Two games in the vacation paradise of San Diego: land of Felipi's Pizza Grotto, Croce's Bar and Grill, the Hooters with the best, uh, wings, and the San Francisco Giants personal House of Horrors.
With the spectre of an 0-8 start against the division leaders squaring them straight in the face, the Giants fianally managed to squeak out a win and escaped with a split of the abbreviated series -- avoid a torrent of comentary alternating between denial and fatlism as the teams await their next meeting in August. Thank God the Giants don't return to Petco until Sepetember 9. Maybe by then some good electro-shock therapy can erase the memory.
Leave it to the Giants to find an addendum to a long-accepted baseball truism: "Good pitching will defeat good hitting...and good pitching will make mediocre hitting look like crap."
The punchles, feckless, ineffective collection of God-awful stiffs the Giants jokingly call an offense was on full display in Game One of the "not so much a showdown as it is an execution" series with the (choke, gag) division-leading Padres. The Giants dropped to 0-7 against the Friars, to 3-10 in the diivsion, and they kept a rather dubious string intact -- in four games at Petco Park the Giants hadn't so much as sniffed a lead.
I haven't seen anyone this "owned" since Kunta Kinte.
Think about it. Through seven games the Giants scored a grand total of nine runs against a team that was supposed to be the doormat of the division. Some dormat. They pitch well, they hit just enough, and they don't beat themselves like a certain team in Orange and Black. For three straght games I watched a play botched at third that Chase Headley makes in his sleep, and I haven't seen any of their pitchers love-tapping batters with the bases juiced.
Don'tcha just love the unbalanced schedule? We get to see this 10 more times. Yipee!
Yes, they unloaded on the Padres in Game Two, and it's about time. But we've seen this act before. The big blows came from Torres and Downs -- two guys who don't figure to play a big role in any Giants surge at the plate. Torres is a reserve outfielder who ran into one, and Downs is likely the odd man out with Freddy "Ouch, my Knee" Sanchez coming back.
It took 914 innings, but the Giants finally enjoyed a lead by stringing together some hits early, prompting a run on emergecy rooms all over the West Coast as Giants fans (or those willing to still admit to being same) reported seing halluciantions. Fortunately, Jonathan Sanchez did his best to restore the natural order of things by melting down in the fifth. After schooling the Padres twice yet getting no offensive support, he picked NOW to give up a five-hit inning and watch a two-run lead become a similar deficit.
It seems to be a trend -- Giants pitchers totally unwilling to accept the largess of their offensive bretheren. They must view runs like some kind of infection that needs to be fought off at any cost. Fortunately for the Giants, they have the cure.
Tell me, how many times is Eli Whiteside going to be sent to the plate in a crucual situation? Yes, he's hitting .300 -- in a very limited sample size. He's never hit at any level. His Little League coach tells stories of how young Eli yielded to a stray schnauzer when a pinch hitter was needed. Saying he's a hitter is like saying you only date supermodels because the one date you had in ninth grade turned out to be a looker --after she dumped you.
The last time Whiteside and "clutch" were metioned in the same sentence was in relation to his ability to shift grears on his grandfather's '57 Ford Falcon. But with another catcher on the bench, Botch-y allowed Whiteside to kill two more rallies with weak two-out ABs.
My theory? Whiteside has photos. Of what, I have no idea --but I'm sure there are farm animals involved.
Eventually Downs produced, cementing his bus ticket back to Fresno and allowing Wilson to do what Giants relievers do best -- heighten blood pressure. Walks, hits, the obligatory brain fart on a would-be double play ball hit to Uribe, and suddenly David Eckstein is at the plate.
Eckstein is the Giants' kryptonite. He's like a coachroach -- it's not what he eats or carries away, it's what he falls into and ruins. If something goes bad for the Giants, he's somewhere nearby. His double (aided by Rowand's route to the ball that went by way of Temecula) put the tying run in scoring position and had me resigned to the fact that the Giants would find yet another Wes Craven-like way to blow the game. Then Wilson managed a strikeout of Headley to end it, once again proving the best defensive effort by the Giants consists of not letting anyone attempt to field the ball.
So, it's a good news / bad news day. Good news: the Giants finally beat the Padres and now they get out of town. The bad news: Todd Wellemeyer pitches tongiht.
God help us.
With the spectre of an 0-8 start against the division leaders squaring them straight in the face, the Giants fianally managed to squeak out a win and escaped with a split of the abbreviated series -- avoid a torrent of comentary alternating between denial and fatlism as the teams await their next meeting in August. Thank God the Giants don't return to Petco until Sepetember 9. Maybe by then some good electro-shock therapy can erase the memory.
Leave it to the Giants to find an addendum to a long-accepted baseball truism: "Good pitching will defeat good hitting...and good pitching will make mediocre hitting look like crap."
The punchles, feckless, ineffective collection of God-awful stiffs the Giants jokingly call an offense was on full display in Game One of the "not so much a showdown as it is an execution" series with the (choke, gag) division-leading Padres. The Giants dropped to 0-7 against the Friars, to 3-10 in the diivsion, and they kept a rather dubious string intact -- in four games at Petco Park the Giants hadn't so much as sniffed a lead.
I haven't seen anyone this "owned" since Kunta Kinte.
Think about it. Through seven games the Giants scored a grand total of nine runs against a team that was supposed to be the doormat of the division. Some dormat. They pitch well, they hit just enough, and they don't beat themselves like a certain team in Orange and Black. For three straght games I watched a play botched at third that Chase Headley makes in his sleep, and I haven't seen any of their pitchers love-tapping batters with the bases juiced.
Don'tcha just love the unbalanced schedule? We get to see this 10 more times. Yipee!
Yes, they unloaded on the Padres in Game Two, and it's about time. But we've seen this act before. The big blows came from Torres and Downs -- two guys who don't figure to play a big role in any Giants surge at the plate. Torres is a reserve outfielder who ran into one, and Downs is likely the odd man out with Freddy "Ouch, my Knee" Sanchez coming back.
It took 914 innings, but the Giants finally enjoyed a lead by stringing together some hits early, prompting a run on emergecy rooms all over the West Coast as Giants fans (or those willing to still admit to being same) reported seing halluciantions. Fortunately, Jonathan Sanchez did his best to restore the natural order of things by melting down in the fifth. After schooling the Padres twice yet getting no offensive support, he picked NOW to give up a five-hit inning and watch a two-run lead become a similar deficit.
It seems to be a trend -- Giants pitchers totally unwilling to accept the largess of their offensive bretheren. They must view runs like some kind of infection that needs to be fought off at any cost. Fortunately for the Giants, they have the cure.
Tell me, how many times is Eli Whiteside going to be sent to the plate in a crucual situation? Yes, he's hitting .300 -- in a very limited sample size. He's never hit at any level. His Little League coach tells stories of how young Eli yielded to a stray schnauzer when a pinch hitter was needed. Saying he's a hitter is like saying you only date supermodels because the one date you had in ninth grade turned out to be a looker --after she dumped you.
The last time Whiteside and "clutch" were metioned in the same sentence was in relation to his ability to shift grears on his grandfather's '57 Ford Falcon. But with another catcher on the bench, Botch-y allowed Whiteside to kill two more rallies with weak two-out ABs.
My theory? Whiteside has photos. Of what, I have no idea --but I'm sure there are farm animals involved.
Eventually Downs produced, cementing his bus ticket back to Fresno and allowing Wilson to do what Giants relievers do best -- heighten blood pressure. Walks, hits, the obligatory brain fart on a would-be double play ball hit to Uribe, and suddenly David Eckstein is at the plate.
Eckstein is the Giants' kryptonite. He's like a coachroach -- it's not what he eats or carries away, it's what he falls into and ruins. If something goes bad for the Giants, he's somewhere nearby. His double (aided by Rowand's route to the ball that went by way of Temecula) put the tying run in scoring position and had me resigned to the fact that the Giants would find yet another Wes Craven-like way to blow the game. Then Wilson managed a strikeout of Headley to end it, once again proving the best defensive effort by the Giants consists of not letting anyone attempt to field the ball.
So, it's a good news / bad news day. Good news: the Giants finally beat the Padres and now they get out of town. The bad news: Todd Wellemeyer pitches tongiht.
God help us.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Think I'm right? Think I'm crazy? Got different slant on things? Bring it on!