Post-game thread: Ryan Vogelsong fills in well

And that’s the kind of game that makes me feel like a total ass for whining about yesterday’s game.

The Pirates' first baseman, Lyle Overbay, has no business on that team. He’s making $5M on a one-year deal for a team that’s not going to contend. If he’s traded mid-season for a prospect, the Pirates will have paid about $2.5M for that prospect, which is enough coin to buy out a college commitment from a high school prospect in the draft, who would surely be better than any prospect another team would trade for Overbay.

The Pirates could be auditioning players at the first base spot. They could stick Steven Pearce there and close their eyes, hoping he’d make the jump from AAAA-player to legit major leaguer. They could have trawled through the AAA rosters of teams with firmly entrenched first basemen, seeing if there’s a player worth taking an extended look at. They could do a dozen different things that would give them a 5% chance of finding a first baseman that could be around for the next good Pirates team instead of the 0% chance they get by parting with $5M for Overbay.

And if everything breaks right -- if Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, Andrew McCutchen, and Neil Walker all break out, with Overbay having one of his better seasons -- he might be the guy who gets the Pirates from 79 wins to 80 wins, which would get them picking #14 instead of #13 in the draft. Overbay would sign with another team.

He’s not a bad player out of context -- he deserves to be on a roster somewhere -- but he makes zero sense on the Pirates. Randy-Winn-starting-games-in-right-field-in-September-of-2008 sense. So when a player like that drops a pop fly before making a poor decision on a bunt that directly leads to a four-run inning and a loss, that’s when you break out the maudlin overreaction of a post.

But it gets better! The Pirates were shut down by a guy who was supposed to be their future 38 years ago. Not only did he prevent them from winning 38 years ago, but he helped prevent them from winning today from beyond the grave! This game was uncut, pure Pirates and I’ll remember it when I want to whine in the future.

As for the Giants...

• Vogelsong was striking people out in Fresno, and it’s nice to see him doing the same in the majors, but his bigger problem has always been control. That fear was not allayed today. Sweet outing, though. First win as a Giant! Only took over a decade, too. I can’t wait for the spate of Zito-to-be-released? articles.
• It’s hard to sweep any team. Two out of three is always a good series. As such, I’ll express my regret again for being a drama llama yesterday. Just felt like 2009, that’s all.
• The careers of Cody Ross and Aaron Rowand are playing chicken again. Yuck. It’s sad to think where the Giants would be if the team had released Rowand, which what I, and a lot of other folks, were hoping for before the team broke camp.
• One of the best feelings is when the Giants win a Posey rest day. House money.
• First thing I do when I get my time machine: mail a clip back to 2000 of Shawn Estes in a shirt and tie talking on TV about Ryan Vogelsong winning a game for the Giants in 2011.

Good win. I kind of like breakfast baseball.