Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Bad Calls and Pratfalls

Sigh.  Another day, another L.  Madison Bumgarner was on the mound, and by the time he coughed up 4 in the 3rd inning, the game was over.  He was charged with 2 more in the 8th before he could manage an out.  That is 15 earned runs in the past 18 innings.  The thing is, he could have pitched much better and still come out with 3 L's in the past 3 games.  The offense is bad.

Tyler Colvin hit a home run, 1 of 2 hits for him and that was the Giants' sole run.  Michael Morse got 2 hits, so did Hunter Pence.  Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Crawford each got 1.  Angel Hernandez's interpretation of the strike zone is a much a fantasy as Anton Scalia's interpretation of the Constitution.  In two games in Oakland, it is 11 (A's) to 1 (Giants).  That's no fantasy, though, that's just bad.

Oddly, what with all the losing going on, the Giants are 1 game back to LA, who lost big to Detroit.

7 comments:

Brother Bob said...

I don't exactly hate the As but I hate it when the Giants play the As. They almost always beat us, and badly.
I'll never get over the '89 World Series. I took that one personally.

M.C. O'Connor said...

The Giants are bad. The A's are good.

JC Parsons said...

I'm feeling Brazilian today :/

obsessivegiantscompulsive said...

I am with Brother Bob, I don't hate the A's but I hate it when the Giants play them, no matter what situation either team is in, they seem to take it to us.

I never got over the 89 Series either, and felt that the commish blew it by not forcing both teams to start the pitchers they were expecting to start, instead of allowing the A's to start their two aces again. I had tickets and was looking forward to bringing my Uncle, a long time Giants fan, to the game, but I had slotted him for the 5th game... So I was fine (relatively) with losing, as I knew it was an upward climb, but I felt we had a good chance to win at least one game until the commish allowed the A's to start their aces again.

Who I do hate are A's fans, meanest bunch around, and thus I'll be very happy if they end up in San Antonio or Montreal, as a recent rumor suggests, or Portland or Las Vegas, as older rumors suggested. Then they can enjoy their fandom long distance and we won't have to play them anymore regularly, hopefully, maybe Seattle instead.

I mean, I couldn't even enjoy standing in line for the first trophy without a loud mouthed fan behind me, boasting to the family of Giants fans he was with about the three trophies the A's had at their stadium (which made me laugh inside because I knew the A's had won FOUR trophies in Oakland). He wore an A's jacket that looked like he bought it when Reggie Jackson was still around winning one of the trophies, and if he weren't clearly with the family behind me, I would have thought he was a bum off the street, he was so unkept. He regaled them with stories from glories long ago, while the family humored the guy, who appeared to be an uncle of some sort.

And yeah, the A's are good, but so are the Giants, they are just going through a bad patch right now, I think. Luckily we were so far ahead that we are only one game back now. Luckily LA has not run away from us lately. Hopefully the team can regroup after the ASB, if not sooner.

Zo said...

@Jon, I always thought you would look good in a wax and a dental floss bikini.

Although there are assholes who support any team, I don't think A's fans are particularly deserving of hatred. They had their glory years, and are winners right now, but how many World Series have they been in, say, this decade?

I find many of them to be disengaged, teenagers in from Concord or people who sit around and fuck with their phones and don't spend much of their time following the game. But most of them are OK, and at least we share a common hatred of those LA teams.

There seems to be talk surfacing about getting a front-line starter like the A's just did, which bothers me. The starters have to step it up, but bumping Vogelsong, or, god forbid, Lincecum (our only winner lately) would NOT HELP. A guy who only gives up 2 runs a game (who doesn't exist) would chalk up a fat L with this team right now.

obsessivegiantscompulsive said...

I suppose I might have gotten an extra dose of A's fan that biases me.

One that stuck in my mind was that guy who advertised on Zito's profile on BB-Reference, and every year he would bad mouth Giants fans and talk about how we would not be a real fan unless we would be willing to give it (AT&T and all that) all up and instead have our team win a championship. He backed off some after the first, and even more after the second.

On top of that, and I know this was not from fans, but the A's for years used to advertise on that sign as you get back onto land in Oakland, across the Bay Bridge, and that also rubbed it in about the Giants never having a championship in SF. But I felt that was the A's fans speaking to us Giants fans because there were plenty of A's fans who would come into the Giants sites and brag about how the A's got the championships and the Giants got none.

Well, now the shoes on the other foot...

obsessivegiantscompulsive said...

I don't think Sabean is all that serious about picking up a starter. That is, if the Rays offered him Price for Crick, I think he would be interested, but how likely is that going to happen?

I chalk up that talk to be good old Sabes, kicking the good tire, just in case. I think that is how he got all those good trades in the past, like picking up Nen, just staying in the game, hat in hand. But I don't think we have the prospects to warrant an ace-level starter (and he would replace Vogie, I'm sure) and so I wouldn't worry about that, other than it's theoretically possible, but not very likely, in my opinion.

Also, I don't see any position player being actively pursued other than 2B starter. I think that they are happy with Morse/Pagan/Pence, so it is unlikely that they pick up any OF upgrade, unless someone is out for the season. But picking up a starting 2B would mean Arias/Scutaro as the bench, and mean that Adrianza is DFAed, so the guy would have to be a huge upgrade, I think, as they like Adrianza a lot.

However, I would not be surprised if Adrianza is found to be having a recurring hammy issue (or whatever it is that he has), and get stashed, er, placed on the 60-day DL and get shut down for the season in order to keep him around still. Then they can make moves like a 2B upgrade.

I think the most likely area for upgrade would be the bullpen, where Sabean get a closer/set-up type to replace Gutierrez or even Machi, the way he's blowing up suddenly and lately.