The Brighter Side....
by Grant Brisbee on Jul 11, 2008 12:37 AM PDT
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PrintThree games, three runs. The almost-thrill of having league-average hitters in several lineup slots? Replaced with the fear that the second-half Giants will be just as bad offensively as everyone expected them to be for the whole season.
You can put a frog in a pot of water and slowly turn up the heat, the old story goes, but the frog will stay put until the boiling water kills it. I present your official 2008 second-half Giants metaphor. The heat is suck. The frog is us. If the Giants' hitters from 2007 show up in the second half of 2008, they'll still get their playing time. The decline won't be obvious when Bochy looks at the numbers. It'll be just like a fire slowly getting hotter.
Wait, maybe that means the hitters are the frog. No, wait. The hitters would be the suck-fire, and we're still the frog. No matter. It's still easy to picture a progression like this:
...huh...that's weird...I thought Durham was hitting higher than .260.
August
...I guess there weren't any takers for Aurilia...at least he's still hitting...wait, how did his home run total go down?....
September
...how can Jose Vizcaino be a September call-up? He wasn't even with the organi...wait, I wonder if he could play third?...I wonder if he could hit third?...Things are looking up!
And the whole time, the struggling hitters will stay in the lineup, as the decline of everyone in the lineup will be too gradual to notice. The exception will be Omar Vizquel, as he'll slowly crawl up to the Mendoza line, and the organization will point out that, heck, just (blank) weeks ago, Vizquel was hitting .155, so proud we are of him to get back to .200.
I got nothing. The offense has been better than expected so far. It's probably going to get worse. Open moping thread.
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Myth busted!
But yeah, I’m not sure if I can handle watching this offense for three more months. Sure, they’ll have their occasional offensive outburst like they did today, but when the pitching is bad too, it makes it all the more painful. Still, THIRD PLACE!!!11
Thanks for that
Now I’m all depressed. So you’re saying that letting my mlb.tv subscription expire wouldn’t be a terrible idea?
Good luck letting your subscription expire. Those ruthless bastards won’t stop auto-renewing until my your bank account is dry.
by non sequitur on Jul 11, 2008 1:31 AM PDT up reply actions
so please tell me that bochy and sabean will be gone at season's end
not that it matters, because somehow larry baer finagled his way into the presidents chair
how is it that baer gets no blame at all for the debacle that is the giants?
You are on to something...
I almost posted about this a while back shortly after Peter M announced his “retirement”
Wasn’t Larry B behind many of the contract negotiations that have negatively impacted the Giants?
Hmmm. It’s easy to scapegoat Sabean (and I am in no way trying to stick up for him because many of the decisions he’s made / gone along with haven’t helped) and PMG, but what has LB’s role been in all this??
It seems to me that he’s had a hand in making the team what its become (in a kind of behind the scenes way) and finagled (sp?) his way into the President’s position.
To my limited knowledge...
Baer is a marketing guy. So we can blame him for Lou Seal, “All Out All Season”, Brian Boitano skating extravaganza, monster trucks and other weaselly ads/promotions. He might have had a say from a marketing standpoint in renewing Bonds, acquiring Zito, IMO, but I don’t think he’s doing any contract negotiations.
I thought Colleti used to be the Giants’ contract guy.
My Dave Righetti is better than your Dave Righetti.
by howtheyscored on Jul 11, 2008 2:34 PM PDT up reply actions
Speed and defense my ass!
This just in….you’ll win jack shit if you can only muster up 3 runs a series. Suck one Sabes! I hate you more with each passing day.
Adoptive papa to Omar...so basically I'm screwed.
Not to defend the speed and defense philosophy
But we can’t really blame our woes on said philosophy. This is because the Giants have neither speed nor defense, really, to speak of.
Only 881 games until the end of Zito's contract
Strasberg
Alas, I think you’ve mistaken woeful (us) for unspeakable (the Nationals, Mariners, Padres and whoever else finishes below us)
by NearestNorwich on Jul 11, 2008 6:27 AM PDT up reply actions
Yeah the Nats are even crappier than the Giants are. Now that’s true abject sadness; when you’re godawful but not godawful enough to get the first overall pick.
"While conservatives tell you 'leave things alone and no one will lose,' and liberals tell you 'interfere a lot and no one will lose,' baseball says 'someone will lose.' Not only says it - but insists upon it! ... Democracy is lovely, but baseball's more mature." BVCE supports SF Dugout and Manny Burriss.
by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Jul 11, 2008 8:58 AM PDT up reply actions
If the recent stretch of suck
means that Sabean can no longer have lurid fantasies of himself as a “buyer,” then I ain’t gonna lose too much sleep.
SELLZ TEH FARM
BRING ON TEH KIDZ
SHEERHOLTS FTW
Bengie: Like an Aurilia kidney stone, slow-moving and tough to get out.
If I see the following on Aug 1, I will enjoy the rest of the season no matter how many games we lose. Winn, Aurilia, Durham, Vizquel all gone. Nate up here, and Denker, Burriss, somebody like Leone or Roehlinger at third all playing everyday, I will be fine. That’s actually called rebuilding, not what they’re doing right now.
Brian Sabean's new dad: Firm believer in corporal punishment
Grant forgot to mention that not only did we only score 3 runs the entire series, we didn’t have more than 3 hits in any of the games. Imagine how it would have been if the Mets were actually good!! This weekend we play a team that really is. Good luck.
Brian Sabean's new dad: Firm believer in corporal punishment
Sabean, Buying V. Selling, etc.
First off, I think this is a little reactionary. The Giants have been playing uncharacteristically putrid ever since the Dodgers showed up. Prior to that – this was a team that was mostly doing this right but suffered from an below average offense.
The Dodgers came into town and the team started doing things wrong. I don’t care if you’re the goddamn Red Sox, if you give the Met’s 5 outs an inning and 2 free base runners, they are going to beat you. Couple that with the offense falling into liquid nitrogen the last 3 days and you get what we got – suckfest.
But I’m not entirely sure it is valid to extrapolate the last 6 games worth of performance to the rest of the entire season. There will most likely be additional periods of this level of shit play – but there are also going to be periods that remind us of the heyday when we were only 4 games out (lol!). over all, I expect this team to finish up about where we thought they would finish up a month or so ago – ~ 11-12 games under 500.
Small sample size people – small sample size.
So, Sabean. I happened to catch him on the Razor and Mr. T yesterday and frankly, I think he is growing on me (gasp!).
He said we are sellers, no doubt about it. He said he didn’t care how many games out of first we were, we were (at the time) 13 games below .500 and had no realistic chance of making the playoffs.
Everything he said essentially echoed what the LF has been saying all year, and that kinda blew my mind.
But then I looked back at what Brian has done this year and started to realize that maybe, just maybe, he was going about this the right way.
Remember, Brian put’s the players in the dugout – he doesn’t pick who plays on the field. I think we let what we see everyday influence our judgement of him – but it’s Bochy to blame for the Ray Durham, Randy Winn, and Rich Aurilia show – not Brian. Brian brought them here, sure – and excepting maybe Randy Winn that was probably a mistake – however, every player that Brian has brought to Bochy since the end of last season (Aaron Rowand + MiL callups) has been one that has a chance to help the next good Giants team – not necessarily this one.
So I guess, without taking my diarrhea of the keyboard too far, I think there might be a chance we are seeing a new face on Brian Sabean this year (sans Peter?) and he might actually be taking us in (mostly) the right direction.
August 1st will be judgment day, and the lineup that walks out on the field to face San Diego that evening will be the exonerating or incriminating evidence.
Eugeniooooooo!!!!
Uncharacteristically putrid?
Disagree (shocking!). The past coupla series is really this team. Sanchez has been overachieving, and so has Timmy. (Not to say Timmy isn’t superhumanly awesome (he is), but he probably won’t go 10 and 2 in the second half, either.)
Sell the pieces the Giants have to sell (Winn, Molina, Aurilia) and the offense gets EVEN WORSE. (This need to be done, btw. To hell with the product on the field for the remainder of the season.)
You say small sample size, I say regression to the mean.
Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.
Sanchez and Lincecum might be over-achieving, but I think that’s offset by the other three spots in the rotation underachieving:
Cain is better than what he’s shown
- Correia is better than the Misch mess
- Zito has shown signs in his last four starts that he’s at least giving the team a chance.
The bullpen is really starting to concern me.
2008 Giants: Scrappy! Scrappy! Joy! Joy!
i don't disagree
But I still suspect that the pitching as a whole will fall off some in the second half.
Billy Hayes: His job is better than yours.
i have to keep reminding myself ...
that cain is only 24 or whatever.
hopefully he turns things around before mgmt loses patience with him.
"ever so cynical yet whimsical giants related signature"
by The Gene Hackman on Jul 11, 2008 9:31 AM PDT up reply actions
Agree on bullpen
They just haven’t looked sharp lately. Remember all those tight games in April, when the Giants were either tied or hanging on to a one-run lead? The bullpen was AWESOME then—not just in their pitching but in their body language and their energy. They just seemed really pumped when they inherited runners and left them on base and struck guys out. And yeah, maybe they’re regressing to the mean now, but they seem to be slumping but figuratively and literally. They’re coming into ballgames where the team is trailing by a few runs and getting hit hard, and having long, high-stress innings. They look defeated out there. Anyone else noticing this?
Eagerly awaiting Crazy Crab Bobblehead Night on 7/18.
LIncecum and Sanchez may be over-acheiving
But even in their “failures” this weekend, the team still had a chance to win. It was the offense that failed this series, the pitching merely was average.
And the entire offense basically going O – fer – the series isn’t regression to the mean, it is uncharacteristically putrid.
Eugeniooooooo!!!!
by FairweatherFan on Jul 11, 2008 10:07 AM PDT up reply actions
No Moping!
Look at this kid’s profile: http://usctrojans.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/green_grant00.html
Jose Vizcaino?!
whoa… oldschool 1997 giants :O (or some time around then)...
If my head is full of white hairs by the end of this season.. I blame Brian Wilson. (I'm only 22, dammit!)
2006, I think
Trent Kline: Decentish. Also, my website is called ChatterBalks Dot Com and on it I make jokes about things.
I was too lazy to look it up
Eugeniooooooo!!!!
by FairweatherFan on Jul 11, 2008 10:27 AM PDT up reply actions
I remember he ended up with a World Series ring with the Cardinals.
Trent Kline: Decentish. Also, my website is called ChatterBalks Dot Com and on it I make jokes about things.
Roster moves
Ivan Ochoa up, Travis Denker down
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/
Someone make a fan post about this, i’m too lazy
Gameday Thread?
11:20 PST starting time. Anyone? Grant? Natto? Bueller?
Eagerly awaiting Crazy Crab Bobblehead Night on 7/18.
What he said
Lineup is out
F Lewis LF
R Durham 2B
R Winn RF
B Molina C
A Rowand CF
J Bowker 1B
R Aurilia 3B
O Vizquel SS
Anagram of "Is the Giants offense really this bad?"
YES. BAFFLING AND SHITTIEST ARSEHOLE
The magic 8-ball anagrammer wins again.
Anagram of "Giants pitcher Matt Cain" = TRAGIC MAN, ISN'T PATHETIC
by Stuttering John Tamargo on Jul 11, 2008 11:03 AM PDT reply actions
The Frog
The Giants, as a team, are the frog. Sabean is the princess that could kiss them and turn them into a prince but instead chooses to gradually turn the heat up to “motivate” them.
Only 881 games until the end of Zito's contract
Glass .419 full
Remember the Giants started the season 1-6 and looked just epically awful at the plate. Then they had a long stretch of near-.500 play before their current streak of suck. And for most of that stretch, they were surprisingly watchable.
I’m optimistic that they can be a near-.500 team for most of the second half too, and be just as watchable.
The All-Father is now a Giant!
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