There are only 27 games left in the season. There's a chance for this team to be really, really special.
The 1968 Giants scored 599 runs. It wasn't a bad team -- they finished second in the National League -- but it was 1968. That's the year that pitching dominated baseball so much, they changed the rules. They lowered the mound because no one could score.
I used to be fascinated with the 1968 team pages. I wondered what it would be like to follow baseball that season. Bob Gibson led the world with a 1.12 ERA. Steve Carlton was also on the Cardinals that year, and his 2.99 ERA was good only for a 97 ERA+. A 2.99 ERA wasn't even a league-average performance in Busch Stadium that year. No one could score that year. No one.
Gee, I wonder if you see where I'm going with this.
The 2011 Giants will have to score 5.3 runs per game for the next month to surpass the runs-scored total for the 1968 Giants. They have to score only 16 runs over the rest of the season to score more than the worst offense in baseball in 1968. So they'll avoid that shame. This team wouldn't have the worst offense in the worst hitting environment since World War I. Good for them!
The Giants are on pace to score 545 runs this season. Let's hop into the wayback machine and see when the last time the Giants scored that few runs.
1994 (504 runs)
Well, sheesh, that wasn't that long ago. What's everyone complaining ab ... oh, right, the strike. There were only 115 games that year. Before that, then.
1981 (427 runs)
That's not that long ago. So it won't be so histor ... oh, right, the other strike. There were only 111 games that year.
Non-strike years, then:
1956 (540 runs)
1918 (480 runs)
1901 (544 runs)
1902 (405 runs)
1883 (530 runs)
Swell. Most of those teams were dead-ball teams. The 1918 Giants, for example, hit 13 home runs as a team that season. Also, they played with one baseball all season, and it was made from a sheep's bladder stuffed with shredded newspaper. Different times. Teams also played 124 games per year back then, and the '18 Giants averaged 3.87 runs per game. The Giants have averaged 3.36 this season. It's unfair to the dead-ball era teams from the early 1900s to compare them to the 2011 Giants.
This is the worst offense the city will ever see.
The Astros, Padres, and Cubs have dominated the Giants over the last four series. This isn't a team that deserves to contend. This isn't a team that deserves to sell out games. This isn't a team that deserves three hours of your time every night. There are Pauly Shore movies you could be watching. You could finally beat Superman 64 after all these years. There are things to do in this beautiful world.
Whoa! That was Randy Wells's stat line before this game? THAT'S TOTALLY CRAZY THAT HE SHUT DOWN THE GIANTS, THEN. WHAT ARE THE ODDS?????
A month ago my house smelled like cat urine. I was pretty sure this was because one of my cats had sprayed urine all over my house. So I got on my knees and sniffed the carpet all around my house. Couldn't find the source, but I could still smell the urine. It was strong. I took off my shirt, but that wasn't the problem. Frustrated, I took off my Giants hat to scratch my head. The Giants hat was soaked with urine. It was then that I realized that Orlando Cabrera had peed on my hat while I was sleeping. He's probably still in here somewhere. I bet if I set the place on fire, he'll come running out, and then I'll know for sure. It was probably him.
Nope. That sure as shit doesn't make me feel better. But if you want it, there's the schedule for the Niners this season. I'm thinking that game in Philly is going to be a real crapstorm. The best part will be that it's during the NLDS, so we can watch the Phillies in the playoffs at the same time.
The Diamondbacks have a fake sausage race during their games. One of these things runs around the field:
Holy crap, we need to steal that thing and make it tell us its secrets. It probably knows where the map is, and once we have the map, we'll have the gold. With the gold we can buy all sorts of foodstuffs. We'll just hunker down for the winter, me and foam phallic Randy. We'll just ride the winter out. We'll feel sorry for ourselves later. Right now is all about surviving. Our kids will be beautiful. Our kids will be beautiful. Our kids will be beautiful. We will repopulate the earth.