August 2010 Archives

After the 7th inning, I had a feeling about this game. It was the kind of feeling a man has one half-second before a broken-bat fly ball soars over Cody Ross's head. The kind of feeling you get when you...
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Funny -- not funny ha-ha, the other funny -- how everyone's been bitching about Jose Guillen's wooden knees and cement glove in right field, but it's the other new guy with the good defensive rep who misjudges a ball and...
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While tootling around the backwoods Sunday with my ladies in tow, I could only imagine what horrors were unfolding at Mays Field. After Friday and Saturday night, I kept crafting various headlines for this post, all to do with disaster....
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I like the ring of that. If Robert Ludlum were alive, he'd be crawling to me for his next book title. Nats phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg is headed for Tommy John surgery. Wow. You couldn't dream up more cruelty unless...
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Outslugging the league's highest scoring team 27-7 the past two nights, the Giants made me wonder about a few stats...- The team is 7th out of 16 ML teams in runs scored, but their total of 562 is much closer...
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Even before the Cody Ross Era began last night with a clean single and a run scored, I was struck by the cynical punditry disguised as faint praise that followed the waiver claim. Now that the Giants have lost no...
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Full panic mode? Nah. Six games back of San Diego is tough, but remember they have seven left to play against each other, and Bud Black just might forget his weekly sacrifice of puppies and virgins to the Great Dark...
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OK, so this "gain a game on the Padres every two weeks" thing that I proposed Sunday night hasn't gotten off to a promising start. The Giants have actually lost 3.5 games in the standings to San Diego in four...
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On August 3, Jonathan Sanchez and four relievers shut out the Rockies 10-0. Since then, as noted near and far, the rotation has gone winless with an ERA near 6. Sometimes the offense hasn't held up its end, and a...
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RIP Bobby Thomson. The Giants have hit many momentous home runs in their 100+ years, but none so revered as his "Shot Heard 'Round the World" in 1951. When we are all dancing in the streets this October singing, "The...
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I don't mean that as a taunt, although it feels like the Padres have crawled so deep into the Giants' heads this year they emerged from Sunday's game smirking and strutting and dripping with cerebrospinal fluid. Yuck. What a horrible...
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I got these from Ol' Dirty's private Twitter account. I hope the Padres don't see them before tonight's game. 1) The Giants will hit Clayton Richard so hard he'll leave the game named Richard Clayton. 2) Heath Bell? Ha. More...
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The Giants have nabbed Jose Guillen from the Royals for a player to be named later. The PTBNL probably won't be significant, and as Baggs points out, the Giants probably won't pay more than the prorated minimum, as KC is...
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I was going to call this post "The Fontenot of Youth," but he's 30 years old. If you're too lazy to look up his stats, let me sum up Fontenot this way: Imagine Nate Schierholtz, but with an infield glove...
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Pat Burrell does it again. Boy, I'd like to find the idiot who wrote this on June 1, just after the Giants signed Burrell to a minor-league contract: Pat Burrell??? As with any potential Jonathan Sanchez trade, I'd like to think the...
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Until now, the Giants have lived a charmed defensive life with an obviously heavier Panda at third, two water buffaloes in the outfield corners, and a fleet but historically fragile gazelle in center field. I'm not sure what animal metaphor...
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1) Where would the Giants be without Pat Burrell? 2) How hard would you have slapped me in April if I told you I'd be asking Question #1 in August? ...
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Before you thumbs your nose at Todd Wellemeyer as he exits, stage left, remember that he was perfectly fine as a number-five starter as long as he was on the mound at Mays Field. He had the most precise home-road...
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Before you thumb your noses at Todd Wellemeyer as he exits, stage left, remember he was perfectly fine as a number-five starter as long as he was on the mound at Mays Field. He had the most precise home-road splits...
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He didn't pitch so well, but Jonathan Sanchez said some hot things after Sunday's game. He guaranteed the Giants would sweep the Padres next weekend at Mays Field and go on to make the playoffs. Were his comments wise? It's...
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I can't recap everything for those of you who didn't see the game, my apologies, but here's my succinct brilliant point for tonight: WHAT WAS BRUCE BOCHY THINKING???In a 2-2 tie game in which the Giants couldn't get a hit...
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I have two charts to show you. The first is Buster Posey's batted balls in play since he was called up in late May (they're projected onto Mays Field but the chart includes home and away): Now, here are Posey's...
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There hasn't been much reason lately to wish the Atlanta Braves ill. Bobby Cox, by all accounts one of the game's greatest managers and a real mensch, is retiring after this season with fragrant wreathes garlanded upon his wrinkly brow....
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No time for a recap before I pass out, but I have to relay my favorite post-game quote about Jonathan Sanchez, who struck out nine Rockies in six innings, including a SF-record-tying seven in a row at one point: "I...
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The Big Donkey has hit the waiver wire. Before you get too excited, remember that the Giants have little chance of claiming him, let alone working out a trade for him. And once you remember that, refresh your memory about...
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@bonanos wow, I hadn't read greil marcus beating everyone upside the head with hipper-than-thou satire for a long long time....
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@FresnoGrizzlies says Rohlinger back to AAA. Does this mean Bautista bucks conventional wisdom and stays when R. Ramirez joins?...
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FYI, BP on SF trades: "Sabean didn't give up much. Neither Bowker or Martinez had much shot of contributing." tinyurl.com/34gfscs...
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After the Sweep, What It All Means For the Giants bit.ly/92qjiO...
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If you screamed in the Home Depot parking lot Saturday afternoon, or promised on Sunday night you would never, ever take Edgar Renteria's name in vain again, or you got strange warm feelings for guys named Chris Ray and Javier...
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Sigh. The Padres, for nabbing St Louis outfielder Ryan Ludwick as part of a three-way trade that included Cleveland, and they only gave up two non-blue-chip pitching prospects. Ludwick's a shadow of his 2008 self, when he hit 37 home...
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