The bubbly post from Friday was a perfect introduction to the chamber of weekend horrors that ensued. Yay, team! ♪We're gonna ♪make it after ♪ allllll♪♪♪♪!
It reminded me of one of the video diaries from The Ben Stiller Show. Stiller plays himself as a teenager, and records himself bouncing off the walls in excitement. He was taking his dream date to a Van Halen concert that night, and was going to put the moves on her during the "Jaime's Crying" solo. He was so, so excited. He turns off the camera, and the next scene is a quick cut to the next entry in the video diary. Now Stiller looks as if he were chewed up and spit out by a hippopotamus, with clumps of sod stuck to his face and a bloody shirt. He's crying, and starts in on one of sketch comedy's more tender soliloquies:
How did it go so wrong? I mean, besides the poor starting pitching. And besides the weak hitting. And, sure, the bullpen wasn't so hot. But other than that, can someone explain just how the Giants were swept? Other than being outclassed in every capacity of the game, that is.
The worst conceivable thing for this franchise would be for the team to still be a question mark at the trading deadline. The Giants would need to be at least eight games back to consider trading guys like Jason Schmidt or Moises Alou for much-needed younger talent. If the team was two or three games back or higher, I could understand staying the course and trying to make one final playoff push. The gloomy pessimist in me just knows they will be somewhere in between. Six games back. July 31st. A pointless Ricky Ledee-type deal is completed. Sabean makes some public comments about not giving up. The free agents walk, and the team stinks next year.
Now I'll take some questions from the studio audience:
Man in the back, who should probably just mind his own business: Actually, they're just two games back.
Man in tweed coat: Two games back? They're right in the hunt! Three bad games, and you just roll over? What gives?
I'm just hoping for the Giants to go on a run. I would obviously prefer it to be a good run. I want ten straight, a courtesy loss, and then ten more wins. That's a happy-time scenario. However, I would prefer the Giants lose fifteen in a row and get a bounty of young talent back for Jason Schmidt over more .500 meandering, if the .500 meandering starts forcing us away from the top spot in the division. I would think six games back on July 31st is ground zero: a perfect storm of inaction that would just be brutal for the future of the franchise.
What helps in the short-term, though, is a paper bag, some deep breathing, and the realization that the team is still just two games back from the lead spot in the division. Two games! Even though we were swept by a less-than-perfect team over the weekend, the club is still in an enviable position. The optimism dimmed a bit with the sweep, to be sure, but we didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, either.