You know, I'll give them credit. It's been a while since there's been a game of inevitability -- that '10 Padres sort of game, where you rolled your eyes after the first run scored, knowing it was the deciding run. Jeff Weaver threw eight pitches tonight. Maybe it was Jered Weaver. Maybe it was nine pitches. Whatever. You just knew that when Alfredo Griffin hit a solo home run, the Giants were hosed. Maybe it was Alberto Callaspo. Whatever.
This was a vintage Giants loss. It was retro. It's inappropriate to complain about this sort of loss in the era of Melky Cabrera hitting .499, Angel Pagan doing just fine, Gregor Blanco doing more than we could have ever hoped, Pablo Sandoval back in the lineup, Brandon Belt back in the land of the living, and Buster Posey dancing around on two good ankles like last year was no big thing. The Giants don't get shut out like this that often these days. No, really, they don't.
Those vintage Giants would have been annihilated by Jered Weaver. No question. He has preternatural command, breaking pitches that break six feet, and just enough velocity. He's a 35-year-old Greg Maddux in a 29-year-old body. And when he can hit his spots -- post-injury pitch count or no -- he's tough on any team. The swing-first Giants, even more so.
So it's easy to overreact to a start like this. It's the post-traumatic stress that we have from all of those awful Padres series that led to the Giants spiraling out of control and winning the World Series. The horror.
This was the first game in a while that felt like this. The first since, what, the first Texas game? The last Texas game? Maybe both? A couple of games in Seattle? Fine. There have been a few of these lately and it's starting to get a little discouraging. The Giants were on a crazy roll, but now they've dropped their last two series. They were sort of pummeled by the Angels over the last two games, and at no point did you think the Giants had a legitimate shot to win.
I'll be honest with you. I take notes during the game, trying to detail what I want to write about. Here are my notes from tonight:
- Ryan Vogelsong pitching the seventh
- Nate Schierholtz
- Shane Loux
That's all I had. I had a note about Ryan Vogelsong shaving down a quality start into a shank-type object with which he could stab hitters in the cafeteria line. I'm not sure where I was going with it. But that's the best idea I had tonight, and it wasn't really good. The Nate Schierholtz part had to do with him getting hosed in the Randy Winn era. I'm not sure what the Loux note was, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with the first Shane Loux-related thought of my life.
I could grind through those bullet points. I could torture you with my thoughts on Nate Schierholtz, which I've already forgotten. Or I could spend my time making some sort of puppy-related GIF.
D'awwwwww. I just saved you 10 minutes, I just saved myself 45 minutes, and now there's a cute puppy on your screen. There are 162 games every year. This is one of the ones you're not supposed to think about. Look at the puppy!