My hat was purchased, and first worn, at the final game against the Washington Nationals at ATT Park on Wednesday afternoon, August 15. Tim Lincecum started, but garnered the loss after giving up 4 runs and lasting 4 innings. Stephen Strasburg got the win for a 6 inning effort in which the Giants could only manage 2 runs. The day ended at 6-4 Nats. That day, yeah, I heard about the Melky troubles as I was walking into the stadium.
But, from that inauspicious beginning, the hat went on to compile a stellar record. The hat went 10 - 4 for the remainder of August and 20 - 10 for September for a 31 - 16 record for the remainder of the season. .660, baby! The end of the season is mostly about your own division, and the Giants won where it counted: 6 - 3 against San Diego, 6 - 3 against Los Angeles, 5 - 4 against Arizona, and 6 - 1 against Colorado. The hat also saw a 7 - 3 record against non-division opponents. And then, of course, the playoffs and series. I'm still stunned at the Giants' accomplishment, and how beautiful it was and man, did Tim ever turn into a hero when the money was on the line. You might say that the hat was at the beginning of the Giants' victory push that never stopped until they were World Champions. You might churlishly point out that the correlation is not causation, but you would always, always have just the smallest shadow of a doubt about that. Then again, you might just say, "What an awesome hat!"
8 comments:
I'll give you your hat correlation for credit in closing out the regular season (in conjunction with Susana & I attending the September 2 win at Wrigley Field, which featured a Brandon Belt-keyed game-tying rally & consecutive tie-breaking 9th inning RBI singles by none other than Pagan & Scutaro - talk about portending great things to come).
I have lots of post-season correlations of my own regarding such seemingly irrelevant things as which cushions on the sofa were where, while I watched the games.
However, I will always look at one simple correlation to our NLCS & WS victories: We did not lose a single game after Roberto Kelly returned to the 1B Coach's Box. 7 consecutive wins, after Joe Lefebvre's dispiriting 1-3 performance as stand-in Coach.
Roberto Kelly - Post-Season Legend.
I promise not to be churlish.
Nice hat, man.
An argument for the hat being causal for the correlation between the hat and a 660 giants record could probably be made using quantum mechanics. But classical statistics or physics would not support such reasoning. That was also the day the giants were purged of their PED's cheater. Of course I would not mind having Melky in left field to start 2013. I am still awaiting a solid hitting left fielder.
Welcome back, Andres Torres! The Giants continue to stack their roster with players from Puerto Rico & Venezuela - pretty sound thinking. Seems like a pretty solid move, although I would also like to see a thumping right-handed bat off of our bench.
I don't get it. Was the hat starting at shortstop? Or did you wear it at the ballpark for all of those games? Or did the hat win those games from the confines of your hall closet?
Torres is a very nice complement to the OF. He can platoon w/ Blanco or sub at any spot or start if one of the guys goes down. I don't think they will go after anyone else and that's OK, I'd like to see Francisco Peguero get a shot to be the 5th OF. Then again, both Torres and Blanco were 'scrap heap' guys, I imagine Sabes and Co. will pluck another winner out of the pile this spring.
Goodbye Guillermo Mota, Hello Chad Gaudin!
Not a bad pick-up. Career control issues, but improving over the last few seasons. Also, a guy who once pitched 199 innings (for the A's) in a season. So, an emergency Starter, too.
We had an orange & black glass heart for all the "Giant heart" our team shows everyday AND my 60th birthday early gift on Sept.22nd (the day we clinched) of the orange & black pumpkin sitting on each side of the TV from that day forward.
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