A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball

The wild card game is the best thing to happen to baseball since….the wild card team? I’d argue yes. We kick off the post season with 2 game 7’s—finality in sports is a very powerful thing. I like the way pitchers are used. Berrios relieving Santana? Sure, why not. It tests the mental strength of all involved and post season heroes are literally born on Day 1. I don’t know how you can beat that.

Who will be this season’s “Conor Gillaspie?” We’re about to find out.

This disappoints me:

To me, the stolen base is one of the best things about baseball. Unfortunately, it’s become an inefficient tool. And with guys banging the ball out of the yard at a prolific rate it really doesn’t matter if you’re standing on first or second base.

But there is something awesome about a thief swiping a bag. The timing of it, the rush, how close the play always is. I miss the days of Rickey and Vince…..

Ok, so the post season match ups are set. Who you got?

Let’s start with the wild card games. I’ll go with Colorado and Minnesota.

“well it’s time for me to go, an autumn moon lights my way….”

And with that, the Matt Cain era comes to an end.

And today, this miserable season does the same…..

Chris Stratton showed Matt Moore that it’s ok to try your best all the way to the end of the season.

I’m going to reluctantly sip on the Stratton Kool-Aid. Apparently Raggs and Gardy have shown this guy a new pitch or new approach or something. Hey it absolutely COULD have happened.

I’m not sure why Matt Moore couldn’t have learned the same thing but he’s had major surgery on his arm. Like Cain, maybe he’s just not the same after getting cut open. It happens.

Attitude happens, too. And I would like Moore to pitch with the same urgency as the younger arms on the staff. I guess we’ll see next year if he can do that.

Me and Snarkk. He’s a great dude

Maybe I’ll re-energize once the post season starts, but I can’t wait for this baseball season to end. Bobby Evans was on KNBR yesterday telling everyone he’s really excited about targeting free agents who can play great defense. Ugh. I can’t listen to this guy anymore. He’s the one-est of one trick ponies.

I’m still into the NFL and the NBA is great as long as you are one of about 5 or 6 fan bases. Breeders Cup weekend is in November and the prep run up for that is massive. So sports will continue, as usual, to be a big part of my life.

But I’m ready to put baseball to bed for the winter……

We still have a semi-decent chance to lose 100 if we lose out the rest of the season. There would actually be something symmetrically perfect about losing 100 on the nose. It might also get us the #1 pick in the draft. Detroit is also sitting on 62 wins and they are playing the Twins. Theoretically we have it easier but I’m guessing Minnesota rests a bunch of their players for the post season. San Diego has no reason to rest anyone and they have younger, hungrier players than we have. Plus Cain should get blasted in his start. So there is at least a chance we get swept v San Diego.

Every year I learn something I didn’t know about baseball and this season is no different. Once so enamored with the K/bb ratio, Smarge has shown me the light. There is so much more than a sparkling strikeout to walk ratio.

Anyway, he’s going today and will probably sprinkle a couple of bombs into that stat line that will include 8k’s and 1bb….

I can’t believe it took us so long to start discussing securing the #1 pick in the draft but it’s definitely on the table. Conversely, Niner fans have been talking about the possibility of landing the #1 pick since week 1.

Anyway, we need help across every position at every level so if we somehow manage to snag the top pick we are probably looking at Brady Singer a RH pitcher from University of Florida.

Johnny Blisters did a nice job tip toeing through that AAA line up last night….

Agree completely with WillieD at the end of the last thread, any comp between AZ’s rebirth and the Giants possible bounce back in 2018 is a joke.

Look, if NO ONE on the team gets hurt next year I could see them winning many more games than they did this year. Maybe a 15 game swing? That still doesn’t get them into the post season. And what are the chances that NOBODY gets hurt in 2018? Literally zero.

There is a better chance that Bum gets traded and while I think that’s near zero too I have to at least believe Sabean will look at it. What does he have to lose by examining it? He traded Matt Williams. It’s nearly the same thing and if you think I’m blowing smoke go look at Matt’s stats and what he meant to the team before he got traded. Sabes COULD do it again and for the right package it’s the only way out of this mess. Screw the season ticket holders. They are freaking brain dead lemmings, they aren’t going anywhere next year. Why not try to WIN instead of just sell tickets and plant flowers outside the stadium?????? Because ONE DAY that approach isn’t going to work anymore. ONE DAY the lemmings are going to fall off the cliff and there won’t be any of their brethren behind them. ONE DAY last place is going to be so familiar it’s going to feel like you’ve never been anywhere else. ONE DAY is coming at Sabes FAST.

Lucky us, we get to play another team who just clinched a post season spot. Hangover line up for AZ tonight. We will take it.

Is this Cueto’s last start? Hopefully. What a drag of a year it was for him. And the stitches on the ball won’t be changing, mlb digs the juiced ball. I don’t know what he’s going to have to do to keep his fingers straight but if he doesn’t get it right he’ll be mostly worthless next season….

I can’t come up with a single story line for today’s game. Stratton v Kershaw? Pfffttttt. What’s Kershaw’s pitch count? Thank God for the NFL.

Five NL crowns in a row. I didn’t think it had been that many. Time flies when you’re losing all those post season games. It’s honestly shocking that the Dodgers can field a team with this bloated payroll every year and not even make it to the World Series. The last one they went to was the one they won: 1988. Man that was a long time ago. And I can even give you a perfect visual example of how long ago that was.

The other day I went into the Stanford post office (Go Cardinal) to get my passport renewed. I’m not one to travel out of the country anymore for a variety of reasons but my daughter is in Costa Rica for a year and I’m going to visit her in December. So I dug out my long-since expired passport and took it down to get it done. The pic on the left was taken in 1988 before I went to Paris for 3 months. The pic on the right was taken Wednesday. (Bonus of being out of the country: I didn’t have to watch them win. My dad sent me a letter about it that I received 2 weeks after it had happened).

If that isn’t the best visual of how long it’s been since those bastards have even BEEN to a World Series, I don’t know what is.

Good luck this year, Art Dealers. As usual, you’re gonna need it. The lines on my face and the gray in my hair say this won’t be your year. Again.

The Art Dealers will be getting their fun little division crown this weekend. That’s cute. They’ll over-celebrate as usual.

I think the ultimate outcome, which I am certain will end with another painful post season failure, probably rests on Yu. If he can stay healthy and ramp it up when the games count he could be what they need to make it interesting. Although you could make the case that Kershaw needs to pick it up too. He’s been pretty un_Kersh like since he came back from yet another injury. The rest of their SP is not built to last into Oct. Hill? Wood? Ryu? Please, none of those guys are post season material.

But they can worry about all of that later. This weekend is about the fruits of their labor being recognized. Enjoy the crown. It’s your stepping stone to yet another season cut short with an L.

WAB is up to .439 which is not a good sign for all those games the Giants were supposed to lose with that replacement player after Belt went down (According to WAR). If the Giants win one more game this season (out of the 9 remaining) they ensure a better record without Belt than with him. I wonder if Sabes will be factoring this little know peripheral stat into his decision to jettison Belt or not in the off season?

Unfortunately Belt is untradeable with his bloated deal kicking in next season combined with his concussion issues. If he were healthy he would be one of our few decent trade pieces. His OPS is valued and he would be much more productive on another team.

Looking at the major league ready talent we have to offer in a trade there is exactly ONE player who has dominant trade value and that’s Bumgarner. Please don’t say Posey. He’s been fine this year (*good enough*, *serviceable*, whatever) but his power stroke is basically gone (Hello Joe Mauer) and he’s owed 84 million over the next 4 years—not sure how many teams are looking to fork over a bunch of prospects for that.

Panik and Crawford? Eh, I think we value them more than other teams. In fact, I know we do.

There’s no one else. If Sabean doesn’t step in and take the wheel from Evans and trade Bumgarner there’s really nothing he can do to fix this.

Riding the wave of this lengthy 2 game win streak, we are now back in a position to not lose 100 games. With 10 games left, we need to go just 4-6 to avoid it. I really don’t care anymore. After reading the quotes from Sabean in the article posted yesterday I feel like he’s at least conscious and considering the obvious problems we have. Fixing them might be too tall of a task but he’s not thinking “a tweak here and there.” That’s a good thing. He knows we are weak and slow and terrible. Let’s see what he can do in the off season to build a team that is able to succeed in the juiced ball era…..

Larry Baer said the money that no longer goes towards paying the stadium off is now going towards the Mission Rock development project. Help me understand how that’s supposed to make the team better. It will make the Giants more money, something they were doing anyways. It will make the local community a little prettier with a park and some restaurants—SF already has restaurants. He noted some low income housing that he’s likely forced to include in the project–again, nice for some public teachers out there but not exactly improving the quality of the team…..

I don’t have an issue with the Giants developing Mission Rock, but with the team set to lose 100 games I think it might behoove Baer to pipe down about where he’s spending his extra dough. It was amazing to me that he would go on and on about his real estate project in an article that was supposed to be about the state of the Giants and where they go from here.

So where we go from here is a prettier landscape around the stadium?

Huh?

Anyone catch that Voggy thing? I watched some replays. I’m trying to figure out why that was done. I mean, Voggy was a big part of the 2012 World Series win. Three wins, one each in the NLDS, NLCS and WS. But he got blasted in 2014 and he wasn’t around in 2010.

Good Giant? Definitely. Great Giant worthy of all that pomp and circumstance yesterday? Uh, I’m not seeing it. This opens up the door for a parade of 1 day contracts.

I’m certainly not against it, the 2017 team has earned so few claps that dragging Voggy back to the mound for one last time (along with an unusual number of kisses to his son) is as good a reason as any to get the fans into the game.

I guess we’re gonna start seeing a lot more of this to distract the fans from the substandard product on the field?

With NFL Week 2 upon us, there is literally nothing I can do to trick myself into watching Walker v Stratton today. Can you imagine buying tickets to this game months ago and now actually feeling forced to go? Ugh. I suppose you could unload your tickets for two bones.

Still excited to watch the Niners this year, my expectation for the season have nothing to do with wins or losses. I just want to see young players starting to make plays, maybe see an unknown or two bubble to the top of the depth chart.

Between the Giants and Niners we have 8 championships in my lifetime to forever celebrate. And then last year the Niners were the worst team in the league, this year the Giants are the worst team in the league. It’s still entirely possible that the Niners are STILL the worst team in the league….

Cycles. Life. Repeat.

Smarge was good enough to win last night and for once no homers allowed. Our hitters are an embarrassment but it’s not the worst thing in the world to go down k-ing vs Ray, he does that to a lot of teams.

Grienke shouldn’t have any trouble with us tonight and Bumgarner can usually step up in games such as these so maybe it’s a half way entertaining game.

You can still find a ticket for $2. What’s the deal in Miami? 6 tickets for sale?

Question for those who watched the game: did the park look 95% full to you? I guess a lot of bargain hunters snapped up those $2 tickets at the last second, eh? Attendance numbers are a complete sham.

Number 1: I’m not sure how accurate the “get tickets” link at espn is, but this is a telling indication of how far we’ve fallen as well as the zero shits our fans currently give about baseball in the Bay:

Number 2: In honor of the Indians comeback last night, here’s what your hundy would have done had you bet on them in game 1 of this historic winning streak and kept rolling it into each game thereafter:

Number 3: it’s fucking early.

Bruce Bochy after the game:

“This season is basically a learning season, a teachable season to get better. But our defense, the way it’s gotten away from us, is disappointing.”

What. The. Fuck. Is. He. Talking. About?

This is a *learning season*? A *teachable* season? This is a 172 million dollar payroll. One hundred and seventy two.

Bochy is spinning some serious yarn right now and anyone that falls for it is a dumbass. He’s talking like this is some fucking expansion team. What was Bochy doing last night when Eli Whiteside was stepping up and actually DOING something as a coach? What has Bochy done all season?

I’m so disgusted with this team and Bochy. I hope every last season ticket holder grabs Baer by the collar and sticks this in his ear hole: “We’re not fucking re-upping!!!!!!!”

There is nothing else that will get this clueless group off the nonsensical narrative that the 2018 Giants have a core that’s only a couple tweaks away from competing for the post season……

Last night we got Kershaw v Cueto, tonight it’s Darvish v Moore. Yes we are dancing through the loss-drops towards the end of this miserable season but these have been some pretty intriguing pitching match ups. Moore cobbled together his best pitching effort ever last year around this time vs these same Dodgers. If you are Matt Moore isn’t this go time for you personally? He’s got two tasty team options in 2018 and 2019. Would the Giants seriously consider buying this guy out after the season? I think they’d pay the paltry 9mil and just hope he reaches down and finds a nut sack or a soul or something. We’re not talking about Matt Cain. Moore theoretically should still have something left……

I’ll just have trust the box score since I saw exactly one out of that game. Last night bad met shitty and shitty prevailed. The Giants pinned the 11th loss in a row on the Art Dealers—their longest losing streak since moving to LA. Think about how awesome that is. And don’t forget this:

Player of the Game is Zumiee who made it all the way to the end of that game, posting like a boss the entire time.

Huge props to Chris Castellani who took time out of his busy college life to answer some questions about his viral video.

Today’s thread was written and uploaded entirely from the side office of my home. There. Got that out of the way early.

Last night on Facebook, MacDog humorously noted that the Yankees and their 16 runs would have handily beat the NY Giants and their 3 points. I added in the SF Giants (1) and the SF 49ers (3) and the Yankees still killed all three teams. We’d have to insert the Cardinal’s 24 points to finally beat them. Sadly, if you added the 42 USC scored to the Yankees 16….

It was a horrible weekend for Bay Area sports, something we are well conditioned to tolerate lately. Madison Bumgarner is due 12 million in 2018 and 2019. Anyone still feel like tearing up that deal and giving him 300 million? God, if we do that this team will be screwed for the next 10 years……

There are 17 games remaining. We have 89 losses. You do the math and the death march to 100 starts tonight.

I have spoken with Chris Castellani via twitter and here is his response:

Really nowhere to go with the remote last night. Giants got leveled by one of the worst teams in the league 13-1 (btw, nice job stepping up in your *revenge* game Smarge, idiot). Cardinal got toyed with by Darnold– he got whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. Stanford looked like a high school team.

Thankfully, I have the NFL to take me away from all of this. Furiously building line ups at fanduel and draftkings, it’s gonna be a wild ride today.

Bumgarner vs someone I’ve never heard of if baseball is more your speed on Sundays.

In hindsight, we should have seen the run scored on Sept 5th as a harbinger for last night’s offensive explosion….

The Dodgers DO have something to worry about. They are starting to stagger into a post season with one dominant pitcher (as usual). The non-Kershaw’s? Not looking reliable. Hill and Wood are both 2 guys who are not known for finishing the season strong. And Darvish, as I said a few days before he hit the DL, is still hurt. Maybe I should have grabbed Roberts by the collar and stuck one in his ear hole: “He’s fucking injured!!!!!!!!”

Ryu? Maeda? Good luck running those chumps out there.

The only thing I’m bummed about is that this epic collapse started a month early. It was going to be so much sweeter to watch it all disintegrate around them as the POST SEASON started….

I’m re-posting this every Sat morning till I get sick of it which will be never:

….this game is going to test your attention span. Will you watch a game that starts early (5:10pm out here) between Matt (Always Less Never) Moore and Gelato ice cream? These two chump teams are 67.5 games out of first place. That HAS to be a record.

The White Sox have some hitter who could give Moore trouble (Abreu and Davidson are my picks to go yard). But this is a perfect game for Moore to step up in a completely no pressure situation, pitch well, and give us some fake hope going into next season.

Very happy for Alex Smith, a guy that always got way too much shit during his time in SF…….also fuck Tom Brady with Twin’s baseball bat (that still rests quietly and proudly in my office)…..

Joe Panik becomes Mike Benjamin. Pablo Sandoval becomes Johnnie LeMaster. Baseball has a way of connecting itself. It also helps us keep track of our own history. For instance, I’d rather remember listening to John Montefusco’s no hitter on the radio than remember that was the night my parents told me they were getting divorced. Fans catch shit for caring too much but this shit means a lot to us. It’s the timeline of of lives. We were all about to watch Game 3 of the ’89 World Series when that earthquake hit.

And this season will get marked down in our lives, on our timelines, the same way ’85 did. The problem with that is that back then I was a lot younger. Still had hope. Aged now, I’m not looking forward to what this team *could* become in the future. I’d rather look back on the dots on the timeline……

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Melonhead still being that game gamer that Bochy loves. I swear to God, Bochy doesn’t think past the game he’s watching. Complete baseball goon. And I really don’t think he minds all this losing. I mean, I know he’d rather win and I’m sure the losses grind on him, but at the end of the day he just wants to be sitting on the bench chewing seeds and slapping asses. He has no reason to want to leave….

At this point, I’m rooting for Pablo to catch Velez. What’s he need? 9 more? Let’s go. It’s actually probably the only thing that will stop Bochy from rolling him out there. Doubt he would let him get to 46…….

I’m also rooting for 100 losses since I think that ’85 team gets too much shit. The 2017 team should catch miles more shit for losing 100 than the ’85 team…..

Snarkk’s end of last thread rant about the Giants and Melancon really got me going. He’s spot on. Who cares what HE wants to do? Forget the front office, what do the gents in the back office have to say about this? Does the side office have any input? What in the goddamn Brad Ausmus is going on here??!!?!?!

Of course we can’t force him to get surgery. But we can control when he pitches in a game. With September call ups to use there is absolutely not a single valid reason Melancon can use regarding “helping the team”. If he keeps going out there, at this point, it’s for purely selfish reasons.
And where is Bochy in all of this? Why is he pitching this guy? Who cares if he can’t do any more damage to the elbow, a theory I am quite suspicious of anyway. Even if true, get the surgery done NOW, no athlete was ever done wrong by having ample recovery time in the off season. What if he has a set back? So then he misses the start of next year because he was gutting out meaningless appearances in September? Appearances that, at this point, should be going to every young pitcher we have for evaluation purposes.

SHUT MELANCON DOWN NOW!!!!!!!!!

Daniel and I have both been busy this week but we did manage to exchange a few q/a. I asked him 2 questions. The first one was about Wacha and whether there were any lingering bad feelings about him for Cardinal fans (the way we feel about Solomon Torres). Here is that answer:

Daniel said: “Nobody, at least nobody I’ve seen, has ever laid any of the blame of Ishikawa’s blast on Wacha.  Absolutely none.  All of the blame–and yes, people still reference this at times–went straight to Mike Matheny.  Wacha hadn’t pitched at all in the postseason up to that moment.  He’d not had a spectacular September either after coming off a DL stint that saw him miss July and August.  He probably shouldn’t have been on the postseason roster at all, but it looked like they were just saving him for one of those blowouts that you need a guy to take some innings.  To have him then inserted, compromised and rusty, into a position where the season was on the line was one of the biggest mismanagement examples of Mike Matheny’s career and there have been so, so many to choose from.”

The second question had to do with Mike Leake who I have always believed to be a small market, small game pitcher. His answer was thoughtful and encompassing, as usual:

Daniel said: “I well remember your distaste for Mike Leake.  There were people before the deal that were trying to float something about Leake going to San Francisco and when I saw it, I’d immediately cut it off given the response y’all had, which I think was fairly representative of most Giants fans.  Leake was solid at times for the Cardinals.  He didn’t get a lot of defensive help last year, which as you know is big for him.  I think he pitched better than his numbers indicated last year.  He got off to a fantabulous start this year, with an ERA under 2 going into his last start in May.

With all the commotion in my life lately I somehow missed that Mike Leake got traded to the Mariners. Was there a fallout with him and the team or did everyone just realize that he sucks?

Speaking of sucking, we are in prime position to do that tonight facing off against a guy making his first major league start. I’m already gearing up for Krukow’s excuses for why we can’t hit a guy we’ve never seen before…..

interesting stat (finally) from Krukow: Giants received 14 BBs in this sd series, and none of those runners scored. none. (I hope Krukow was right. that’s damning.)

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I actually didn’t hear this but I’ll assume you did and that Kruk was correct. This is a good example (admittedly small sample) of why I don’t think it’s so wonderful that Belt takes a lot of walks. I’m typically not against a walk but for our team, with little to no power and no speed, most of our guys sit quietly on the first base bag, stranded by failure at the plate. Belt is one of the few guys we have on the team who can knock it out of the park on  a regular basis. I don’t want his eagle eye coaxing bb’s out of the umpire. I want him blasting balls out of the park.

I think Belt would be a bigger asset on almost any other team.

Cardinals in town. It’s going to be extremely hot in the Bay Area this weekend. Our good friend Daniel has sent me a list of questions to answer and I promise to get to them at some point–always enjoy the back and forth with him.

Disappointing thud as Moore went back to his bullshit ways. I haven’t checked the history, but it feels like Perdomo has got our number.

Driving out of LA today. I spent yesterday afternoon body surfing at Manhattan Beach with my beautiful 14 year old girl, this morning I put her on a plane to Costa Rica for a year. Sad day.

The Giants are rumored to be after Stanton. Again. As usual, the problem of how we acquire him becomes an issue. Giants fans on twitter are all for it! As long as we don’t give up Bum or Posey. Lol. I’d trade Bum in a second for Stanton and I’d throw in Crawford, too. We can find pitchers what we can’t find is hitters. I think Stanton has a no-trade clause though (not certain about that) so he’d probably nix the deal anyway. Still, fun to talk about. I’m headed to LA today. Yikes, I could feel my skin crawling as I typed that.

Wilco Joe! If you read this please check in. Our prayers are with you and your family and everyone in the communities devastated by all this water.

Matt Cain gave up 8 earned runs and only got two outs and his ERA only went up to 5.75? How is that possible? That ERA seems low BEFORE one he took the hill and gave one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from a Giants pitcher.

Hopefully they DL him and that’s the last we see of him till a reunion team hits the field in 10-20 years. This guy is only 32. He and Lincecum both fell apart when they were only 27/28. Very weird.

Smarge tonight.

For obvious reasons I haven’t been checking the standings much this year. 40.5 games out. FORTY POINT FIVE. That’s a wild ride, man. You know who else sucks? Like, mostly everyone. There are NO GOOD races going on right now. The Yankees are 3.5 out, the Brewers 3 games out. Everyone else is smoking copious amounts of pole. Speaking of pole, this is funny…..

Ok, back to my point. You have to go to the AL wild card race to find even a semblance of competition. The Twins are fighting with 6 other teams for the last WC spot in the AL.

This is turning into one of the most boring baseball seasons of all time. Not just in SF. Everywhere.

Also, if you can find this locally, this is really good….

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. I actually like a lot of the features on the back end of this blog, but their customer service is suspect. And yesterday they locked me out of my own blog because thousands of log-in info (that they are supposed to protect) got compromised so they reset my password and the hoops I had to jump through to get back in were bullshit.

But whatever, got the blog back now. “I have my weapons back.” Steve Bannon is such an idiot. I digress….

Giants gave Snakes a run but when Span/Parker/Pence/Posey go 1-16 it was bound to be an uphill battle. Wish we had a couple of Belt bb’s to put us over the top last night….

The string of meaningless games continues to play out in Arizona this weekend. Bochy was recently quoted as saying he’s got a clubhouse of champions and it’s not a surprise to him that they have been playing better and winning games lately. Thinks this will carry over into next year. That’s a scary fucking thought for him to express and you have to wonder if it’s a sentiment shared by the brass or if Boch is just blowing smoke up the collective reporter ass just to pass the time in the dugout after the game. If he really believes trotting out an outfield of Pence, Parker and Span in 2018 is the path to revival we are in for another snoozer of season…..

Still a week to go before the Aug 31 trade deadline and I’m not optimistic that Evans is doing anything right now…..

With Belt and others still sidelined, the Giants keep finding ways to win. Moore, I don’t know what to do with Moore. Or Melancon. He was on the radio 2 days ago tempering enthusiasm about his numbers since he recently came back. Refusing to say exactly what is wrong with his arm, he mapped out a hazy off season plan and basically just said “it’s good enough now to pitch.” WTF? What good is it going to do us next year if he’s dragging that elbow out to the mound wrapped up in hope and a prayer?

The crude design Unca Chuck posted at the end of the last thread is intriguing. Stick a waterfall out there and let’s get this done ASAP…..

Kruk expressed genuine surprise YESTERDAY on KNBR when discussing the recent struggles of the bullpen. Felt like they’d been pretty good for a long time. Kuip’s up today so I won’t get to hear delusional Kruk try to make sense of another “one off” from the relievers.

I wonder what the exit velocity and launch angle was on that Thames *bomb*. Anyone know where to look that up? That was one of the hardest hit balls I’ve seen anyone not named Bonds hit. I’ve finally come around. It’s time to start over with the wall in right field. Keep all the archways, or even add some if you must, but it’s time to bring the fences in. It’s nothing but a stupid novelty at this point…..

I see Yu Darvish went on the disabled list 2 days ago. Don’t like ever seeing anyone get injured but I did see this coming:

No K’s for Yu tonight thru 4 vs the lowly White Sox. Hmmmm…..I’ve seen this before. Injury could be coming up soon. Not wanting to see it, I like Yu a lot, but when a K pitcher like Yu throws up a 0 for K’s in a start….all I’m saying is that I’ve seen it before, I’ve seen it before.

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The Dodgers are fine, right? Piling up wins at a record rate, these are the salad days for our *friends* from the south. They are giving me a great reason to care about the post season this year…..

Stratton impressed me last night. He grinded through 6 with less than his best stuff. And for Stratton’s honky ass, there is not much best stuff to spare in there. But we need pitchers who don’t implode. Not everyone is an ace. If he can just avoid turning into Heston we could have ourselves a back end of the rotation cog going into next season…..

I’m actually fairly interested in watching this game tonight. Stratton was outstanding in has last start, something I didn’t think he had in him. Cut from the most classic of honky cloths, I just figured he was another missed draft pick. And maybe he is. But in a lost season like this, we take games like these when they pop up. And Stratton holds the most modest of intrigue for me…..

So what is everyone doing for this damn eclipse? If you are at work, are you going outside to take a peek? Did you buy glasses for this? What is the outer-most distance you would be realistically willing to travel to see this? I read a story somewhere about some guy who’s been planning for this day for 20 years. Fuck that guy.

I guess my question is, how much effort are you putting into this thing? In Palo Alto, we should be shrouded in fog at 10:15am. Just like the Giants season. Huge let down.

I’m trying to remember why I went to the games back in the 80’s. Candlestick was not easy to access using public transportation and I lived 40 miles away anyway. Going to a game was a major journey for me. My dad took me until I was probably 16 or so and then once me and my buddies got cars we started going to the games without our parents. That meant hanging out in the parking lot near that air tower thing and drinking many beers before the game. This thing:

I don’t remember seeing any cops around and no one cared that we were under aged anyway. In hindsight, that was probably a big reason we went to the games between the ages of 16-21ish.

However, we were also in the beginning of a renaissance with Will Clark, HacMan, Kevin Mitchell, and many more. So it wasn’t just partying in the parking lot, we finally had players to get excited about. We were coalescing as a fan base around players that, in hindsight, turned out to be a huge part of our team’s history. Do any of the young players we have right now look like they’re going to go down in SF history like the iconic players from ’86/’87 onward?

Now I’m looking at our future and the landscape that is in front of us and I’m trying to figure out what is going to motivate me to go to the games. The park is nice but it’s nearly 20 years old, the newness and the shine of AT&T has dulled for me. Tailgating is about 5% as cool in the new place as it was at The Stick. CalTrain makes it a lot easier to get to the games, so there’s that.

But if we are going to stink for years, if we are going to drip down the drain of irrelevance that we knew for so many consecutive years when I was younger, what is going to motivate me to ever go to these games? What will motivate you?

Take a good look at the Phillies because they are us in the future. It’s nice to be able to beat up on at least one team in the league but if our guys continue to suck next year we will be facing the daunting task of supporting a team that is full of aging players who aren’t very good anymore pulling down big salaries….and with a farm system that is not good. THAT was the Phillies a couple of years ago and here they are today, the worst team in the league, with a bunch of young guys bumbling around and striking out at prolific rates. That’s us in 5 years.

Matt Moore. I don’t know what to do with Matt Moore. Picking up his option seemed like a no brainer at the beginning of the season and then he imploded. If he finishes the year strong, do we trust him going forward? Do we have a choice?

I know it was only the Phillies but if they Giants were going to lay down it was going to be after a long east coast swing with no off day facing a pitcher who hadn’t given up more than 2 runs in 10 straight starts. That was an impressive win no matter how you slice it. And we give Bochy a lot of shit for piloting this team into the ground, but he should get some credit for keeping them together, keeping their effort collective. And at the end of the day, isn’t that his main job?

I’m diggin’ the upcoming eclipse because buying plastic sunglasses and staring at the sun is a very pre-internet, 70’s thing to do. But all this traveling to Idaho and shit to get on “the path of totality?” I’m not diggin’ that at all.

What am I missing about this eclipse? Why are people traveling hundreds of miles to see it?

Games like these, kinda hard to get up for. The Phillies are in town, they suck, we suck, let’s call the whole thing off. Imagine having to write a daily thread to keep this line moving…..

The rest of this season, for me, will be to see if the Giants can stay about the WWB percentage of .378. I feel pretty confident that they’ll come in above that at the end of the season but who knows, maybe all those walks we are missing out on will show up in the loss column more than I think.

What do you think the chances are that Evans pulls off a pre Aug 31st trade of consequence? I’ll put the o/u on that at 9% and let the betting begin….

Very solid win last night. I think the WAB bumped up to .600 since Aug 4th. I know, I know, we are really hurting without all those walks he took (in between all the strikeouts).

Cain is listed as the starting P today at espn. Is that a misprint?

We can’t even pray for rain in this damn dome…..

With the Mets falling short in New York, the dreams of me turning my fake parlay bets into glory and destiny came to an abrupt end last night. Too bad. I was gonna take my pretend $1326 and play the shit out of the lottery tonight. Prolly woulda hit it, too.

The Giants can’t hit Dan Straily. There is no good reason for this. Maybe tonight the Giants finally hit Dan Straily.

Bum needs to stand down against Stanton. Kinda feels like he’s not gonna do that though.

XOOT sent me more info on Stix case including a legal brief recently filed by his public defenders. It was 18 pages long and a fascinating read. I can’t copy and paste it or I would let you read it. Email me if you want a copy of it. Here’s a pic of the helicopter he shot down. The serial number he *wrote down on an envelope* is clearly visible.

As a teaser, here is the beginning of the legal briefing:

“Carstie Clausen, 72, was about half way through eating his breakfast made from greens in his back yard and was working on a New York Times crossword puzzle in silence when he first heard the helicopter….”

You want to see a tired team? Watch this game tonight. Thankfully Miami isn’t very good and Conley is an extremely average starting pitcher. So maybe we have a chance. Stanton has 9 home runs in his last 10 games. Nine home runs this month. The Giants? In 451 plate appearances in August, they has 12 home runs. That’s actually pretty good for them. In July they had 14 for the entire month.

Blach’s gonna have his hands full today, on the mound and with the bat. “Do it all yourself” day if he wants to win.

Taking a look at the odds this morning looking for another +380 gift, there are none to be found today. The biggest fav are the Cubs at -200 and the Yankees at -180. The Marlins are -140. After NY lost that crusher to Boston last night and the Giants played 37 games yesterday, I have decided to dump my ENTIRE pretend $380 on a 2 team parlay of the Mets and the Marlins. The Mets are at +162. So $380 bet on that 2 team parlay (+162 and -140 at odds of 13 to 5) will pay out a cool $1326. Let’s go baby!!!!!!! Let it ride!!!!!!

Well, we better win the first one….I don’t know who AJ Cole is so I think it’s entirely possible that he pitches as well or better than Scherzer in Game 2.

Harper’s got a bruised knee and is out indefinitely. He sure was writhing around on the ground like it was worse than that. But whatever, Washington is stoked they get him back at some point in the season….

WAB could go either way today……