E.L.M.

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• Posted Are You Ready? to El Lefty Malo
  If I were a mustachioed country singer, I'd slap on some tinted shades, strap on a Fender, leap on top of my amp and bellow to the world, "Are you ready for some baseball?" Ahem. I'll ask again: Are you...
• Posted Tim Lincecum's Return to Form to El Lefty Malo
  Is Timmy back? If so, where did he go in August? Using Pitch/FX data, BP's Eric Seidman wrote this analysis of Lincecum's troubles before Tim went out and dominated the D-Backs through six innings last night. Like an old pitcher...
• Posted SF 2, AZ 0 (11): Back to Basics to El Lefty Malo
  It's as if the Giants, after scoring a bonanza of runs in July and watching their vaunted rotation trip over its shoelaces in August, have reverted back to their original formula the past few days: 11 herbs and spices, four...
• Posted In Defense of Band-Aids to El Lefty Malo
  Yesterday's post brought up the age-old debate of building from within versus buying from without. One reader wrote that he (she?) would rather see the Giants give their minor leaguers big-league experience in 2011 instead of buying more "band-aids," ie,...
• Posted A Quick Peek at 2011 to El Lefty Malo
  Ah, a hole in the schedule. A lull in the magic. A short break before the exquisite waterboarding recommences. What better escape from the daily grind than nerding out in the nebulous future? If the season ended today, here are...
• Posted SF 2, COL 1: Ford's Debut Fiesta to El Lefty Malo
  When was the last time a guy made his major-league debut as a pinch-runner and more or less stole the game? Darren Ford, who has stolen other less wholesome things in the recent past, shocked the Rockies in the 8th...
• Posted SF 5, COL 2: Three Great At-Bats to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted COL 2, SF 1: Misjudged, Bothered and Bewildered to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Disaster Averted to El Lefty Malo
  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....
• Posted The Strasburgian Caution to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Giants Pound Cincy With Average Offense to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Cody Ross Thoughts and Tuesday Notes to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted STL 9, SF 0: The Cool Side of the Pillow to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted PHI 8, SF 2: Phree Phalling to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Is Defense Biting the Giants' Hands (and Arms)? to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted These Are A Few of Our Favorite Home Runs to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted SD 8, SF 2: Who's Your Padre? to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Five Jonathan Sanchez Predictions You Might Not Have Read to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Jose Guillen and Clubhouse Chemistry to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Welcome, Mike Fontenot to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted SF 5, CHC 4: Patrick the Stick to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted The National Geographic Defense Bares Its Ugly Teeth to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted SF 4, CHC 3 (11): Two Questions, Then Good Night to El Lefty Malo
  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?...
• Posted Burriss Up, Wellemeyer Down to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Burriss Up, Wellemeyer Down to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted ATL 6, SF 3: Sanchez Talks Dirty to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted SF 3, ATL 2 (11): Braves Bail Out Bochy to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Perhaps I Worry Too Much About Posey to El Lefty Malo
  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...
• Posted Once Upon a Time, We Hated the Braves to El Lefty Malo
  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....
• Posted SF 10, COL 0: Too Much Good Stuff to El Lefty Malo
  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...