"It’s a fine line between clever and stupid." – Nigel Tufnel.

That’s always been one of the more functional movie lines out there. It works for so many situations. Allow me to bastardize it.

It’s a fine line between a watchable team and sheer torture. Before yesterday’s game, the Giants were bebopping along with a strangely satisfying record of 14-20. There shouldn’t be enough ecstasy in the world to make you feel alright with that record…but, hey, there were positives to be found. I could dig it. You could dig it.

Now they’re 14-21, and I could probably take a month off from watching another game. It’s a fine line between a watchable team and sheer torture. The difference is in how the team loses. I can deal with a team scoring three runs a game under the right circumstances. Maybe in one game, John Bowker goes 0-4 with four Ks, but Fred Lewis hits a pair of opposite field doubles. Maybe in the next game, the performances are reversed. The end result is a bad offensive team, but it’s a bad offensive team that’s at least building toward something. There’s a glimmer of hope.

What I can’t deal with is the constant spirit melting that accompanies every freaking Matt Cain start. A young pitcher, who left his last game with a tender hamstring, is cruising through six innings. He has 93 pitches at the end of six, he’s in line for the win, and he’s scheduled to bat in the top of the seventh. I can make a case that this young pitcher should go out for the seventh. A manager could say something like:

You might disagree, but it isn’t a totally unreasonable argument.

Except this is Matt Cain! He’s cursed, dammit. Some Greek goddess came down in the form of a llama and tried to seduce him, but Cain didn’t really want to make it with a llama, the goddess got offended, and now Cain is forever doomed to pitch well in losing efforts. I’m pretty sure it’s in the Metamorphoses.

You pull Cain in that situation, if only to prevent him from taking a loss. Good effort, kid. Those were six innings of good ball. If the bullpen blows it, the bullpen blows it, but your job is done. There will be a whole season to try and stretch his endurance. For now, though, just worry about breaking the streak of unpleasantness. Just worry about getting Cain on a normal cycle of ups and downs before treating him like any other pitcher.

The constant canoe-paddle-to-the-face feeling that accompanies Matt Cain’s starts is wearing me down, and I’m just some dink who watches too much baseball. I can’t imagine being the guy who is actually losing all of these games.

Mercy for Matt Cain. Please. It’s a fine line between a watchable team and sheer torture.

When I went to college the first time, if the game wasn't televised, I would need to leave the CNN Headline News ticker on to follow the score from home.

Now, I'm in the middle of a class, listening to a professor yammer about something to do with Carthage or Edgar Allen Poe or genomes or something, and MLB Gameday just told me that Matt Cain's changeup just broke seven inches downward.

Progress is great. Still, don't get me started on how uncool my CD collection is now compared to that first time in college. I feel cheated.

I know some y'all college types are just getting ready for bed, but you should try and stay up for the game.

When was the last time the Giants were about to be swept by the Pirates...and deserved such a fate? That's just a cryptic way of saying it's been a while since the Giants have been markedly worse than the Pirates. Probably since 1992. Was there one single event that marked the downfall of the Pirates and the rise of the Giants after 1992? That's a question for the philosophers of the future..

[insert rallying cry here]

Happy Zito day!  I, for one, predict five innings, 108 pitches, three earned runs, one strikeout, and a win.

And the winning Powerball numbers will be 3, 8, 112, 43.3, and §. I'm full of predictions today; just ask me.

The morning after a bottle of Brad Hennessey:

That's what I've always imagined Charlie Brown's line would like. Hennessey has been in 11 games, and the opponents have scored runs off him in nine of those games. In seven games, he's given up multiple runs.

It's usually silly to make judgments based on one month, but it isn't as if Hennessey is still pumping sinkers in the low-90s and getting beat. He started the year in the mid-80s, and he's had a couple of appearances in the high-80s, but he isn't throwing with the same velocity that he was after moving to a setup/backup closer role last year. And it isn't helping that his slider isn't sliding.

The options:

a) Designate him for assignment, which would expose him to waivers. If he clears waivers, send him to Fresno. If another team shows interest, try and work out a trade.

b) Stick with him. His batting average on balls-in-play indicates that he's also had a substantial amount of poor luck. Maybe he shared a straw with Matt Cain.

Them's the options, and they ain't pretty. I sincerely doubt a team would claim him right now. I sincerely doubt the Giants would kick up too much of a fuss if he were claimed. He's already in his arbitration years, and the Giants have some arms in AA and AAA to replace him.

But the spot-starting, pseudo-setup guy from 2007 did have some value to a team, don't forget. Kicking him to the curb after one bad month seems like a pretty drastic step.

Comment starter: A or B?

Edit: Apparently Hennessey had an option left. That memo was never forwarded to my mother's basement.

After a player goes 0 for 5 and makes a game-flubbing error, it's probably best to wait a day to evaluate that player. I was planning to evaluate the spidery fellow known as Eugenio Velez, and then Sunday happened. Actually, the performances haven't just been limited to one game. Whiff, dink, flub. Flub, dink, whiff. It hasn't been pretty.

The Kevin Frandsen injury was a swift poke in the eye of the Giants' modest rebuilding efforts. There was, however, a small silver lining: at least the Giants would have the ability to evaluate Velez. One month in, and it's clear that Velez is fast. He also has game-changing speed. He runs the bases at a rapid rate, and he can make great time from home to first. The whole "playing baseball" thing? The early returns aren't good.

Important aside: Anyone can look awful for a month. If you watched Jeff Kent hit in September of 1997, he looked like a player who would be destined to fight and claw just to make a 25-man roster by 2000, if not sooner. Instead, Kent won an MVP in 2000. Velez won't win an MVP, but he might yet be a productive player. It's never fair to judge a player based on one month.

But I'm not optimistic. Velez can put a jolt into about every twentieth swing, and I'm sure that hard contact showed up a lot more in Augusta and Norwich. That, combined with his spectacular speed, is why the Giants were excited about a mid-20s minor league Rule 5 pick in the first place. It's why his strong spring excited a lot of us. Watching Velez hit against major league pitching this past April, however, we've had to wade through a lot of unpleasantness to get to any sort of excitement. He's like the "Showgirls" of major league hitters.

The swing: awkward. Unless he guesses right, Velez's swing can take some weird paths to the ball.

The plate discipline: needs improvement. This isn't just about walks or working the count, either. Velez will chase low pitches when he needs a fly ball, and he'll chase high pitches when it'd be a good idea to put the ball on the ground. He'll flail at pitches early in the count against pitchers having control issues, and he'll allow control pitchers to put him in an early hole. I don’t have stats to back all that up, mind you, so don’t take it as gospel. In the court of anecdotal amateur opinion, though, Velez is guilty of third-degree flailing.

The defense: You'll laugh; you'll cry; you'll wonder if the guy has hooves instead of opposable thumbs.

The conclusion: This isn't the time for conclusions -- just hand-wringing concern. The only prescription is more Ray Durham and, ye gods, that's a fever that can kill you.

I wish that Frandsen were healthy and that Velez was plying his trade in Fresno this season. I still have that same begrudging optimism with Frandsen that I did with Lance Niekro and Todd Linden. I have to be right one of these days. But I'm not sure if AAA would really help a 26-year-old hitter like Velez make great strides forward, even though isn't as if he'd be repeating the level. As it is, I'm perfectly fine with continuing to play Velez regardless of the results, and I hope turns out to be the stupidest post I write all season. There are about fifty reasons why that isn't likely, and a couple of them actually have to do with Velez.

Steve Palazzolo is a garden variety 6’10" reliever. Every organization has a few of them just laying around, right? The 26-year-old pitched for the Nashua Pride of the independent CanAm League last year, posting a 2.14 ERA and striking out 63 hitters in 54.2 innings. He was introduced to the internet baseball world in a fascinating article by former Baseball Think Factory and Hardball Times author (and current Diamondbacks scout) Carlos Gomez.

The Giants signed Palazzolo over the winter, and he has had a fantastic start in AA (18.2 IP, 7 hits allowed, 17 strikeouts, and a 0.96 ERA). Gomez was able to get me in touch with Palazzolo, who was gracious enough to answer some questions for the site. His size, dedication to his craft, and sense of humor should make him a fan favorite when he makes it up to a big-league bullpen.

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Odds that Shane Victorino will be a Giant when he's 35: even. Look in your cynical heart; you know it's true.