Giants Midnight Replay

commentary on the sf giants from 2907 miles away

Stress

I have been stressed lately. Getting finished with my finals, switching jobs, eating a lot of pizza, and watching the Giants….. all of these things stress me out. I want to say that my “magical vacation” to Chicago to see friends and the Giants play at Wrigley Field was a cloud of fun and relaxation, but it really was just more stress. I will fill those blanks in with a post when I get a chance. For now I am wallowing in a couple of stress free days. Now all that stresses me out are the Giants. Why did I even dream that this win would be an easy one?

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The Omar Vizquel defensive inside play of the game goes to:

Nate Schierholtz for making an absolutely balls to the wall flying catch to end the game. If he missed the ball we lose. Flat out spectacular!

The Eugenio Velez defensive mishap of the night goes to:

Miguel Tejada, sure he made an amazing dive to get the ball but how much does that mean when you almost throw it away…. at this point I know I am being petty, the guy is getting better. 

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The Jack Donaghy (hero) award goes to:

Madison Bumgarner, how do you win your first game, hit a double and suppress the hell out of the opposing batters. Madison went all beast-mode on the dodgers today, I’m impressed. 

The Devon Banks (goat) award goes to:

Police people. I know I know, I am suppose to welcome safety to the ballpark right? nah, this just looks like a my house after the kegger I threw in high school got broken up. 

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more stuff:

Fontenot gets the scoring started!

The absolute meanest Pablo face I have ever seen. Awesome!

When you can’t win you just go after the batters I guess. 

I love that look that pitchers have when they can’t believe that they just gave up a hit. 

Soooo close to his first shutout. zoiks. bummer moment here. 

I probably should have giving Fontenot the Velez award today, but I just couldn’t. I like the guy too much. 

Usually a good sign, if you have two outs in the ninth, not today. Brian needs to take a day or two to heal that ankle. 

That is the second batter that got hit tonight. just saying…

Who is this guy? and what has he done with the old crappy Tejada? No joke, let’s pay some respect to a guy who seems to be turning it around. I really do want to root for you buddy, just give me a reason. 

Take notes Darren Ford, this is the only way you are going to make the bigs. 

Posted in madison bumgarner nate schierholtz Mike Fontenot omar vizquel eugenio velez Miguel tejada Jack Donaghy Dodgers Devon Banks Cops Pablo Sandoval andres torres Brian Wilson
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Terribler Than Terrible

“These aren’t your father’s Nationals” That’s what Krukow said on the pregame show. I am assuming he was speaking about the endless futility of the Expos. At the same time Kruk might have a point. The Nationals are not terrible, but to say that the they are not terrible would be a lie. They ARE terrible, but the Giants are terribler. The Giants are the 111 loss 2004 Diamondbacks right now. The Giants are the fucking 43 win 2003 Detroit Tigers right now. The Giants are the fucking 1994-2010 Pittsburg Pirates right now.  The Giants’ bats are limper than a senior citizen’s wrist. Ok let’s leave it at that. So let’s all just do some jumping jacks, loosen up and settle in for a LONG road trip. Let’s enjoy this round of terrible baseball while it lasts. Let’s hope it doesn’t last long. 

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The Omar Award goes to: 

Aubrey Huff for the excellent play down the first base line early in the game. 

The Velez Award goes to:

Aaron Rowand and Cody Ross. I think everyone knows what I am talking about…… Just look at the picture.

“let’s share this ball and be happy” says those dorks.

 

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The Dorus Rijkers Award (Hero) goes to: 

Tim Lincecum who found his good pitches a couple of innings too late. Poor bastard, if you don’t throw a shutout then you pretty much have no shot at winning with this lineup. 

I forgot to snap a pic of Tim tonight so I stole this pic from here..

 

The Sea Award (Goat) goes to:

Jason Marquis who is a mutha fucking Giant KILLER. It’s unbelievable how much the Giants suck right now, and Marquis is just the wrong type of pitcher for us to face right now. I would rather face Halliday, Sabathia, Josh Johnson or pretty much any number of aces. A ground ball pitcher is the last thing I want to see on an upcoming schedule. 

Here he is hitting an RBI hit and run on an impossible pitch to hit. 

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Bonus Crap:

This bunt that worked (but ultimately didn’t work) doesn’t bother me. We are up against a ground ball double play pitcher, and we have a guy on base. Solid option. 

This bunt does bother me, Miguel Tejada, former MVP, former slugger is bunting with no one on base and 36 year old legs. Now Tejada made it to first, I know, fair enough. But it just proves that Tejada knows that he sucks, and in my opinion should not be playing. 

Right after Rowand and Cody decided that they wanted to share a fly ball Nix blasts a 2 run HR. Perfect timing. Can things go worse for the Giants?…….

Yes… Cody (why am I still in the lineup) Ross hits a single and gets throw out by 8-12 feet at 2nd base. 

Buster (Don’t vote for me for the All-Star game ) Posey along with the rest of the Giants hitters swing about 20+ times at this pitch. 

Posey throws his second runner out except he is called safe (make-up-call). This guy went on to score on that impossible hit and run Marquis hit. 

Bring in the scrubs!!!!

Posted in tim lincecum buster posey cody ross sf giants Miguel tejada freddy sanchez jason marquis nationals dorus rijkers aaron rowand omar vizquel Aubrey Huff
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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!

Posted in uribe stow sf giants burrell pat burrell pablo sandoval Miguel tejada freddy sanchez omar vizquel Velez Brandon Belt Bumgarner dodgers affeldt jamey carroll
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Arbitrary Statistics

I have been thinking about statistics again…. It’s really something that I shouldn’t do. I’m not a statistician, I’m not even that good at math. The only A I received in my first two years of college was in Statistics. But that is not saying much.

Although I love what stats do, I cannot pretend to create a statistical category that has any kind of real factual base or value. so I will create a statistical category that mixes stats with what I do best, which is basically to take what I see and say something meaningful to me. 

With all that BS said. I created a category that I call “Win/Loss Assignment”, or “Fault Assignment”. After watching the 2007-2009 seasons I started to think about the games that were lost by mere inches. The games that were lost on an Armando Benitez balk, the games lost on a ground ball bobbled by the great Ivan Ochoa, the games lost because Jose Castillo couldn’t bunt to save his life. I always finished the game thinking, if we lose the division by 1 game I will remember this game. Also I always have hunches as to who is the least valuable player on the team, but I never bothered to tally up who I thought it was. 

So for this exercise in madness I will attempt to:

* Place blame (a point) on one player if we lose a close game (Example: Tejada’s wide throw on the first leg of the double play on opening day).

* Assign a point to a player who obviously wins a close game for us (example: Burrell’s HR off Broxton last year).

* I will stick it to the umpire if it’s his fault (example: last year, vs. Mets, the tag at home that wasn’t).

* If it’s a blowout then I’m just gonna mark it as a blow out. If it’s no ones fault, and it’s just a normal game, then that’s how I’m marking it. 

Without further ado…. here’s what it looks like so far. 

I’ve marked down Tejada for the game 1 loss. I put J. Sanchez down for game 2 for the botched bouncing ball. Game three was a blowout although I would love to give someone credit. But let’s be real, you gotta win the close ones like we did last year. 

If anyone has suggestions on this, let me know. 

Posted in miguel tejada pat burrell Jonathan sanchez sf giants statistics
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INCOMING!!!! Free Agents and Others.

1. Miguel Tejada

Hey Tejada! how many home runs do you think you can hit this year?

…hmmmm ya… I would say more like 9,…. 

Listen I am not allowed to like you, unless you pull off some crazy Aubrey Huff move and impress me to the point of changing my mind. To me you are just another plastic horse on the vetren marry-go-round that has been running for years now. Last year it worked, I was impressed and very happy, but let’s face it. You are no Juan Uribe. What I’m saying is… it’s gonna take a lot to get me to like you. But please try. 

2. Jeff Suppan. 

Jeff ohhhh jeff, You get minus 100 points for falling victim to the douchy shirt desease that is rampaging through major league baseball, but then you get them all back for taking your picture with the one of my favorite Star Trek TNG characters

What can I say about this pitcher that I didn’t already say about last years model. 

Welcome to the shadows buddy. 

NRI (non roster invitees) 

There are two that I am excited about. Besides the Belts and the Crawford who we all know need to start doing well and impressing in spring training, there are a few who have interesting stories or are just weird that I am rooting for. 

1. Jason Stoffel

Speaking of keeping the Giants ugly…. holy shit this guy is one ugly MF-er. I LOVE him. He was drafted as a closer and has been doing a pretty good job of it as he had 25 saves after he got the bump to single A San Jose last year. 

But honestly Jason…. let’s keep your mustache alive, there are already too many goatees in the majors. 

ya that’s better. 

2. Marc Kroon

So many reason to like this guy, he throws 162 km per hour…. for you non Japanese league people, that is about 101 mph. Which is still impressive even after you take into consideration that us americans have bigger balls (no seriously we do).

Also I have a slight obsession with NPB after reading several good books on the league and how they treat Gajin

For one he already played for the Giants and has won a championship with them…. albeit the Yomiuri Giants. 

He seems to be a, Celebrities-visiting-Japan-Magnate.

Oh and he has the COOLEST WEBSITE EVER (RE: crazy, retardedest)

 

Posted in Marc Kroon Miguel Tejada mustache npb sf giants star trek yomiuri giants jason stoffel jeff suppan
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