Death Ray

AZ 3  SF 2
The Diamondbacks young southpaw Robbie Ray whiffed ten in his seven innings of work and kept the Giants from doing much. That's not saying much, I know, what with this lineup. His performance overshadowed some solid work by the Giants Jeff Samardzija, who not only went eight innings but struck out seven and walked none. He also chipped in a hit and scored a run. But good teams gobble up the minnows and that was the case in San Francisco tonight. The 2017 Giants are minnowesque, to be sure, or would that be minnovian? No matter. The Giants lost another game. Marquee matchup tomorrow with Greinke and Bumgarner.

--M.C.

Just the Facts, Man

I'm tired of opinions. They are fooking goddamn everywhere. Everybody's got one. You know something? I don't give shit. I don't want to hear it. Get in line. Write a blog. Stick your opinions up your bleeding fecking areshole, mate. I'm so sick of opinions I don't even want to hear my own.

So we are sticking with the facts, here. The Giants got their asses handed to them lost. It was 4-0. They got four hits. And one run. If I had an opinion, I might opine that four runs allowed and five innings pitched by a visiting starter in Denver ain't half bad. But I don't have an opinion and I don't want to hear any fucking opinions. The Giants got four hits. And one run. And they have played 79 games and lost 41 of them.

There, see? Don't you feel better when people stick a sock in it? When they hold back on that verbal diarrhea they can't help spewing? I know I do. The Giants lost Friday night's baseball game in Colorado.

--M.C.


p.s.  I'm off on a two-week holiday, my friends. You won't be hearing anything from me until the middle of July. The rest of the ro' will be chipping in, of course, and they are free to spout whatever the hell they want. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my blog-mates all of our readers and regulars and hecklers and lurkers. In my opinion, you make it all worth it! Thanks for sticking around. See you in a while. GO GIANTS!

Ninety

The Giants win their 90th game behind Matt Cain who set the tone right away with a four-pitch 1st inning. He chipped in a leadoff single in the 3rd and scored the Giants first run, then added an RBI single in the 5th. Matt flashed some leather, too, finishing off a nice 3-6-1 double play in the 4th, racing to first base to get the final out of the inning. It was an impressive performance by the big righty. In the 7th he gave up a booming opposite field double to Paul Goldschmidt (what is it with that guy and the Giants?) and a bunt single to Gerardo Parra, then threw a wild pitch to put runners at second and third with no outs. Two whiffs and a ground out later and the Diamondbacks were still scoreless. I liked that. Guillermo Mota, Jeremy Affeldt, and Dan Otero got the final six outs. Matty faced 27 batters in his seven frames, throwing a first-pitch strike to 18 of them. Four hits, one walk, and six strikeouts added up to a Game Score of 74. The final was 6-0. Brandon Belt looked good, stroking three hits including a triple that eluded Justin Upton in right-center by no more than a millimeter. Pablo Sandoval drove in two with two hits, and Marco Scutaro, who I think may be a cyborg, also had two knocks, an RBI, and a run scored. Buster Posey had the big milestone with his 100th RBI. The crowd got the M-V-P chant going after that. He's the best player in the league, if not all of baseball, and if the sports-writers can't see that then there's not much point listening to them ever again.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


p.s. Cain got his career-high 16th pitcher-win. (The team is 21-10 when he starts.) His 50 walks is his lowest season total ever and his 191 strikeouts another career high. FanGraphs ranks him 10th in the NL with 3.9 WAR. (Wade Miley, the Arizona rookie who started last night, ranks 5th with 4.5). I think they are selling him a little short, don't you? He will most likely start again Monday in LA. That would put him on track (5th day) for Game 1 on Saturday, October 6th.

Two

Ryan Vogelsong had this to say (AP/ESPN) about last night's performance:

"I'm going to sleep for the first time in about a month tonight. I can tell you that," Vogelsong said. "I'd been trying to tweak some stuff here for a while. I finally found something that felt comfortable and easy to repeat. Somehow I got twisted around there along the way. It took me a while to get back into something that felt right."

Timing is everything. I was sure the Giants and Dodgers would finish the season in LA with it all on the line. I kept telling people not to make plans for the first three days of October because they were going to be glued to their TVs. That job application for prognosticator? I've decided not to fill it out. Doesn't suit me and the pay is lousy. C'mon, who knew? I said from the start I liked this team, but I never figured them to run away with it. TEN games up with ELEVEN to play? Raise your hand if you saw that one coming. And speaking of coming on, I like what I see from Gregor Blanco these days. His fielding alone makes him valuable, his speed on the bases is ridiculous, but when he hits he makes you forget that we used to have the NL's leading hitter out in left field. And what kind left field B.S. is going on with His Melkiness and the Gate Keepers of Baseball's Moral Purity? First, we have the growing call for PED-suspended ballplayers to be kept from "awards." I'm shocked, shocked, to find steroids here. Then we have the silly notion that "batting title" is an award. It's not. It's a statistical record. Shit happens. People write it down. Get over it. Now we have a side deal by the player's union, apparently at Cabrera's request, to void the clause that makes him eligible to still win. Weird. Way too weird. I get it with Melky, it's great image re-hab, he wants a job next year. He may be entirely sincere. Who knows? Who cares? He did the crime, now he does the time, then it's done. Why spend all this energy on trying to re-write history? Self-serving nonsense we should all be spared.

Sorry for spewing. It's a great time to be a Giants fan.

GO GIANTS!!

--M.C.

Arizona? Really?

Seriously, Arizona won the title? Of the NL West? Really? Arizona does not inspire me as a playoff team. Not just because I don't think they are in a league with Milwaukee, loaded with sluggers, the Phillies, who have most everything, and either Atlanta or St. Louis (although I don't) but I just can't see them as an inspiration. Arizona Champion of the NL West? That seems less a recognition of an achievement than an indictment of the division.

The Padres, who nearly won the west last year on some mystical, magical pitching, and one hitter, decided that they didn't really need that hitter, so traded him for prospects. They might be good again some day, but maybe their magic pitching was not just what it was last year (actually, it was almost as good, but the results were quite different). They knew they were a last place team going into the season, and they did not surprise themselves.

The Rox figured to be the competition - I thought so a couple months into the season. But once they had a couple key players, like Tulowitsky, get hurt, they decided to trade their ace for some magic beans. Imagine if when Posey went down, ownership said, "Ship out Lincecum for whatever you can get and, by gum, we'll be good again by 2020." Very discouraging to be a Rockie fan.

The doggers were, of course, drastically mis-Manny-ged by their ownership, to the point where they are now owned by MLB. They may be worse next year, if buyers are not found, they may be paralyzed into doing next to nothing, and doing it as cheaply as possible.

The until-recently reigning World Series Champions were beset with injuries, and equally beset with sub-mediocrity when they needed competence. Yet they were in first place, with Posey injured, until they elected to turn in a 10-20 August. Hard to get happy after that, and they didn't. Yeah, I know, they had a nice little 8 game win streak, but that looks pretty abnormal in the rear view mirror after 4 straight losses (5 of 6), doesn't it?

But Arizona? A playoff team? I know they have Justin Upton, who's really good, and that guy who used to pitch for the A's, but beyond that, ???? This is not a team that won the division, it is a bunch of guys that outlasted a bunch of losers. The dbacks seem to play the game of baseball quite competently. They move runners, get hits with RISP, steal bases and do not allow too many stolen bases. They also play defense well. No wonder some mediocre pitcher has 21 wins. The Giants, by contrast, spent 2011 not moving runners, especially with RISP, and sought to reinforce our wonderful pitching by hiring an aging, defensively-challenged shortstop with no bat and then going out and getting a worse one when he got hurt. The Giants have pitched well, but otherwise have not had a particularly stellar defensive year, and they have just been horrible offensively, as has been well documented and deeply felt by every Giants fan. so the dbacks are what's left. Sad.

Meanwhile, I tune in Saturday, and the dbacks have "Los D-Backs" on their jersey and apparently it is Hispanic heritage night in Arizona. WTF? Isn't this the state that is trying its darndest to advance racism? Especially against Hispanics? Haven't they already done an English-only thing? If you bought a Los D-Backs jersey, would you be immediately arrested as you left the stadium, your car confiscated and either deported or sent to work in the desert on one of Joe Arpaio's slave labor details? Never let it be said that Arizona lacks in hypocrisy.

Maybe I've used up my wishes, but if I get one for the 2011 baseball season, just get this team out of my sight as quickly as possible. I root for anyone against them.

Confession

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . . (peccavi, peccavi)


Yes, I actually read words written by Bruce Jenkins, Chronicle Scribe. He says the Giants are ready to give up on Barry Zito. Uh, OK, thanks Bruce. Mr. Jenkins goes on to say the Giant would be willing to eat Zito's salary to move him off the roster. Yeah, we've all heard talk. But here's the clincher--the Giants are looking at Jeff Suppan to replace him.

Jeff Suppan.

So. Here's the plan. Spend a huge wad of cash to unload an aging, mediocre veteran in order to replace him with an aged, mediocre veteran. Zito is owed something close to $60M. If I understand the economics (never my strong suit), the Giants think spending $60M on Jeff Suppan is a good idea. And you thought the Aaron Rowand contract was bad.

Figure me for the "better the devil you know" side of things. If the Giants are going to spend $60M anyway, I'd take Da Beezy in a heartbeat. Todd Wellemeyer, anyone?



 . . . forgive me. (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa)



--M.C.

A very happy Hallowe'en

It was all treats for Giants fans this past Hallowe'en. Madison Bumgarner showed no fear and the Giants wore down the American League champs to take a never-to-look-back 3-1 lead in the Series. I recommend re-watching all the games in the Giants post-season run. If you have not bought the DVD set then get them via iTunes. I was far too involved emotionally when watching the live games so it has been very enjoyable to see them again in a more relaxed and detached mode. I looked back at what I posted that evening and I'm stickin' with it. I'm surprised I was so calm and objective about being one win from a World Series title! Andres Torres was superb, rapping out three hits just like the "rejuvenated" Edgar Renteria, scoring one and driving in one. Aubrey Huff's blast was just what we were hoping the ex-DH would do in an AL park. Freddy Sanchez was a glove machine at second base, killing rallies with heads-up baseball. Buster Posey hit a monstrous home run to dead center, and absolutely nailed Josh Hamilton trying to steal a base. That rookie battery was something, eh? Here's a comparison--pitcher A vs. pitcher B:

Year	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	CG	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP
2010	20	7	6	.538	3.00	18	18	0	111.0	119	40	37	11	26	86	136	1.306

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/30/2010.

Year	Age	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	CG	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP
2007	23	7	5	.583	4.00	24	24	0	146.1	122	70	65	12	65	150	112	1.278

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/30/2010.

A is MadBum and B is Lincecum. Note that MadBum is 5 years younger! It sure is nice to have young, studly pitchers, isn't it? There was a time when I thought Ed Halicki would be the next NL Cy Young winner. Ah, youth.

--M.C.


p.s. I've gotten pretty weary of all the HOF debates. I'm sick of PEDs and the pointless arguments about them. I became hoplessly cynical about the Hall after reading Bill James' book (Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?) and the whole Marc Ecko asterisk-ball nonsense (here's what I wrote then). It seems obvious that there are some all-time greats who should be enshrined, like Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, Bert Blyleven, and (yes, Virginia) Mark McGwire. And a bunch more real good choices like Barry Larkin and Edgar Martinez. At this point, I don't really give a shit. All I care about is the Giants winning another World Series. But if YOU care, read Joe Posnanski. He puts together the HOF arguments better than anyone. It truly depresses me that the supposed "professionals" who cover the game can churn out mountains of crap about how they "feel" about this candidate and that candidate when baseball excellence (like innocence or guilt) has NOTHING TO DO WITH SOMEBODY'S FUCKING FEELINGS! Any BBWAA member who uses the "you just had to be there to know how intimidating so-and-so was or wasn't" argument should have his ballot cancelled. And don't get me started about these idiots who "suspect" someone was a PED-user without out ANY EVIDENCE and thus won't vote for them. Didn't these people go to college and learn how to construct a proper argument? Didn't they take Civics in high school? There, I've just ruined the high the Hallowe'en game put me on! Oh yeah, the Giants won the World Series.

I Would Have Never Thought...

that Tim McCarver and Joe Buck would sound good. I don't know who the idiots on TBS are, but here is an actual quote from last night's glorious shellacing of the doggers.

"Can you imagine where the Phillies would be if Brad Lidge had the kind of year he did last year?"

Ummm.....exactly where they are right now, playing for the NL crown?

Coping strategy

I should write a damn book. I mean, you go into any bookstore in the U-S-of-A and you find a wall, a fookin' WALL of books about how to cope. How to deal with meanies, how to be a meanie, how to get well, how to be sick, how to die, how to live, how to eat, love, screw, believe, un-believe, win friends, lose friends, make money, get over money, reach your potential, have a child, be a child, get old, blah-blah-fookin' BLAH.

I'm a Giants fan. If no-rings-since-Moses hasn't taught me how to cope, then I should just let Phillipine jihadists kidnap me so I can have a comparable hardship to learn from. Jose Oquendo? The FloMars? Scott Spezio? Can it get any worse?

Yes, it can. Case in point: Barry Zito. And the guy who hired him, Brian Sabean. To pile doom upon doom, Ol' Sabes zito-ed Aaron Rowand to play CF because he'd pre-zito-ed Dave Roberts to play CF also and that didn't work nearly as well as the actual Zito-ing. Uh, I mean, uh, that, like, we got a lot of guys. And they are old and cost a lot. So, I have to cope.

Here's my coping strategy: anyone NOT named Sandoval, Lewis, Frandsen, Ishikawa, Schierholtz, Guzman, Velez, Bowker, Burriss, Grizzlie, Defender, GreenJacket, or Buster Posey will henceforth be referred to by uniform number. As in "number 33 then batted after Fred Lewis' spectacular awe-inspiring triple and a run was scored."

Now THAT'S cutting edge blogging. I oughta write a fookin' book. Right after number 10 takes some hacks away from Nate.

Pause/Still

I got one of those buttons on my DVD/VCR combo player. Gotta take a piss, hit "pause." Gotta refill the whiskey glass, get some more cookies, gotta settle one of those "is that Kevin Bacon again?" arguments, I'm all over the "still" control. What does this have to do with the MMIX Giants? Uh, well, everything. For starters, there's Dave Roberts. We are paying that guy $6.5 million to be a fifth outfielder. We've got a 6'2'', 215-lb. 25-year old who is out of options and he plays outfield. Ol' Boch is excited that he will be our fourth outfielder. Wow, that's building for the future. We've got the slowest man in the major leagues starting at catcher and pencilled in at cleanup (in 11 seasons he has a .415 SLG, the league average is .432). Does his career OPS+ of 88 excite you? We've got the nation's most exciting catching prospect in our system, and we get another goddamn season of Señor Muy Lento. Can you say space-filler? Placeholder? Ol' Boch loves this guy. Expect 140 starts, 550 PAs, and 400 outs. We've got three youngsters competing for the same job. One of them could play third at least as well as Rich Aurilia, Juan Uribe, or even Joe Crede, but we will make him work for a job that's his to lose. Our third baseman is a catcher who has 154 minor-league games at first. And we don't have a first baseman. But we do have Randy Winn, who plays outfield. His lifetime OPS+ is 102. He's locked in at RF for 2009 (at $8.25 million). The MMIX Giants are like a World Cup soccer team--we'll play real hard not to lose but we just don't have the guns to win. They're like the hors d'oeuvres you get at a fancy restaurant--you don't want to fill up and spoil the expensive meal. I'm not going to cover the ultimate placeholders--Barry Zito and Aaron Rowand--because my VCR "still" button defaults to "stop" after five minutes. By the time these clowns are no longer Giants they'll already be replacing Blu-Ray.

The good news? Our division stinks. A ballclub that can scare up 85 wins could go to the playoffs. And I'm excited, damn excited about the season starting. But 2009 is a space-filler unless we can get a stadium-wide chant going:

D-F-A!! D-F-A!! D-F-A!!

/link

Don't trade Matt Cain.

Chris Haft has a piece on everyone's favorite off-season topic.

Trading Cain is nuts. We have two good pitchers to build a staff around. Well, one other-worldly great pitcher and one good pitcher. Make no mistake. Matt Cain is a good pitcher. When you have a young, studly 1-2 punch you are a fool to break it up. Especially when your next-best guy is Barry Zito. Sure, Jonathan Sanchez could step up next year. That would be great. Right now, our rotation is God, demi-god, mortal, mortal, mortal. Fuck with that at your own peril.



(a wink is as good as a nod to Chris at BCB)

Who's our homer hitter?

The Phils hit 214 HRs this season, second to the ChiSox' 235. The TBR's tied with Yankees for 9th with 180. Our beloved team finished 30th with 94. This post-season, the Rays bashed their way past the defending champs in the ALCS with 16 HRs in 7 games. The Phils are on a homer-binge, and seem poised for the big prize.

Now I realize you can be a good team and not hit a lot of homers. The Angels, for example, were 18th in home runs with 159, yet had a terrific season. But 18th means they hit more bombs than 12 other teams. And you can hit homers and be el-stinko. The Padres hit 154, good for 20th place. It should be noted that the MLB average is 163 HRs in 162 games. (q.v. here)

Back to the question: who's our homer hitter?

Gettin' snarky

Ya gotta love Bengie. He says in today's Comical that HRs ain't such a big deal. Meanwhile he's flashing his-shoulda-been-ours WS ring from '02. "That's not how we rolled," he says. Of course, they had Troy Glaus, Garret Anderson, and Tim Salmon, but they finished 10th in the league in HRs. So HRs weren't important. He neglects to tell you they were 1st in Batting Average, 4th in OBP and 6th in SLG. They were 3rd in 2Bs and 4th in runs scored. To be fair, they were 3rd in everyone's new favorite metric, the stolen base. Bottom line--they had what we lack: BALANCE. Thanks Bengie, love your "warrior spirit" and all, but take your career .279/.309/.411 Pedro Feliz-like line and shove it. (Did I forget to mention the 2002 LAAs were 2nd in the league in ERA and BAA?)

juxtaposition

Isn't this strange?

"The Giants have become accustomed to excellence at first base, but this year they'll settle for mere competence." "[Outside of signing Aaron Rowland]...they've made no moves to strengthen the offense, which ranked at or near the bottom of most significant statistical categories." Sounds like the lunatic fringe, right? Actually, it is from the Giants website, sfgiants.com. Both snippets are by Chris Haft, a writer from MLB.com. These posts are not terribly complimentary of the Giants, even if true. Settle for mere competence? Offense ranked at or near the bottom of most significant statistical categories? Surprisingly, these articles both appear on the Giants website, sfgiants.com, or more precisely: sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com.
http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080108&content_id=2342011&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20071217&content_id=2328740&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
Why would the Giants have such critical articles on their own website? Isn't the number one rule on any team that you can't criticise your teammates, management, fans or opponents (which is one reason we get, "yes, thanks to my teammates and the good lord above, I was lucky tonight and sound as intelligent as a rock"). Can it be that they can't even control their own website content anymore? It was clear a couple of years ago when mlb took over all the team websites (making them much less interesting to visit) that they were being standardized and homogenized. And, I guess, marginalized, in that you can find much more interesting and insightful content on dozens of websites and blogs that can pick up on news almost as fast as the Giants can. Nevertheless, I find this just a little weird, that the Giants have SO little control over their own website content. What the hell is the point of having a website if not to post YOUR spin on stuff, not some other hack's? I guess Darth Selig has made it illegal for teams to have websites, maybe he is afraid it would spur fan interest. Maybe they would post MOC's vignettes there.