Giants Midnight Replay

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!!!!

Last Week In Giants

High light of the game (and possibly the week)

To say that the only Giants game that I will be able to see at AT&T this year was a downer is a huge understatement. Here are the facts. 

1. We lost

2. It was damn cold (I forgot how cold SF gets… yes I’m an idiot).

3. I had standing room only tickets

4. EVERYONE was there early. Gone are the days where I would show up 2 hours early and was almost guaranteed to be able to catch a BP ball. Oh well, for better or worse… right?

5. I had just had my car impounded for parking on Mission street during rush hour (FUCKSHITDAMNFUCKING $475 later I got my car back!!!!)

The best seat in the house.

If you buy standing room only. 

So ya, I enjoyed coming home, I enjoyed being at AT&T again. But I am much more looking forward to the Giants Vs Mets game at CITI Field where I have seats 17 rows behind the Giants dugout. And tickets are only $30 because the Mets are TERRIBLE. 

But enough about me. Let’s talk about what the Giants are up to. 

I’m just going to go through a couple of players and spout what I have been thinking about. 

Fontenot

Can I get an amen? If given playing time I feel like Fontenot represents more runs saved on defense and more runs created on offense than Tejada. I know I am echoing someone but I get nervous every time the ball is hit to SS. 

Pat Burrell

I want this guy in the lineup every day. Sure he makes a lot of outs, but he always takes at least 4 pitches. One of the shining examples of how to take an at bat. 

Aaron Rowand

From now on I will probably not mention how garbage Rowand was. For Rowand we are going to have to put blinders on. I don’t remember what happened to Rowand last year… do you? All I know is there is some dude who looks like he sits on a toilet when he swings and he is saving our ass, game in and game out. 

Darren Ford

…..Has more World Series Rings than Major league hits, and he totally deserves it. 

2011 All Stars

1. Posey

2. Pablo

3. Timmy

4. Either Cain… or Wilson… not sure which one yet. 

The Dog House. 

1. Tejada (told you so)

2. Huff, but it’s not entirely his fault, he is hitting it into the defense a lot of the time. 

3. Ross,….. is he playing for his job now? maybe. 

4. The rotation, I know… I love them too, but they need to start getting deep into games or our bullpen will be all used up at the end of the season. My recommendation is to get Kroon, and Edelfson up here to help out for a while, drop Burriss and carry an extra reliever to keep the pressure off. 

Last thing…

I see this sign every time I go to the park…. and I wonder… how the hell is a ball (or a freaking bat!) going to get back to the last row of the last section before the arcade, about 20 rows under the overhang and still be “flying”?

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. 

Don’t Call Him Garbage

You can say a lot of things about Aaron Rowand, but you can’t say that he has given up. I seriously dislike the Giants association with Rowand, but I can’t fault him as a human. He just grinds……… sometimes he grinds a little too hard on sliders thrown outside and in the dirt. But the bastard just grinds. Here’s to you Rowand, keep grinding. Who knows, maybe we won’t miss Ishikawa so much, maybe Rowand becomes an amazing pinch hitter. 

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The Omar Vizquel Award goes to:

Pat Burrell for closing on a well hit ball in left field and making a nice jumping play….. I know…. you don’t remember that do you, that’s cause the game lasted 9 hours! 

The Velez Award goes to: 

Tejada for two miscues, one is stepping on his glove the other was picking up a grounder that should have been Sanchez’s in the 9th that proved to be an infield hit. 

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The Tina Turner Award (hero) goes to: Rowand for getting two big hits, when no one is really on his side (including myself)

The Ike Turner Award (goat) goes to: Brian Wilson for not throwing strikes. Sorry buddy, you wanna be a bad-ass and close games, you gotta throw strikes and shut the door. Screw the dramatic flare, close that shit down. 

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Some extras. 

Huff Miscue #1

Huff miscue #2


Yeah….. The Cardinals don’t really care about this. They are here to ruin our fun!


Sanchez’s breaking pitch was really working today. 

Affeldt needs to open his eyes when he swings.

Tejada makes good on his first swing at AT&T.

Do we need to do more ground ball practice for pitchers? Seriously guys. 

It’s conclusive evidence folks, Burrell is juicing. JK. But seriously, he is crushing balls! (haha)

Sanchez hits a double…….. that’s big Johnny Sanchez, not F. Sanchez.

This was a key play, unfortunately those bastards who were scoring the game didn’t give torres a hit OR a stolen base……. come on guys, your killing my fantasy team!!!

Sorry Affeldt, but your swing SUCKS!!! hahahaha

This is garbage!!! Lose with some dignity you batty old fart! Don’t pull 5 guys into the infield. uuuugh. I HATE Tony LaRussa! I hate him even more because it totally worked!

This is how long the game went, soo long that the announcers started talking about their meat. 

More Umpire garbage, this same spot was called a ball on Wilson at least 3 times in the 9th. 

There Will Be Blood

I tried…. I tried REALLY hard to save the Zito stache phenomenon until I could do a “This Week In Giants Facial Hair” post…. But it’s not possible, it was on full display tonight. This shapely “Nose Mullet” is THE nicest I have seen on a pitching mound since Clay Zavada. Can you attribute Zito’s future dominance to his new “Tom Selleck”? That would be a resounding YES! Is it a major reason why the Giants won 4 to 1 tonight? YES!

Zito I am your eternal fan if you keep the stache! I take back all the bad things I said about you. I will forget the fact that your an emotional wreck with a philosophical attachment to surfboards and other self-absorbed-beach culture douchiness.

Keep the “Plainview” Barry, if you know what is good for you. 

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The Kafka Tamura Award (Hero) goes to: 

Pablo Sandoval for the 38 lbs lighter defensive show he put on in the 4th inning. Pablo also got the first RBI of the night.

The Johnnie Walker Award (Villain) goes to: 

Gio Gonzalez, cause you gotta recognize greatness! This guy is a beast straight up! I would not be surprised if he wins a Cy Young at some point soon.

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The Omar Vizquel award goes to:  

Pat Burrell, There isn’t many times where I can give the award to him. So I gotta do it when I can. Nice Catch Burrell, nice catch. 

The Velez Award goes to:

Andy LaRoche was having a bad day all around. He had a wide throw to first base on a double play chance, and also this bungled ball. 

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Extra goodness. 

OMG these guys are insane homers! I am so happy to have our broadcasters, every time something doesn’t go their way its “NOOOOO” from the fucking peanut gallery. 

Hey look…  smiles!

Coco smiles!

Exhibition game smiles!

Game face bitches!

Zito was about 11 inches away from giving up his 1 run lead early.

Holy crap, DeRosa has a HUGE backside! Just sayin…… just sayin…

DeRosa’s big ass is slowing him down on this foul pop-up.

As much as I hate Panda hats, imagine if this was your only hat choice. Actually imagine if that was your job, making like 2,000 ballon hats. 

Don’t forget the little guy’s contribution an RBI double in the 7th. Fontenot is another player that is better than Rowand

A missed sign gets Andy Laroche into a “Fun”-down in the 5th.

I swear if Schierholtz loses his job and Rowand keeps his I will be pretty irrate. Two batters after Rowand waved frantically at a high pitch Nate blasts this one deep into center field.

Tomorrow I will post my season “Preview”.

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)

Escape From Swirling Trash City

Giants steal one from the Mets 6 to 5

Screenshot of the game.

Wear it kid……. wear it and like it! Sure maybe that last inside pitch by Wilson was not a strike, but we were all REALLY cold and tired of freezing our ballz off.

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3 out of 5 Neukoms

It’s hard to really judge this game on the merits of “Fundamental baseball”. When you have a game where:

- Uribe get on base 5 times has 4 walks, is hit by a pitch and has no official ABs!!!!!

- Lincecum makes an excellent play on a high bouncing ball in back of the mound.

- And at the same time you have plays like this one. (which by the way was not Torres’s fault for the record. The wind there was like nothing I have ever seen in my life…. gnarly)

- And this play

- yet still record 11 walks in all…. crazy. 

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The Little Red Riding Hood award (hero) goes to Brian Wilson for K’ing 5 out of the 6 batters that he faced, and putting an end to my shivering misery. And Rowand for manning up and hitting a ball opposite field in the swirling wind for a 2 run HR. 

The Big Bad Wolf award (villan) goes to David Wright who was acting like a bitch, and a bonus villan award goes to the wind. This game was the coldest fucking game that I have EVER been to. Also it took forever!

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 here are some extra shots. 
Brian Wilson at bat?!?!

Love all this trash blowing across the field. 

Luis Castillo goes trash hunting between innings.

Was the called 3rd strike on D. Wright a payback call for this missed call? Probably not, but let’s just say that both sides got pretty nice calls.

More of D. Wright getting all up in yooo bizzness. He had a reason…

Rowand puts us on top for good. 

This was where are tickets were for. We didn’t stay long because of the crazy ass wind.

We ended up here because it was the least windy part of the whole park, which isn’t saying much.

This was my final resting place….. I watched the last two innings here, huddled in the fucking wind tunnel that is, (sh)Citi Field.

- Ya it looks warm doesn’t it……. I saw some guy’s wig fly half off. 

- So at one point I look over and there is a mini tornado of trash swirling around Schierholtz in the outfield……….. sucks

- also.. just a note….. give respect to Braden for pitching a perfect game today. I got A’s love, just because I got Bay Area love. 

What to Do With Headhunters

Some might ask…… What is wrong with Vicente Padilla?

Well…… a lot. 

He has instigated two bench clearing brawls by throwing repeatedly at batters. 

He was accidentally shot in the leg by his bodyguard.

He has hit 103 batters in his 8 1/2 years in the league. Including 3 in this young season.

He was “reguarded as a disruptive clubhouse presence” by the Texas Rangers.

He was the first professional sports star to catch swine flu…. (of course that is not his fault…. unless he is just a dirty MFer)

But the most pressing issue is what he just did to our leadoff hitter…..

So what do we do about a psychotic pitcher who seems to enjoy throwing a baseball at people’s faces? 

1. Charge the mound

2. Nothing

3. Wait till he steps into the batter’s box and then send him some chin music. 

All three options are pretty lame, If you do nothing then you are saying that it’s ok for him to do that shit. If you charge the mound you risk getting beat on and totally embarassed/suspended. And If you throw at him you are lowering yourself to his level. 

The best case scenario is if he threw a wild pitch while we have Schierholtz on third. Padilla tries to cover the plate and Nate straight blows him up gangster style. 

Here is some extra stuff on Padilla and how he is kinda crazy.

From a Dodgers fan.

Baseball daily digest

Wel(lemeyer)-come to the big leagues kids (my 100th post!!!)

I knew I could squeeze one more game title out of that name (and for my 100th post yay)!!

Giants lose the opener 8-10 to the Dodgers. 

Screenshot of the game.

-In the 6th inning up 9 to 3 Matt Kemp tries to steal 2nd base (sooo minor leagues)…  but gets tagged when he lifts his foot off the base after the steal. 

This is photo is typical of the young Dodgers core players….. Pulling bullshit like this in a blow-out game. 

- No Neukoms tonight…… The defense really doesn’t matter, when you are losing 7 - 0 in the 2nd inning. 

The Jeff Goldblum award (hero) goes to Rowand for being tough as nails…

The Dinosaurs award (villan) goes to both starting pitchers and Bochy, Wellemeyer for sucking it up big time, Padilla for throwing at Rowand and Bochy for throwing in the white towel too early. When you stage a late inning rally like we did, it makes you question throwing the mops (Waldis and Medders) in early.

In other news

- Rowand takes one to the dome from the ugliest pitcher on earth.

ouch….. have to hand it to the dodgers fans though they were classy enough to cheer when he got to his feet and walked off. 

- Nate Schierholtz walks on 10 pitches

-Velez hits another meaningless HR in the 9th just before Renteria FPOMs the last out.

- Manny takes the day off in the 4th because of “tightness in left calf”…. aka he’s lazy and they are up by 7. 

- In typical Dodgers fan fashion they don’t show up until at least 45 mins after first pitch.

this is 7:05 pm

this is 7:50

- In other news, Vincent Padilla has got to be one of the ugliest mutha-fuckers on the face of this earth. 

- in the  8th inning MLB.tv gets bored and shows an ENTIRE inning from this angle. 

with NO score, NO inning marker, NO anything on the screen. BTW, if you don’t know already, I HATE MLB.TV