Giants Midnight Replay

The Meat Grinder

The meat grinder continues to grind. …..(wow, john miller just said meat grinder when I was typing that!) ….. I just think that Meat Grinder is the perfect nickname for Aaron Rowand. He is obviously a serious Lunk Head (aka.. he is dumb as the dirt that he is standing on) but he has some sort of strange Lennie Small qualities. He is admirable because of his single mindedness. Maybe he is kind to small animals and raises pigeons or something. I can see him trying to relate to some sort of life form who has the same intellect level as him. (wow that was harsh, sorry if you’re some sort of intellectual Rowand). He is a grinder, we all know that. But a sort of inadequate small grinder that you have to hand crank. Hence the name…. Meat (cause he’s dumb) and Grinder (cause grinding is all he knows).. Take it or leave it, the bastard really helped us tonight…. strangely. 

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The Omar Vizquel Defensive Achievement Award goes to: 

Tim Lincecum for the play that will most likely be on all the highlight shows, getting hit by the ball, running after it, and sliding very similarly like a play he made last year, and throwing the runner out at first. Tremendous play, enjoyable to watch. 

The Velez Terrible Defense Award goes to:

Brandon Belt, kicking a roller to first when you have runners on the corners is not a good way to break out of a slump. Brandon did take some fly balls in right before the game though. …….. so there’s that.

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The Holden Caulfield Award (hero) goes to:

Brian Wilson striking out the 9th. Brian is the Keystone (not the beer) in the cathedral that is the 2011 Giants. We are building on the fact that we can count on him to slam a door in the faces of our foes. Wilson needed this, so did the Giants, and so did we.

The Phonies Award (goat) goes to:

Juan Uribe for being a bitch after getting hit by Lincecum. Please dude. We just gave you a big fat expensive ring……. just take your base. You don’t have to tell the ump that Tim has hit you before. Don’t be an idiot, it was a 3-2 pitch. 

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Extra Stuff

oh…. this is kinda a nice look! I like this.

Ya… actually Kemp.. this is almost in the strike zone, what are you doing the limbo for?

Another epic gun-down by Posey. This one is Mostly Timmy’s doing with his new and improved “release time” out of the stretch. 

I know Bochy put this hit and run on….. but oooooh man this looks bad. Tejada got thrown out by soo much that he could have made a run down out of it. 

Can’t believe Pablo hit a double swinging at this pitch. This guy can be amazing. 

There was a LLF sighting (Little Lord Fontenot) unfortunately he has made little of his very limited playing time this year with a 0-9. I’m still rooting for you buddy. 

I’ve seen Zito roaming the dugout 5 or six times this season when he was not pitching. He is always wearing his hat like this…. It reminds me of the farmers who used to plow the fields around where I grew up in the Central Valley (Exeter). He also reminds me of some kind of western town sheriff. 

How annoying is that fan… the one in red who is walking in front row. Think about throwing down that much money for tickets and then it’s the 7th inning, it’s tied game, with a runner on 3rd. The 1-1 pitch is coming to potentially change the game and some total fucking retarded asshole is like “hey… um excuse me… um pardon me…. um… just trying to get to my seats…. umm sorry… just had to get some garlic fries…. meeep … haha…. excuse me…  umm pardon….” SERIOUSLY!!!! Don’t even come to the fucking game, if you don’t know how NOT to ruin the game for others then cheer from your fucking house. STAY HOME!!!

Ouch! Nate doesn’t even wear protection on his hands in this weather. 

This clown…….

And this clown…. on the other hand, have to wear two different versions of the October flap hat just to stay warm……. pussies!

I figured that I would put this picture in there. My cat Truman is an essential part of my baseball viewing experience. 

This is How to Lose at Baseball

This whole game wasn’t a total loss. There were some sweet moments. The only one I remember was Uribe crying when he got his ring. Which was a nice moment for him and the fans. But you have to think about this…. does Uribe get this moment if Stow doesn’t get beat up in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium last week? So… in that sense it’s kind of a manufactured moment… right? just weird, but nice. 

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The Omar Vizquel award goes to:

This one will reluctantly go to Madison Bumgarner. He really doesn’t deserve it. But his pickoff of Kershaw at first base was nice to see. It was sneaky and well executed. Even though Kershaw looked like he made it back to me. (again…. the fucking umps)

The Velez Award goes to:

oh my so many to choose from tonight. Where to begin. I guess this will have to go to Pat the Brick with his weighty brick glove and no-body defense in left field. You must put your body in front of the ball. He made and ass of himself out there. Also where the hell is the Rowand to back him up when the ball gets past him. uuuuugh

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The Sherlock Holmes Award (Hero) goes to:

….No…….. you know what…… I ain’t giving this award to anyone. No one deserved it today. 

The Professor Moriarty Award (goat) goes to: 

The Umps. They just straight up got it wrong during this game, bad strike calls, bad non-calls, bad base-path calls. Just bad game all around, I wonder if there is a rotation of umps that make sure that we get good umps once in a while or does the NL West just get a bunch of cast-off garbage?

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More Garbage.

Bumgarner’s throw was too slow over to first base and Kemp’s Steal turned into a run shortly after.

Sanchez has a rare dropped ball, of course it happens now, just like everything else. 


This is all you need to know about tonight’s umps…… This was called a strike. I’m not joking…. and….


This was called a ball two batters later…… NOT JOKING.

Rod Barrajas ruined my fucking night last year. I was working at my job in Manhattan, and ran out after work to catch the last part of the Giants and Mets game. I took the 7 train all the way out to Queens to see if I could get into the stadium late. It was the 8th inning and I found a $5 ticket from a scalper. I ran in, through the oddly out of place Jackie Robinson pavilion and up the stairs. I found my girlfriend who had been there the entire game, she was standing in the walkway behind 3rd base. We watched the last three innings standing there. They went to extras and after a couple of scoreless innings Rod “mutha-fauckin” Barrajas hits a walk off home run to crush night. He did it again tonight, just not as dramatic. 

I didn’t get the chance to screenshot the other two close grounders that got past Tejada, This one got past Sandoval, but I am beginning to lump them together defensively. 

oooooohhh nice picture. ………. actually you know what! I am really getting sick of all the free advertising that Toyota is getting on my blog. If I had some quick way to blot that STUPID Toyota symbol out I would. Like anyone drives a Toyota. Do you know anyone with a Toyota? I don’t. I hate sponsorships. 

Regardless of what the barbarians did to our man Stow in LA, I don’t like to see this kind of unity. It’s like Stephen Colbert breaking character, or Brian Wilson breaking character. It just kinda ruins stuff. Plus if it takes ruining 100+ years of good rivalry to convince San Francisco fans not to ruthlessly savage each other then I am ashamed of everyone. Affeldt and Carroll sounded like my 4th grade teacher out there before the game…… I’m not saying that their message was not correct, I’m just saying that if we need someone talk to us like grade-schoolers, as if we were watching an old PSA on tv, then we need to consider having a “common sense awareness” auction or 5k run.

Jeremy Affeldt starring as……. Your 4th grade substitute teacher. (in your best teacher voice) “ummmm guys,…. hitting each other is bad, and I don’t think you should do it anymore” …….. I mean come on, everyone knows those dudes in LA are degenerates who probably never even finished 4th grade. I just can’t believe it came to this, Affeldt telling me to be nice. uuuugh, my life is moving backwards. 

oh god,….. on the flip side….. I am glad that Carroll didn’t get straight up booed. It was pretty brave of him to even get near the mic at AT&T park. 

Sure Brandon is struggling. But there is something in his face when he is swinging at all those bad pitches that scares me even more. Between swings he looks  contemplatively at his bat. He will furrow his brow and wipe some imaginary April sweat from it. He has the face that I had back in the 8th grade when I had just done amazingly while playing the lead role of Tom Sawyer in the first half of the play we were putting on that year. Only to realize that I had a whole other half to go and I had seriously slacked off on the memorizing part of the latter half of the play. I stumbled around some lines, made a blowfish face with my mouth, looked at the ground, looked at my frantic teacher mrs. (forgot name) who was mouthing ghost words in my direction……. Just shear panic. That’s what this face means to me. 

And of course it wouldn’t be a real Giants game without a late meaningless solo home run. Thanks Pat Burrell. 

Gee Shucks guys! Let’s go get’em tomorrow…….. or we can just get steamrolled like we did today, what the hell!

Cleaning the Desktop: Beards, Golden Puppies, and The Zito Stache

Misc news day here as the Giants gear up to take on the Father’s later today. 

1. So I guess I should have been paying more attention to www.brianwilson38.com because apparently at some point in the last two days they held the first round of the beard competition and I got blown out of the water. Even though I was the FUCKING 2 SEED in the whole 16 beard braket I got taken down by one of the tourney’s ringers Zach Galifianakis. Not that it’s terrible to lose to a hilarious comedian and fellow Brooklyner. But losing is very UN-Brian Wilson. So for all those who were going to vote for me….. thanks, and sorry for failing so hard. 

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Some other cleaning up to do for the site. 

2. After extensive voting on the “KFMGP” Award (Kevin Frandsen Memorial Golden Puppy Award) goes to Brandon Belt, even though he does not qualify for the #1 criteria for being a recipient, which is….. “• They receive way more attention specifically from the female contingent of fans than is proportionate to how good they are.“ 

I hope this KFMGP Award does not bring about the swift professional demise that it did for it’s previous recipients. 

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3. This shirt……. Size Small….. Under the tree next year please!!!!!It represents all that is terrible in fashion… a. Fucking huge wrap around print.  b. Your wearing a huge man on your back. c. Guaranteed to be out of style before you can even hit the purchase button.  d. Could only be more terrible if it had a equally terrible player on it. (Velez?) e. I fucking want this!!!!!!

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4. You know when you pass a bum on the street (I know you feel me on this one SF) and he has a pretty good sign……. Like you are almost like…. “Ya I’ll give that guy some money, cause I’ve never seen a better sign”   Well…. tell me where to send money for this guy cause he has the best sign I’ve ever seen at a Giants game. (I forgot who’s tumblr I stole this from….. sorry)
 Bonus points for the sweet stache. 

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Speaking of sweet staches, let’s end this post on a high note.  Here’s the promised gallery of Zito Staches. Enjoy
What is with this facebook photo style interview? Might as well have Zito pose in front of a mirror with a cell phone to interview him. 
The death stare. (don’t fuck with my ERA suckas)
Sad Mustache


“Haaaaaayyyyyooooooo”     or      ”Yaaaaaaaawwwwn”

The Kid, the Sheriff and Shotgun


The hell you lookin at!

Straight classin up the joint, 


And yes there will be coverage of today’s game. 

To Live and Die in LA

Look how empty that stadium is……. 

It’s hard enough to lose a game 4 to 3 when you straight up get beat. It’s even harder when you beat yourself. Tonight and last night we fucking beat ourselves. Tejada doesn’t turn well on the first leg of a double play…. we lose. Today… Sanchez drops a dribbler…… we lose. When you have 5 errors in your first two games, then you are beating yourself on defense. The fact that no one is getting clutch hits does not help. 

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The Omar Vizquel Award goes to : 

Tejada for laying down the most perfect bunt I’ve seen in a while. 

The Velez Award goes to:

Sanchez, when you take your goddam eyes off the ball you fucking lose the fucking game…… get your shit together John. 

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The Chris Knight Award (hero) goes to: 

Brandon Belt. nuff said. 

The Prof. Jerry Hathaway Award (goat) goes to: 

John Sanchez, it’s hard to get both the Velez and the Goat award for the night, but Sanchez truly cost the Giants the game. a botched bouncer, and a leadoff walk to the pitcher is the diference between a win and a loss. 

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F. Sanchez with the first bumble of the night. 

Space cadet Zito tries to keep his neck still so he doesn’t get sore. 

Blooped to death in LA.

Haaaaaaaaaai guys! …….. Haaaaaaaaiii Burrell!

A lead off walk to the pitcher. Hello 2008 John Sanchez.

The perfect bunt. 

An errant throw by Pablo = error #5 of the season. 

Belt is happy. 

The title of this blog is a grandaddy song. It’s a good song, pretty much sums up how I feel about SoCal. 

This Week In Giants Facial Hair. (#3)

What sets men apart from boys…. besides being able to buy beer? Men can grow facial hair, ok…. men can bring gnarly amounts of hair to the surface of their faces. Let us sit and celebrate, mock, and marvel over the facial hair of your San Francisco Giants. 

Latest & Greatest

What’s going on in this picture? What Ishi is bringing to the table might just be a more molded and extended version of what he had before.

 But to me it is looking more like a facial hair style that has been unofficially banned from the Giants clubhouse……. More specifically THIS ONE:

 

Yes… I said it… “The Velez” has been officially baned from the clubhouse. Also…. Yes I AM trying to mention Velez in EVERY blog I do. 

Also it looks like Cody Ross is keeping the World Series beard. I see no evidence of him having one before last year. 

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Best Facial Hair of The Year …. (so far)

I just picked up a copy of this on Saturday…. This mustache makes me weep with joy. Sadly the scum-stash is gone…… hopefully not forever. 

Worst Facial Hair This Year…. (so far)

Hands down Jeremy Affeldt has had and currently has the worst facial hair ever. It straight up reminds me of a vagina.

Please Jeremy…. listen to reason… it looks terrible. Your a decent looking guy, but your ruining it with that landing strip. Stop…. please. 

Look at him during his Reds days… so much better. 

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There has been a lot of hair sticking out all over the field lately. Sometimes when I’m looking at a player I can see the hair sticking out behind from behind their neck. My hair used to be like that. (no I don’t have pics). I’ve noticed Pippen rocking an inordinate amount of hair lately. Just a huge mane back-flowing out the neck, pretty epic. But if he doesn’t watch out it he could be visited by the mullet fairy one night. 

Newcomer Culberson has been rocking the same hair wad. It’s as if they have an exhaust pipe out the back of their heads and a cloud of brown smoke got petrified on the way out.  

But when you can see a BEARD coming out the sides of a neck from BEHIND. THAT is EPIC. 

Congrats Brian…. your beard has passed the “fully epic” stage. 

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Random Scruff

Rowand, rocking his boxy scruff, a stupid smirk, his gamer stains. Too bad you can’t see it, cause his head is waaaaay up his ass. 

The only thing about Whiteside’s scruff is that it might be the only part of his hair that is not FULLY grey. It’s a small island of youth still clinging to his chin. 

Pablo….. This looks bad. either go for a beard, a mustache, or nothing. 

Scruff to the future?

See You Latos

 

Giants win 6 to 4….. BUT I don’t care what happened the rest of the game. We got Latos for four runs in the first. And that makes me happy. 

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Last year while working at my old place of employment I had a running dialog with one of my co-workers Sinclair, who just happened to be a Boston Red Sox fan. It was around this time last year and the Giants were killing it in spring training. I was listening to all the games since it had been a long off season. Every day I would trudge through the snow on my way to serve skinny lattes to god-awful Carroll Gardens dwellers. But every day I had one more victory to goad about when I got to work. Finally when spring training was almost over I was once again rubbing the Giants spring training record in Sinclair’s face…. I remember him saying… ” You know they don’t hand out rings for winning the Cactus League” ……”Don’t they……” I said “Don’t they”… At that point….sure…. I was full of shit. But I did add…”we’ll see”. 

I quit that job, it was a nightmare. My boss was am overbearing lady with no real experience with running a coffee shop. I left for greener pastures, my friend Sinclair stayed there and eventually became manager. I came back to visit him after the Giants won the world series, naturally and reminded Sinclair of our conversation. 

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The Tony Soprano Award goes to: LBR OK OK, I know that I debated a nickname for Fontenot last week, but man he CRUSHED that ball tonight. So I will call him Little Babe Ruth….. just for today
 
The Mikey Palmice Award goes to: Mat Latos because Palmice acted like a whiney bitch and so does Latos sometimes. 

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    The Omar Vizquel Award goes to: Pablo Sandoval

I know he was charged with two errors but he was PICKIN it tonight!

 

    The Eugenio Velez Award goes to:

Burriss….. Sorry Burriss, I know the ground is hard and the hops in spring training are weird, but you gotta make one of those two plays. 

  

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A couple of players broke out of their slumps tonight. Good for you cabbage patch kid!

 

Rowand: “Yeah… I think this strange appendage hanging out of my right shoulder is what is wrong with my swing”

Bochy: “uuuuuhh……. I think that’s your arm”

Rowand: “ya that thing”

 

dude…. look how short Fontenot is compared to the ump…. thats crazy!

 

They Finnerty’s in NYC where my girlfriend and I watched the game, I thought it would be cool to snap a screenshot when they showed it on TV. Turns out that both of us are in it. I’m wearing the Giants hat on the lower left corner with the beard, and my girl is in front of me in the beanie. Yay, that about 1:30 of my 15 minutes already used up.

 

Bobbles:

Pablo get eaten up at the hot corner

Daigle is killing me, he always comes in late and blows meaningless games, which I don’t really care about, but it makes the game drag on and on! “Dude… You forgot the ball”

Raj “So you got a hit….. That’s good”

Rowand ………………………..(crickets)……………………

Brandon Belt, snaps out of his “slump” with this hit. 

Kevin Frandsen is a cute puppy who wants to snuggle in your armpit. 

Here’s to you skinny Pablo

Yeah… Little Babe Ruth…… just for today. 

After hitting a ball to the fence in dead center Brandon Crawford tries to bolster his chances at the coveted KFGPA (Kevin Frandsen Memorial Golden Puppy Award)

Minor Victories

Patrick hits one out opposite field. 

There is something about spring training games that do not lend to television. The absence of the crowd, the lack of real lighting on the field, and the terrible black spring training jerseys that do nothing to help the viewer pick the player out of the background of sad local advertisements and night sky. There is something inherently not as exciting about the Pat Burrell home run than if he hit it while wearing home creams or road grays.

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With that said.

Data (hero) of the game:

• Cody Ross for breaking it open with a 2-run double.

Lore (goat) of the game:

• Yorvit Torrealba…. WTF, how does this lifetime .257 hitter seem to be on every team we play, and hit everything that we throw him?

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Velez Award goes to:

• Daigle for dropping a routine comebacker that he had gloved and was walking over to flip to Belt. 

….. It could have gone to Pablo for this, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since the infield is probably getting hard. 

 

The Omar Award goes to:

• Burriss and DeRosa for turning a fancy double play. 

 

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Random Screenshots.

Skinny Pablo says……… this is for you Texas

 

Caveman

 

The Maestro speaks

Caveman….. pickin boogers

 

Cody getting a great read on the ball

Buh-Bye-Burrell

BTW… Whuuuuut Pablo steals a base?!

The Kevin Frandsen Memorial, Golden Puppy Award Candidates

Last year I branded Kevin Fransen “a lovable puppy”. Now I want to make it a tradition. I intend to give the KFMGPA (Kevin Frandsen Memorial Golden Puppy Award) to a new player every year. The requirements are:

• They receive way more attention specifically from the female contingent of fans than is proportionate to how good they are. (aka. girls think they are “hot”)

• They are not a super star. (Sorry Buster, and Timmy)

• They kind of look like they are a puppy.

• They are not super intelligent (sounds like all ball players are safe here).

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Here are the candidates.

#1. Alex Hinshaw

While Hinshaw might have looks that could mow down a 14 year old wearing a Noah Lowry shirt, his low 90s fastball has a hard time even getting past your average bat. Which I suppose makes him a perfect candidate.

Girlfriend says: Hinshaw gets….. 3.5 Steve Finley’s out of 5 possible Steve Finley’s

#2. Thomas Neal

Better known as @Tdaddyneal on twitter, is taking the social network path into the hearts of female San Francisco fans.

Girlfriend says: ….. 2 Steve Finley’s out of the possible 5.

#3. Brandon Belt

Don’t let that docile southern drawl draw you in ladies. This guy crushes ladies and baseballs. Aside from this guy’s non-neck he is in the clear lead so far.

Girlfriend Says:……. 3.75 Steve Finley’s out of 5

#4. Emmanuel Burriss

Burriss is on track to smash the modern day SF Giants record for “guy you see the most that never plays”. But again, it’s that babyface that make you think he’s never been taken out at 2nd on a double play breakup. Now if he could only keep his fragile feet from breaking he would be about as useful to the Giants as the guy who we named this award after. (just kidding burriss, we love you man)

Girlfriend Says:… 3 Steve Finley’s out of a possible 5 Mcdreamy’s

#5 Nate Schierholtz

Are you kidding me…… The keeper of the key to most abs in baseball, proves that the only thing he is lacking is some hair on his dome and a decent shot at becoming more than a defensive replacement. Just look at those fucking abs!!!!

Girlfriend Says: 3.25 Steve Finley’s out of 5 Steve Finley’s

Wild Card…..

Brandon Crawford..

I’m throwing this guy in the mix cause…. crazy girl attracting eyes + Minor League Talent = Kevin Frandsen 2.0

Girlfriend Says: …….. sorry….. she went to sleep.

Time to honor past winners.

2008, 2009 and 2010 KFMGPA goes to: The original Golden Puppy himself, Kevin Frandsen

2007 KFMGPA goes to: Noah Lowry…….. retroactively

Ok … everyone vote, or I will have to just pick one.

If I Can’t Have a World Series

If there is no way that we could win the World Series in 2011, then there are still some things that would make me happy to see as a Giants fan.

#1. Matt Cain throws a No-Hitter. Even after a World Series ring AND not allowing a run in the post season, I am afraid that Matt Cain is still woefully overlooked. The plain fact is that he is SUPER DOMINANT! Every time I see him lose a 1 run game in the 8th I want to cry. Cain has thrown:

2 hit game through the 8th 2 times

1 hit game through the 8th 2 times

3 hit game through the 9th 3 times

2 hit game through the 9th 1 time

1 hit game through the 9th 2 times

12 Complete Games and 

4 Shutouts.

The only stat in these categories that Lincecum even comes close to matching him is shutouts. We all know that Cain has a no-hitter in him somewhere. he has gotten soo close, his ability to shut down a game is amazing. 

#2. Kung Fu Panda the sequel. There is nothing that I would love more than to see all those morons with panda hats on enjoying their purchase once again. There are no stats to back up what I want here, I just know that “thinner” pablo has a better shot of being 2009 pablo than Panda-tha-hut does. 

#3. Brandon Belt gets some trophies. Between 1992-1996 LA Dodgers rookies won 5 consecutive Rookie of the Year awards. And through all that they won 0 World Series. Which is pretty surprising because among the 14 N.L. ROYs since there have been 6 World Series winners. We are already 1 for 1 so… let’s get this goggly-eyed kid some hardware.

#3.5 Wilson Giants Saves Record. He is sitting on 134 saves right now just 72 behind All-Time Giants record of 206 by Rob Nen. So I guess that maybe this season is a little early to get close to that, but…. when can we start talking about it? It’s gonna happen soon.

#4. Andres Torres gets Golden. Andres Torres needs a Golden Glove like I need a cup of coffee right now. The fact that Jeter got one last year and Torres didn’t just proves that it is nothing to really brag about. This guy is the heart and soul of our team he needs something for his mantle. 

#5. Barry Zito Dominates. I don’t know how he will do it? I don’t know why, but all I want for next season is for Zito to rip through batters and re-prove himself. I know that this will not happen, but I am contented to think that it can happen though. Let’s see that snappy 12-6 curve come back and that pinpoint control. A great year for Zito would bring him that much more respect, and me an ounce of pride for cheering him on.