If baseball is a game of chess, the 2007 Giants showed up this season with a rook, a horsie, and a Cheetoe. Yeah, I can't remember the real name for a horsie because I'm terrible at chess. So maybe if baseball is a game of chess, the Giants are me. And I'm drunk. Perhaps crouching under the chessboard with a paper bag and open jar of model airplane glue. With a pawn up my nose. Giggling. Is that blood? I don't remember hitting my head, but...yeah, that's blood alright. My god, it's everywhere.
You call it a metaphor; I call it Friday night.
This has been the most frustrating season I can remember. It might just be because it's fresh in my mind, but there's just something magical about the combination of promising young pitching and an uninspired, aging offense that is remarkable only in its ability to suffocate anything with promise. Now the team's in the tubes-up-the-nose stage of the season, and we all have just one thing for which to root: Knocking the annoying teams out of playoff races. Taking two out of three from the Dodger was a good start. The Rockies series was a blown chance, but the Giants still have five more games against the Diamondbacks, three more against the Dodgers, and six more against the Padres.
Is this something worth rooting for? I think so. There isn't much that needs to be said about the joys of knocking the Dodgers out of any race, but there's more to it than that. I don't exactly want the Giants to lose against the Padres, but I really, really, really don't want the Diamondbacks to win. They've been outscored for the season. If you go by runs scored and runs allowed, they have a predicted record that would put them a half-game back of the Giants. We've been defenestrating small animals and appliances over this miserable season, and the Diamondbacks are skipping around and talking about "destiny" and "knowing how to win." They should be just as miserable as we are.
So, of course, the Giants coughed up another destiny-bomb last night. Jeff Salazar? To the deepest part of the yard?
Sigh.
It isn't glamorous to root for a spoiler. In fact, it's pretty ghoulish. But I'm rooting for these games against the Diamondbacks as hard as I'd root if the Giants were still in contention.