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 | 6 notes
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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. 

Posted in Juan Uribe Aaron Rowand Brian Wilson Fear the beard Velez Lincecum Brandon Belt Vizquel Dodgers | 32 notes
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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 | 49 notes
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mccoveycove:

I hate reblogging stuff but…… this is classy. I knew there were some classy Dodger fans out there. 

mccoveycove:

I hate reblogging stuff but…… this is classy. I knew there were some classy Dodger fans out there. 

Posted in dodgers giants stow | 242 notes
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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. 

Posted in sf giants giants dodgers brandon belt johnathan sanchez tejada omar vizquel Velez | 9 notes
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Opening Day Call To Arms

My good friend…. who just happens to be a rabid Dodger fan sent me this today. 

Very nice…. very nice…

The thing about rivalries is this:

If the Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t exist…… I would be kind of sad. This great rivalry does not happen without two teams. 

I remember the year that I met said friend (let’s call him….. George Donkov) we were going to school together in the south of France. He was the only other guy in the south of France who liked baseball. When you are in hostil territory (france) you don’t make a big fuss about baseball loyalties. We became good friends and we went on to win some money that year with a joint fantasy baseball team. I think the team name was “California Unity”…. haha. 

Anyway we both took to cheering for Marseille football (soccer) team. Their greatest rival was Paris who was stinking it up about as bad as you can stink it up. They where at the bottom of the standings and had a good chance of being relegated* (check footnote) to League 2. What surprised me the most is how distraught the people of Marseille were. They were seriously pissed at the thought of playing the whole next season with no Paris in League 1. At the end of the year they were outright cheering for their rivals to win so that the rivalry would continue. Now to really understand this you have to realize that in soccer, fans straight up want to kill each other. Once, while standing out front of the official fan’s bar, we had glass bottles thrown at us by passing busloads of Paris fans. This is like two hours before the game started. These two fan bases hated each other sooooooo much. Yet the thought of watching a whole season without the grude matches was unbearable to Marseille fans. 

So in with that in mind…. Thank you LA for being such a perfectly evil team (and place)…. oh and I hope you rot and come in last place this year. 

* If you get relegated in football (soccer) it’s comparable to having your team play in the minors for the entirety of the following season. Each season, the three teams on the bottom of the standings go to League 2 (minor leagues) and the top three teams in the standings on League 2 move up to League 1 (major leagues). Which if that was the case in Major League Basebal, the Pirates, Royals and Orioles would have been in Single A for years now. 

Posted in dodgers dodgers suck sf giants velez Marseille | 2 notes
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Dodger Blues

The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant! .. oh wait.. it’s just a spring training game….. oh.

Ya…. it’s getting to be that time. Even the fans want to start the regular season. Not much to say today. I’m going to a pizza party in Bed-Stuy tonight so I won’t get all flowery on this post. Just gonna say….. WE WON!

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The John Lennon award goes to:

Cody Ross for killing that home run in the 4th even Matt Cain was impressed. 

The Mark David Chapman award goes to:

Javier Lopez….. Your a lefty specialist. You gotta limit the damage with Ethier at the plate. We forgive you, it’s the preseason. But we won’t forgive MDC. I guess it’s kind of harsh to be handing out awards with that dudes named attached. Sorry it’s preseason… I’m only warming up. 

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 On a lighter note. The Velez award goes to:

Runzler for going into a full commando roll after being too slow, taking his eyes off the ball and getting beat to first base by Gwynn. 

 

 The Omar Vizquel award goes to: 

Huff for staying with a weird hop on a bounce hit down that line that came back into play, and tagging the hitter (forgot who this was). 

Bonus Award…!

The Josh Beckett “slowest mutha fucking pitcher ever” award goes to:

Mota who made 2 innings of work breeze by like it was 2 YEARS!!! No wonder Ethier struck out, he probably did so on purpose cause he had to take a bathroom break. 

 

Ya take your time buddy, no hurry.

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Bonus pics: I know it’s only spring but……. check out the average on Buster….  .526!!!


Ya Lincecum… You look nothing like that taxi driver on youtube… Nothing.
 


Interviewer: “So Matt I heard you hurt your arm.”

Matt: “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”


(side note:… I really hate these interviews in the middle of the game thing..it really is not that fun to watch. And as much as I want to relive the World Series I bet Matty, Bumgarner, and Affeldt are pretty sick of it. Especially in the middle of the one game I get to watch all week, cut this shit out. ) 


I felt this one coming….. Pat the Bat launches one. 


Some random fans. 


The whole elvis thing is tired…
 


oh San Francisco. Jam packed full of 20 and 30 somethings with raging cases of Peter Pan syndrome.


Annnnnnnd… The perfect ending. 


Posted in sf giants velez omar vizquel pat burrell matt cain lincecum look-alike buster posey mota josh beckett dodgers huff Dan Runzler javier lopez cody ross | 3 notes
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Don’t Feed The Velez

The Velez is a special creature, not unlike the spooky Thestrals of Harry Potter. While the similarities might stop at being made up of an odd assortment of sticks and skin. One could draw the parallel that only those who have seen death will see a Thestral, and only teams who are already dead would want a Velez.

In the cruel world of the Velez, teams with no real hope of contending will come into the dark forest that is the non-tender land to throw apples or hunks of meat at the Velez.

But ultimately the frightening Velez will banish himself to the dark forest forever with his brick gloves and swiss cheese bat. 

 

Don’t feed the Velez….. especially ground balls. 

And let’s remember…… Eugenio has been a Dodger for all of…… 8 games.

Posted in eugenio velez dodgers harry potter thestrals | 3 notes
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Cody Ross In The Hall Of Smiles

I wonder how Cody Ross got his nickname. 

  

 

  

 

  

Is anyone else tired of looking at Cody’s pearly whites?

Here is a slightly less happy cody……. slightly. 

 

 

 

  

oooooooh my god… aahhhhhhhhh tooo many smiles!

 

 

 

Is this a smile?…… of a wince…….. or a fart?

 

ok ok ok, it’s genuine. If you are smiling this big as a kid then you deserve to wear it the rest of the way. 

Posted in cody ross sf giants florida marlins reds marlins tigers mud hens dodgers | 6 notes
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Eugenio…… Always Missing Stuff

If you didn’t catch it (no pun inteded) Eugenio missed his flight to Dodgertown. Maybe he is having second thoughts about joining the evil empire….. or maybe it’s just Velez missing something….. I think we saw some of that when he graced us with his presence. 

Without further ado…… my favorite screenshot from last year…. it just happens that it’s a picture of Eugenio missing something. 

 

aaaaaaaaand another one. 

   

and here he is again watching his missed flight leave. 

Posted in eugenio velez dodgers | 1 note
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