Saturday, April 22, 2017

It is Official: Giants are Off to Bad Start

Loss, 6-5 @ COL 

On the day after "Dirt Bike Drama," JohnnyC (3-1) and the Giants took another disheartening loss to fall further into the NL West dungeon.  Sure there are lots of gory details ( bloop grand slams, lame inside the park homers, you know, the usual ) but individual game woes just don't seem to compare to the big picture concerns.  Anyway, I hate that ball park and most games that are played there seem somewhat tainted, so I'm going to choose to ignore this one. The place is a freak show:  sure, Hunter will turn flyballs into homers. Sure, JohnnyC will give up his first ever grand slam (that would not have been a homer anywhere else) and THEN give up an inside the park type in the SAME inning. The place is a freak show.

However, the beginning of this long journey is clearly not what we all hoped for. Too early to give up? Oh yeah, for sure. Hell, things don't get really bad until June around here.  But it is never too early to be scared shitless.  And my list of scary shit grows every day:  no FNG stepping up to DO ANYTHING,  no bullpen except a closer,  currently a rotation with one high quality guy,  outfield production at T-ball level,  a manager with a heart that is about to go,  a lineup incapable of a long ball,  a superstar catcher that hasn't played very well in a while and is one foul ball from being done, and, of course, now an ace that thinks high testosterone levels justify bullshit treatment of your teammates.   All that and I'm sure I forgot a bunch of things. Feel free to add to the list.

But even with all that scary shit, we all know it will get better.  Every team stumbles for a while and corrects, some teams do it all season and never get their act together. We can go either way. I will say this though: We are not the worst team in baseball.

Technically, that is Toronto.

3 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

"We’ll come out of this." Boch as quoted in the Merc.

Not how I scripted the first inning of the season. (They play Game 18 tonight.) And losing stretches always make you wonder if they'll ever stop! I guess we just have to bite the bullet and suck it up and tough it out. OK, I'm out of clichés.

M.C. O'Connor said...

This is from ESPN:

Madison Bumgarner has had 6 straight seasons with 30 starts and 200 IP, the 2nd-longest active streak in baseball (Cole Hamels - 7). Since he was called up to the major leagues for good on June 26, 2010, no pitcher has made more starts, pitched more innings or recorded more outs than Madison Bumgarner. And only 3 pitchers have thrown more pitches.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Buster Posey has a knack for the right words, don't you think?


"The main thing is you have to be grateful he's not hurt worse than he is. You have to look at it in that light...I don't know the timetable. I'm not sure anybody does. Just be thankful he's not hurt any worse.

"You're surprised. Again, we ought to just look forward and go out and play hard baseball, and hopefully he'll be back before too long."