Sunday, May 18, 2008

7 6 6 6 3 6

You call this a lineup? Winn, Castillo, Durham? Not to worry, Bengie's pickin' up the 4-hole. Boy howdy! Captain Gamer--our best hitter--hits 5th. 'Splain, please. Shouldn't your best hitter hit 3rd? So, Bruce, where's our youth? Next guy. Er, Aurilia. Isn't he dead? Really. Retired, at least. No? Uh, OK, Richie hits 6th. Daniel Ortmeier is hitting 7th and playing LF!! I have something to live for! Emmanuel Burriss hits 8th and plays--gasp--shortstop. Old Man Omar gets the day off, eh? (Fred Lewis, even against lefties, should be in LF, Ort at 1B, Aurilia DFA'd.) So, you're Matt Cain and yer thinkin' you better pitch a gol-durned shutout or you ain't gonna win nothin' with this crew. The only three guys I have anything invested in are batting in the last three spots. Life mocks us here at RMC. We embrace rebuilding, and we get these stiffs:

photo by Joel Friesen, CC 2.5


UPDATE: Richie Rises! SOLO HR in the 2nd to make it 1-0 Giants! It's alive! It's alive! I can feel the Holy Spirit today, brothers and sisters. Only the Hand of God could Resurrect Rich. Ort walks. That's right, a Giant earned a "base on balls." Burriss grounds out, but at least it took 5 pitches. Matt Cain manages a 6-pitch swinging K. (M.C. on the hill so far: six up six down on 26 pitches including 2 K's on 96 mph heat.)

UP-UPDATE: Matt gives up a loooong fly ball to Alexei Ramirez. JT Snow (on the radio with Phlegm) compliments our boy for challenging guys with his smoke. He calls him "old school." High praise. AAAArrrrrggghh. Matt WALKS THE PITCHER! An AL guy who never hits (John Danks). But he gets Cabrera. 41 pitches, 10 batters, 9 outs.

UPPITY UPDATE: Ort hits one off the end of the bat to the warning track for the 2nd out in the 4th. Burriss hacks randomly but gets an infield hit with his blazing speed. Excitement plus! Cain K's again to end the "threat."

OH, I HATE TO UPDATE: Almost-Giant Joe Crede hits a solo HR off Matt to tie it up, ruin the no-hitter and the shutout. Looked like a fat pitch--out over the plate. Through five: 18 batters, 68 pitches, 2 hits, 1 run.

OH, I LOVE TO UPDATE THE UPDATE: The stiffs make a run. 2-1 Giants.

OH, JAYSUS, MARY, AND FOOKIN' JOSEPH UPDATE: Matt gives up a solo HR to Cabrera, and AJ Pureshitski gets a damn hit, and now Carlos Quentin brings the hammer down. 4-2 Sox. Here comes Righetti. Now my day is ruined. I'm officially blaming Bengie for "calling a crappy game." On the plus side, Captain Gamer and The Ort-ster make a run, so it is 4-3 bad guys after six. Matt has thrown 95 pitches so I expect he'll get a chance to finish the 7th and that's it.


ORLANDO CABRERA IS A BLEEDIN' GOBSHITE UPDATE: The wheels come off the M.C. wagon. A walk to Thome and another goddamned homerun to the 5'9" 185-lb. leadoff hitter with a.720 lifetime OPS. 6-3 Sox.

In San Francisco on Trinity Sunday: 30 batters faced, 21 outs. 115 pitches. 6 hits. 6 runs. 6 strikeouts. 3 walks. FOUR HOMERUNS. A tale of two Matts: twice through the lineup, total dominance. Third and fourth time: batting practice.


The good news? The stiffs are fighting back! BENGIE ties it up! M.C. is "off the hook." Thank you, Satan. Wow, am I the ballgame prognosticator? Did I make the right lineup call, or what? You wanna go, Bruce? Eh? You wanna go?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brother Bob:
Thank your local deity Cain got a No Decision. That's all that matters, right?
Ick, what happened to our bullpen? They seemed so adequate for a while. Did we let Valdez re-ruin his arm? If he's lost again for a long time I'll be pissed.

Anonymous said...

What happened to cross-posting?

That game ... frankly that whole series ... made me sick. We are a joke. At least it's hardly a surprise.

Blccch!

Anonymous said...

For the weekend:
3 losses.
Rich Aurilia - 11 plate appearances.
Ray Durham - 13 plate appearances.
Randy Winn - 13 plate appearances.
Omar Vizquel - 8 plate appearances.
The rebuilding continues.

JC Parsons said...

How soon until we worry about Matt? He has only had 4 quality starts out of 10. A great pitcher, which is what he is supposed to be, does not generally go 2 months with an ERA around 5. If he doesn't run off 3 or 4 very good starts in a row soon, we could be looking at a very average year. Should I worry?

About Merkin: "Did we let Valdez re-ruin his arm?" My bro asked a huge question. From all reports, we grossly mismanaged one of our few possible future stars. How does Righetti keep his job?

In fact, it seems like every good managerial decision has been the result of reacting to an injury. Now that we are not injured, the lineups are DISGUSTING and the losses are coming in bunches.

Hey Ron, I guess we start cross posting when you START posting!! Actually, I thought I was going but by the time I looked Mark had already done it. I must admit to being hesitant to give up getting to write about the ONE TRULY GREAT GIANT.

Anonymous said...

As promised, I did 'post' after the Sanchez start, although I haven't been given the necessary permission (that I know of) to be a bona fide poster. Don't I need some kind of authorization or code?

Yay!!! I had a work-related meeting tonight, so I didn't get to see our game. After the weekend, it was a welcome respite.

M.C. O'Connor said...

We are coming up on 54 games pretty soon, I believe the 29th, a Thurs in AZ, is the 1/3 point in the season. This will be a good time for evaluations and projections. I am planning a "State of Matt" post for then. I wanted to wait until he's had 11 starts, 1/3 of his projected 33. I'll miss his turn (Friday we go out of town) this weekend. We'll be back Monday, I'll probably write it that evening. Looking forward to our phenom tonight. Pitching well in Coors is a challenge, I thought Misch toughed it out pretty damn well. F-Lew: two triples! HHF!

Brother Bob said...

Yeah, Ron, I don't know how to be a "bona fide poster" either. Hell I can't even get my Google account to work.

Brother Bob said...

And now I have no idea why I'm not anonymous anymore. But I'm glad.