are, guaranteed to be in first place at the break. This is still blowing me away. Regardless of how the season shakes out we have been given a gift this year. Appreciate it.

Gausman vs the underwhelming Fedde. We have unfinished business with that guy.

Sun River today. Catch you guys later.

Lots of bombs, lots of $$$ lost to Chris Reich on the golf course, and another win. Sorry for the short thread but I gotta get out of the house, 36 holes today, not sure if my body is ready for that.

They had to claw their way back from an early 2-0 deficit but they came out on top 5-4. Quite a night to be a Pickles fan, let me tell you…..

All things considered, this lid is pretty sick.

Last night was the big cheese giveaway.

Back to regular baseball. Webb going for us tonight. I am off to play golf….

Only saw the box score but it was a nice one to see…..nobody wears masks up here, it’s wild…..heading to a Portland Pickles baseball game tonight which should be interesting….

This is going about how I remember Giants/Cards games from the past. You always get a tough game from them. I have never heard of Johan Oviedo but I’m sure he’ll twirl a good one tonight despite his 0-4 record and hefty 5.14 ERA.

Four winnable games left before the break. All winnable.

Strap up and go win them.

P-town here I come.

Sorry for the late thread, trying to get out of town tomorrow. Portland, then Black Butte, Sun River, back to Ca then to Reno. Four weeks of golf, beers, poker, family, friends and whatever else I can fit in.

I’ll keep the threads humming as usual they just might be coming in later than the normal 5am post.

Worried about the game today. Soft tossing Waino is just the type of guy to keep us off balance (see: the dude from yesterday).