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Lost Weekend

Game show time. It's time to play, "Would a six-year-old say it, or would Armando Benitez say it?" The title explains the game, so let's get started:

Would a six-year-old say it, or would Armando Benitez say it?
  1. I've played on better (teams or playgrounds) than this. I don't have to be here if I don't wanna.
  2. You don't understand what it's like to be me!
  3. I should be able to eat a box of cookies for dinner if I want to.
  4. I ate that box of cookies for dinner because I wanted to.
  5. They think I stink.
  6. Sorry. It's not going to be easy to clean up the mess I made.
The answer, of course, is that they are all Armandisms. After I kinda sorta came to his defense last week, Benitez blew a terrible save and blamed it on anyone but himself: Vizquel's poor positioning, Ellison's wonky cutoff throw, and the fans for not booing enough to fire him up to the proper level. Now he's blaming Felipe Alou's silly bullpen management for his sore arm. It's time for Benitez to take some resp...

Wait, no, Alou's bullpen management makes no sense. Benitez has this one right, broken clock-style, but I'm growing wearier of his act with each passing day. And thanks to Rich Draper, I'm pretty sure I'm going to scream out "cow pie euphemistically!", the next time I'm within earshot of Benitez.

Benitez doing that wacky Benitez thing was the worst part of the weekend. Coming in a close second was Matt Cain reminding us that he often has little idea of where the ball is going. It's hard to know which performance was more discouraging.

Still, I chose to mentally focus on Ray Durham's home run when reviewing the weekend in my head. It was an overt reminder that most every player gets their moment in the sun regardless of how their season is going. I was sitting in my car in a Walgreen's parking lot (quick plug: if you go, try the vicodin!), and yelling at the top of my lungs. You don't get too many of those in a season, so it doesn't make sense to start right in with the nitpicking after the weekend.

That's probably just grasping for optimism straws to wash down a mutton smoothie. But even though the Giants lost two of three, the one they did win was one of the better wins of the season. They're still in contention, and have an important road trip coming up after the Texas series. I'm discouraged, but not despondent.