NL All-Stars 2 AL All-Stars 4
A couple Royals wrecked the night for JohnnyC and the American League will have home field advantage. I hope we find that very irritating later this year. Otherwise, it wasn't really a fun or memorable game. Not much to talk about... check out my wild shirt though...
Vlog 21 "All-Meh Game 2016"
10 comments:
Buster walked and scored. That's half of the NL output.
Seems like ASG's go like that: one pitcher gets lit up and that's it, game over. I HATE the 'home field to the winner' thing. I wish it would be best record or even the alternating years thing they used to do. The ASG should be an exhibition, nothing more. But, no matter. Giants won Game 7 on the road if I remember right--right? So who gives a fuck about home field advantage?
I felt bad for JohnnyC. He'd only given up six HR in 18 starts. But they were his old teammates, seemed like they knew what was coming.
Nice tats, by the way. Met a guy last weekend who had a spectacular shoulder SFG/Dead tattoo. Talked lots of baseball, naturally.
Just seemed like a low energy game. How about Arenando ending the game by not knowing how many outs there were? That felt about right for the game. Just a string of good pitchers, usually one screws up, this time it was Cueto. Oh well.
Yes, it is wrong that your record isn't the determinant of home field. I imagine that is super important to some teams. Isn't it nice that we have proven to be above that consideration?
If you remember Tim's AS outings, he was sick in 2008 (must be something about the All-Star players buffet) and then coughed up 2 as the starter in 2009. I think it has been established that there is an inverse correlation between All Star game success and Giants success. So that seems like a positive omen for the rest of the season.
Matt Cain started, pitched two scoreless, and was awarded the win in 2012. Three Giants (Posey, Sandoval, & Cabrera--who was MVP) were the hitting stars and the NL won big.
Why the long faces? Wasn't that pretty much like all of Cueto's starts in which he actually gives up runs? A few in the first couple of innings, but you know that he would have slammed the door shut, if he had been pitching deeper into in a regular game.
On the other hand, after rushing home, all excited to see Johnny in the top of the 1st, there was Chris Sale in the top of the first??? And, there were the NL'ers wearing grey uniforms??? Things immediately felt 'off'. What perverse logic resulted in the NL being the 'road team'? How did they end up w/ ASG's in NL cities in consecutive years anyway?
I was pissed off about Brandon Crawford (who would have tied the game or better), & about Belt being in the on-deck circle, when the last out was made on a feeble DP. Brandon was poised to tie it up.
No need to feel bad about the home field advantage team winning 6 of the last 7 WS's - we were the exception in '14, & we can be the exception again!
Go Giants!!!!
I wasn't so much angry about the game as I was disappointed. JohnnyC wasn't super horrible, just super disappointing. Giving up the long balls was quite uncharacteristic . It seems that he got a bit ill, somewhat like Tim. No intensity. That summarizes the game.
2012 is clearly the ASG exception. It is like all the ASG good for Giants got dumped into one game. That entire season was exceptional! And, screw home field advantage. We are exceptions in that way too!
Enough silly break! Let's get back to this exceptional season!
Oh, I guess Belt got sick. Cueto just sucked.
I think the the World Series winning league gets home for the ASG the following season.
But yeah, it's no biggie. Giants have work to do in the 2nd half. Distractions and other circuses--like the ASG--are over.
If it takes, say, 95 wins to get the West outright, the Giants have to go 38-34 (.528) and the Dodgers would need to go 44-27 (.620). So the pressure is on them to play their best baseball starting right now. I expect the Giants will not be able to sustain a .633 win percentage (that would be 103 wins), but even at .550 (40-32) from here on out they'd still finish with 97 (.599 overall), which ought to do it (unless LA plays .700 ball the rest of the way!). That's averaging 10-8 for the next four innings. I think that's very do-able. I like the position the team is in right now and I like their chances for a division title. Nine more games against LA including six down there and three at home to end the season. Man I would love to make those final three irrelevant!! But that's getting greedy, and ahead of myself. Just stay healthy and keep grinding!
We have thirty or so games against the Padres, Rockies, D-backs, Phillies, and Reds. If we win 2/3 of those or 3/5 of those, and half the rest, including half of the games against the Dud-gers, we should have more than enough, barring a spectacular run by LA. Ray Ratto advises that we're where we are because, in part, we've had the easiest schedule. Well, we still have a good bit of weak schedule to go, and if we can start playing our games with our players off crutches, out of walking boots, and without their sutures pulling, we can make some of the strong schedule look like weak schedule too.
Giants have had some good fortune with the schedule--lots of poor teams to beat up on. A perfect 9-0 against the Padres, for example. That's part of why I expect it to be tougher in the 2nd half, but the Giants have put themselves in a good position and I like the odds going forward.
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