There’s about a 98% chance that we’ll look back on the Mike Fontenot Era with a puzzled bemusement. In about a decade, someone will say, "Hey, remember when Mike Fontenot was hitting third for us?" And you’ll furrow your brow and nod. "Yeah, yeah, I do remember that. That was weird." This will happen every year until Fontenot weighs 210 pounds and is coaching third base for the Giants. He’ll be 57, and he’ll look like a Russian nesting doll. And when that happens, the Mike Fontenot Era will come up twice a year.
It will be completely bizarre and alien, like the thought of a normal person in 1984 going into a record store and buying a Wham! record. Millions did that, but it only made sense at the time, and there’s no way to explain it in retrospect. You can’t go back to that place. Just know that it made sense to a few people for a brief time.
You’re in a place like that right now, so appreciate it. The Mike Fontenot Era. It’s going look like a Hypercolor shirt in a couple of weeks, but danged if it isn’t fun right now. Every time the lineup turns over, you have the right to be incredulous. Every win the Giants squeak out with Fontenot’s help, you have the right to wonder if it’s going to last. But screw it. Live it up. And when you wake up in two weeks in an alley wearing nothing but fluorescent leg warmers, just know that you rocked the Mike Fontenot the only way you knew how.
Did you have any doubt that he was going to win that game? Of course. Did you have anything that resembled those feelings of confidence in his previous 53 games as a Giant? Of course not. You’re a witness to history. You’re living in the now, and it's ridiculous. It’s also pretty sweet.
It’s worth remembering that Fontenot isn’t a hero if Ramon Ramirez wasn’t amazing tonight. Ramirez gets one wet-the-bed-free card, which is valuable currency for relievers to have. After Madison Bumgarner continued the oh-so-amusing run of Giants pitchers fielding like they’re on mescaline, and Todd Helton tied the game with no one out, there was no way that the Rockies weren’t going to score. Never forget, though, the Rockies and their fans hate AT&T Park just as much as we hate Coors Field. Imagine that. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Tonight it was Ramirez’s turn to take the human form of whatever poltergeist screws with the Rockies in San Francisco. Ramirez will probably wake up tomorrow without remembering that he even pitched.
The Giants have frustrated and flailed and floundered ... and they’re two games back. After all the consternation and the injuries, they’re only two games back. And they’ve had a ton of road games. It’s getting interesting.