The Horror of the GAPASGNRT

Happily, we’ve come to the end of the Giants’ Annual Post-All-Star-Game Nightmare Road Trip. They probably were lucky to go 3-7, because for the most part, they stank. There was even a sort of “Uh-oh” feeling in the first radio and TV broadcasts after the break, as if the announcers were trying not to say, “Here it comes. Again.”

You might be surprised that in the Giants’ 52-year history in San Francisco, they’ve only started the second half of the season on the road 25 times. I certainly was surprised—it seemed to me as if they always started on the road, then got killed, then went into the tank forever. Perhaps that’s because between 1984 and 2001, the Giants started on the road 12 of 18 times, including four in a row at one point, and a 9-of-12 stretch.

During those 18 years, we saw a winning Giants’ Annual Post-All-Star-Game Nightmare Road Trip (GAPASGNRT—or “gap ass g’nert,” for ease of pronunciation) twice, along with two splits, so I think it’s fair to refer to their fairly miserable performance in their first road trip after the All-Star game as a tradition. In their entire history, the Giants are 248-305 in that first road trip, a .448 winning percentage. (A few of those years had two post-All-Star road trips, back when there were All-Star games each year.) It’s only slightly worse when they begin the second half on the road, at least in terms of winning percentage, but another surprise, at least to me, was that in 27 opportunities, the Giants had seven winning road trips and five splits.

I can’t say for sure, but I would imagine that many of us dread that GAPASGNRT, even if it doesn’t begin until August. You might ask, in an astounded-sounding voice, “But Gregg! What if they were playing better teams after the break than usual?” And on some occasions, that had to be true. (Probably. I’m not looking it up.) This year, though, included the Braves—hardly a bad team; the Rockies—sadly becoming an unjustifiably good team upon changing managers; and the Pirates—annually bad since Barry Bonds left them. In 2006, the Giants started off against the terrible Pirates and the terrible Nationals—and went 0-6. They went 1-8 in 1998, and followed that up with a 1-5. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter who the opposition is: they’re generally gonna gag.

What makes this all fall down is the fact that they’ve thrown in enough successful GAPASGNRTs to keep one from thinking there’s really a correlation. Also, I haven’t bothered to do this kind of research on other teams—owing to that tragic dearth of relevance that afflicts all Major League Baseball teams that are not the Giants. But perhaps every team has a poor first-post-break-road-trip record. Feel free to research it yourself—I mean, it took me 20 or 30 minutes just to get through the San Francisco Giants—teams with older roots would take longer.

Here’s what I think of just before the GAPASGNRT every year: Barry Bonds, pinch-hitting for the Pirates, hitting a game-winning grand slam against lefty Joe Price in 1988. He swings, he hits the ball, he immediately raises both hands in the air, signaling a successful field goal… horrible. And even though the Giants’ actual overall results in that first trip aren’t nearly as bad as that one game, it always feels as though they’re going to be.

Hometown Hero… Complete Dingleberry… It’s a Fine Line

Boy, I sure am glad I rushed home to make sure not to miss Tim Lincecum’s first pitch in the first inning of his first All-Star Game. Well, his first pitch was fine—better than the Barak Obama’s, anyway—but not a lot of the subsequent ones were, at least in the first. Because he hates me, Ichiro Suzuki naturally led off with a two-strike single. And then Lincecum bounced a change-up off of Derek Jeter, which would have been fine if the game hadn’t started yet, but it had, so it wasn’t.

And then… mostly what I remember are two brutal plays by All-Star Albert Pujols at first base. Okay, maybe the first one wasn’t really his fault—he couldn’t stretch quite far enough to handle a horrendous throw by All-Star David Wright at third base. Had Pujols managed to cope—non-All-Star Travis Ishikawa woulda got it!—we would’ve seen a brilliant 2-5-3 double play started by All-Star Yadier Molina, who’s a hell of a lot better catcher than other Molinas who come to mind. The clanking noise that may well have destroyed your TV speakers was the result of a baseball caroming gaily off Pujols’ glove, which brought home Suzuki. Another run scored somehow—for a total, I’m relieved to say, of only two.

The National League lucked out, really, given Lincecum’s lack of command on his offspeed stuff. (It might be fair to conclude that he was a bit too pumped.) His fastball was okay, if a bit slower than the radar gun likes to tell us during Giants games, but he didn’t seem to get any movement on anything else. He did pitch a 1-2-3 second, but one of those guys was Roy Halladay, who’s supposed to get out anyway.

Meanwhile, Halliday gave up a couple of hard shots in the first, but these were right at people wearing leather gloves, as opposed to whatever Pujols was wearing.

Oh, shut up, Cards fans. (As if any of you are reading this.) Geez. Pujols is a perfectly fine and jim-dandy first baseman who just happened to (a) make a bad play, and (b) fail to make a good one. I’m just honked off because yet another Giants pitcher… well, he didn’t exactly carry a torch passed on from Atlee Hammaker and subsequently carried by Rick Reuschel, Jeff Brantley, and Rod Beck (and I must be leaving someone out), but he wasn’t great, so he won’t be winning any All-Star Game MVPs this year, unless Major League Baseball is putting on another 2009 All-Star Game, and a quick check of the schedule confirms my assertion. Also, no, I’m not really blaming Pujols for Wright’s throw, which won’t show up in the boxscore as an error—because of the force-out on the play—but it truly reeked.

See, what I’d like to do here is spread the blame around so that Lincecum doesn’t take all the heat. That’s not unfair, is it?

The good news is, Lincecum won’t lose this game. Molina singled home a run with two outs in the second, and a painfully inept throw by Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton allowed Shane Victorino—I’m gonna complain about him next—to score the tying run. Prince Fielder, batting for Lincecum, placed the first pitch about eight inches inside the left-field line for a ground-rule double, and the National League had a short-lived lead—or such was my (lamentably correct) assumption at the time, since the only league that should win a Major League Baseball All-Star Game hasn’t done so since 1996.

So anyway, Lincecum is off the hook (and for a while it looked as though he might even wind up with a win! Take that, me!), and hey, since Matt Cain won’t pitch tonight after getting whapped on his pitching arm by a line drive the other day, I might well blow off the rest of the game. (Well, Lincecum won’t get the win anyway, as the AL went and tied it up in the fifth. Jerks. The only good thing about that is that Chad Billingsley of the Dodgers was the guy on the mound. Oh, plus Pujols made two good plays, just to make whatever point the Baseball Gods are trying to make.)

Oh! I nearly forgot to complain about Victorino! Creep. First, the guy wears one of those double-ear-flap helmets that all major leaguers probably should wear but don’t because they look so stupid (albeit less so than Cardinals reliever Ryan Franklin’s Baby ZZ Top beard). That’s strike one. In Lincecum’s major league debut, Victorino’s two-run homer in the first accounted for one more run than the lad had surrendered in 31 innings at Fresno, and he always seems to do something annoying against the Giants anyway. That’s strike two. For strike three, a lesser man than I might mention Sandoval’s .964 OPS, as opposed to Victorino’s .839, but I won’t. Instead, strike three is less about Victorino’s presence on the All-Star team instead of Pablo Sandoval’s than it is about Victorino being in the starting lineup. Why? Carlos Beltran’s hurt. Fine. (Not for Beltran, but still.) Victorino was voted in as a reserve by the fans, fair and square, if annoyingly so. Fine. Brad Hawpe: better choice? I think so. Philly teammate Jayson Werth’s having a better year than Victorino, too. But Philly manager Charlie Manuel’s running the show, so you know (a) why Victorino’s a starter, and (b) Werth’s on the team but Sandoval isn’t. (Don’t worry: I won’t pretend there’s a Giants outfielder who should be there instead.) Oh, well. It’s not a big deal, and besides, Victorino—who’ll be the sole All-Star starter to play the entire game—will make me look silly when he wins it for the Nationals with an inside-the-park home run in the bottom of the seventeenth, and everybody will forget about Albert Pujols.

The Giants Could Win a World Series!

It could happen! Really! Know why? Because within the last several months:

• A Giant has won a Cy Young Award
  
  
  
• A Giant has pitched a no-hit, no-run game
  
  
  
• I got a job

It’s as if three of the Four Horsemen have already appeared, and we’re just waiting for Famine to show up—that’d be “Famine,” as in what Giants fans in general have gone through since 1954, and what San Francisco Giants fans in particular have endured since forever.

I was roughly the same age my son is now when John Montefusco threw his no-hitter in 1976. I don’t even remember that one. The WEEKDAY() function in Excel tells me September 28 was on a Wednesday that year, so no doubt I let something trivial and foolish, such as school, stand in the way of listening to immortality. When Ed Halicki threw his the summer before, we were on an outing to see some family friends. Why we wouldn’t have been listening to the game in the car, I have no idea, but once we arrived in San Jose, I did manage to hear the last two outs. Whee. Before that, the only other two San Francisco Giants no-hitters—I’m trusting WikiPedia on this—were 1-0 games thrown by Juan Marichal in 1963 against the Astros and Gaylord Perry in 1968 against the Cardinals, and, of course, since the Giants are the Giants, Perry’s gem must forever be linked with Ray Washburn’s, whose no-hitter for the Cardinals came against those Giants the very next day. Happy birthday to me, since I turned eight the day after that and was still blissfully ignorant of the baseball-related horrors that had taken place throughout my life to that point, and would stay that way for another year and a half.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Sanchez’s no-hitter Friday night is only the fifth ever thrown by a San Francisco Giant. For crying out loud, even the Expos had four (including one against the Giants, naturally). San Diego fans, however, are experiencing their 41st year of no-hitter-free baseball; Mets fans: 48th. This is to say that neither team has ever thrown one. And you know what? I just, just don’t care. For one thing… not the Giants. For another, sorry, but their fans need to suffer more than Giants fans for me to care. Too bad.

As every long-long-long-suffering-suffering-suffering-suffering Giants fan knows, during the 33-year period that the joy of one (or more) of their team’s pitchers tossing a no-hitter had eluded them, no fewer than eight guys heaved no-hitters against the Giants. Washburn and Warren Spahn each threw one, but that was well before the drought started, back when Giants foolishly believed that their team might throw several no-hitters (and win several World Championships). But the others… agony. Every one. Even the ones I missed. I consider myself lucky not to have been in attendance at any of these games, because, at least during the home games, I probably would’ve snapped and tried to whap people on the back of the head for rooting for a no-hitter against their team, on the grounds that it’s “historic.” Screw that. There’ve been a couple hundred of the damn things, it’s not like it’s someone’s 512th win, for crying out loud.

The Jerry Reuss no-hitter in 1980—for the Dodgers!—is famous for me having listened to every agonizing out while I was supposed to be working on the receiving dock at the Emporium, where I worked. I mean, I was there—I just wasn’t working. I was steaming. Actually, what made this one famous was that when I called David Beck to commiserate, he was on a date or something—“Oh, that’s fair!” I probably thought—so his dad had to take the message: “Greg Palmer called: The Giants got a no hit.” Naturally, Dave first assumed—being young and naïve, and, let’s be honest, probably it wasn’t a date anyway—that a Giant had thrown a no-hitter. And then he learned the truth. EEEEEE!

Charlie Lea’s no-hitter against the Giants took place in May 1981, when I Dave and I were at San Diego State, so we were lucky to miss it. Mike Scott’s was in late September 1986, so I probably was working, and it was still early enough in my job that I didn’t think it’d be cool to listen to the radio. I’m especially pleased about missing that one, since it clinched the West, for which the Giants had been in contention for most of the season. I can’t speak for Dave. (If I could, I would say the following: “Gregg Pearlman is a terrific guy who certainly deserves to make good money as a writer.” But I can't. So I won't.)

Terry Mulholland’s no-hitter for the Phillies, however, was an especially bitter pill. This is one of the guys the Giants traded to Philly in 1989 for Steve Bedrosian, who, wonderful as he was in his first week as a Giant, already had worn out his welcome by August 15, 1990. I don’t remember if this is the same game where Mulholland broke Kirt Manwaring’s foot with a pitch, but it may as well have been. And in no fewer than two subsequent stints with the Giants, Mulholland never, ever made up for it. Not as far as I’m concerned, anyway. Two no-hitters—one against the Phillies, one against the Dodgers—might have done the trick. Probably the most noteworthy thing he’d done as a Giant, before the trade, was get his arm broken by a Gerald Perry line drive. Boob.

Two years and two days later… Kevin Gross. How? I’m lucky enough to remember no details beyond my severe annoyance. So unfair.

The next Kevin to throw one against the Giants was Brown of the Marlins. This I remember vividly, since I’d stayed home sick that day—being legitimately sick, not because I wanted to listen to the game. We lived on the top floor of our apartment building, and this was a day in which the temperature was at least 450 degrees and there were people on the roof, pounding away. Nonstop. Throughout the game. Until my head was pounding in sympathetic rhythm. For all I know, Kevin Brown’s a terrific guy, but I’ll never, ever forgive him for this. Creep.

I missed most of the Kevin Millwood game six years ago, thankfully, as my son had a Little League game that day, but I was no less grumpy once the no-hitter had taken place.

Now, however, even two days after the event, I and all other Giants fans still have a no-hitter to celebrate. The only blot on Sanchez’s outing was Juan Uribe’s boot of what appeared to be a fairly easy ground ball in the eighth inning, but as Bruce Bochy pointed out later, had Uribe not tried to charge the ball but fielded it cleanly, the batter probably would’ve beaten it out, which would be way worse than an error, no-hitter-wise. So Uribe’s almost forgiven. (Let’s not mention the fact that Mulholland’s no-hitter was marred by an error also, but he got a double play—and faced only 27 batters. Shmuck.)

In the 1980’s, when Dave and I worked most avidly on our tabletop baseball game, we played literally quadrillions of games together—okay, I exaggerate: it was only one quadrillion, and almost certainly closer to one than two—and we shared two no-hitters. Dave won both. But in working on The Game, he and I always had a cooperative spirit. Sure, each of us always wanted to win, but when something incredible was happening, that’s what we rooted for. The last no-hitter we played together took place 25 years ago—and to put Sanchez’s feat into some kind of perspective, the last Giants no-hitter had taken place eight years before that—and we rolled our dice, recited the results, wrote them down… but never once noted aloud that something unusual was happening. We had to pretend, just like the teammates of a major leaguer who’s got one going, that no particular no-hitter was in progress; in fact, just as if Dave himself were throwing it, I avoided talking to him except to note the results. Then when my final batter got out, we both whooped and high-fived—that’s the only acceptable circumstance in which it’s okay to root for your team not to get any hits. Between the two of us, we experienced maybe half a dozen no-hitters via The Game, but certainly not much more than that, if at all.

But even today—and probably for a long time—I am as stoked about Jonathan Sanchez’s near-perfect, no-hit, no-run game as if I myself had rolled the fateful dice.

(By the way, that last line’s supposed to be at least mildly funny, not pathetic, so you’re supposed to laugh with me.)

Not the Giants, Really

I am not a soccer fan. It wasn’t part of my home life growing up. When they had us playing it in school, I wasn’t good at it. It’s not the Giants. I only ever saw it on TV when KTEH in San Jose would show prerecorded matches from England, featuring Mario Machado at the mike. When I watched this, it was because Monty Python or something was going to be on next. I remember no teams or players, except for Cunningham—whatever his first name might be—who was noteworthy by being the only black player in these broadcasts. Ever.

And yet I’ve been reading Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, on the recommendation of a Paris-based friend, a Giants fan and soccer enthusiast. He knows soccer ain’t my bag, but that’s not what the book is about. It’s merely the medium in which the author lays bare his soul, at least in terms of his obsession with the Arsenal football club. Recently I saw the movie based on the book—the English one with Colin Firth, not the American one with Jimmy Fallon, because… well, Jimmy Fallon—and, confident that I could wade through the stuff about soccer itself, I decided to read the book.

Good film; good book. In the latter, Hornby freely admits that more or less stopped maturing at about age 14, and that Arsenal is way more important than career or relationships. He’s not happy about it, but he can’t help it. It has a certain ring of familiarity about it: I’ve managed—I think—to place the Giants at a reasonable place in my hierarchy of important things, but it sure hasn’t been easy. But Fever Pitch makes it clear that if you’re not in the mindset Hornby was, and many of us have been, you simply cannot understand it. You can sympathize when we’re sad or something, but you’ll just never get it, probably because you’re sane.

I mention this because I recommend both the book and the Colin Firth movie, but also because the book led me to some odd, not-at-all-heavy thoughts about baseball. First, my apologies for my soccer ignorance to anybody who knows more about English football than I do (in other words, almost everybody), or soccer in general, but in Hornby’s book it sounds as though Arsenal was playing for more than one championship or something, and I found this hard to follow so I looked up English football on WikiPedia just to get an idea of how it works. I guess the upshot is that there are dozens and dozens of teams, and even the lowliest, crappiest, most poverty-stricken, even the most Giantslike team in the Football Association could be the champion of the whole damn thing. And this lowly, crappy, poor team might even be semi-pro. As with college sports, teams play games against league and non-league opponents—something I’ve never understood, which could easily explain my lack of enthusiasm for college sports (and, sadly, for college, but that’s another story).

So I thought, “What if there were baseball leagues like this?” I wasn’t thinking in terms of Out Of The Park or tabletop baseball games—just a “what if?” Now, the Football Association setup is far more complicated than the hypothetical I came up with: the FA has a great many levels, each with about 20 to 24 clubs, and I decided that the “Baseball Association”—or whatever—would be a lot more manageable, at least by someone looking at it hypothetically.

Let’s just assume it’s all top-level professional, but there are multiple levels—let’s say six, though there could be several more, depending on how many teams there are in the BA. The lowest levels have major-league-level teams, not minors types; the higher levels simply have much, much better teams. Granted, since there are only 30 major league teams, you’d have to stretch your imagination to believe that—in this case—this Baseball Association could somehow field 136 major-league-caliber teams.

In this thoroughly imaginary, not-about-to-actually-be-realized BA, Level 1 would be the way the major leagues were when I started following them (blindly and enthusiastically): four divisions, six teams each. Perhaps the teams would be divided into two “leagues,” and they’d never mix in the regular season. (Does it matter?) Levels 2 through 5 would each consist of a single league of two divisions, with eight teams each, and Level 6 would consist of four leagues, each with two divisions, six teams per.

Playoffs and championship series would be pretty much as we’ve come to expect. The “twist,” though, is that between seasons, though, the two worst teams at each level (1 through 5) move to the next lower level (or are “relegated,” as FA people say); the two best teams in each level (2 through 6) move up to the next level.

This means that the leagues change virtually every year. Let’s forget about things like travel logistics: The U.K. covers about 94,000 square miles, home to roughly 60 million people. It doesn’t even take all that long to drive from tip to tail—if you had the time, it would be pretty easy to follow your team throughout the length and breadth of the land. North America, meanwhile, has an area about 10 times that of the U.K., and a population about seven and a half times the U.K.’s. (And I didn’t even have to look this stuff up on the Web! Oh, no! Came right off the top of my head, that did! Right off!) So heck, maybe North America could house more than six levels of Baseball Association teams. It’s probably pretty horrifying to contemplate.

Is this a stupid idea? Well, probably, but I’m just spitballing here. I ran it by David Beck, who thinks it looks intriguing, but that various market disparity factors would pretty much murder it. “If teams in leagues could just be there just to be there and ‘have a chance,’” he says, “what’s to [prevent] a top tier of 57 New York teams and 32 Los Angeles teams, and a whole bunch of other teams in the lower divisions with insane people jumping up and down like the guy in the ‘Tonight’s the night!’ joke, thinking they even have a rat’s nard of a chance to compete?”

This hadn’t remotely occurred to me, which probably indicates something unpleasant, but he’s right. We San Francisco fans—however many San Francisco teams their may be—would be out here freaking out, aching for our team(s) to somehow do well enough just to win the Level 4 championship and then be promoted to Level 3, at which time we’d have to go crazy hoping like hell they don’t tank the following season against better teams overall in Level 3 and then get demoted. We’d have decades involving absolutely no danger of our teams moving up or seeing any postseason action whatsoever. Then some day our desperate owners would somehow raise the money to add a few outstanding players, and the team would win championships three years in a row—thus moving from Level 4 to Level 1—at which time their great players would be old and become expensive millstones, preventing them from hiring more great players, and their not-quite-superstar players would start following money elsewhere. So we’d be lucky to see our San Francisco teams in the top tier for more than one season at a time, which means we’d be lucky to be able to agonize about somehow winning it all—and, of course, we wouldn’t, which makes this hypothetical organization exactly like real baseball in San Francisco.

But to keep you from being too depressed—there’s nothing I can do about the boredom you’re suffering: that’s your problem; write your own blog—I set up an Excel spreadsheet in exactly the configuration detailed above. I included cities that have housed top-level sports franchises, and several of these cities had two, three, or even four teams. (The stadium construction industry would be the only currently profitable venture.) I scattered them randomly into their initial levels. I didn’t do any kind of baseball thingy or sports simulation: I just used random numbers to determine standings for 20 years.

To my surprise, none of the 136 teams stayed in the top division every year, and seven stayed in Level 7. Lots of the original top-tier teams fell to Level 2 for a year or two, then played their way back up. Even more teams moved up for a bit, then fell back down. Only one team won three consecutive championships, vaulting from Level 5 to Level 2, and only one team appeared in every level—and it wasn’t the happy kind of progression. Only one top-level team spent all 20 years in that level, but 25 teams stayed in Level 6 forever—imagine being fans of those teams.

This isn’t too far from what I expected, but it assumes equal footing for every team. For this kind of arrangement to happen, you’d probably need a hard salary cap and equal revenues for each team, which, as you can imagine, wouldn’t be popular among the successful teams. I mean, what’s the point of being smart and very good at your job—which, you’d think, is what this “equal footing” thing would make necessary for success—if the dingleberry teams make the same money? Knowing as little as I do about economics in general, you’ll excuse me if it’s ignorance that leads me to state that teams would tend to consist of one superstar and 24 tweaks (which is what I expected to happen to the majors, but it never really did, although sometimes the Giants had 25 tweaks).

One thing this exercise led me to think was, how can anybody be a fan of the bottom-level teams? How can people get excited about their teams winning a Level 3 or 4 championship? Level 2 I could understand: eventually your team would have a pretty good chance to win the overall championship—I mean, getting into Level 1 is the only way a team could accomplish this, so yeah, that Level 2 championship might be a big deal.

And what about baseball cards? There’d be 3,400 players on active rosters at any given time, all theoretically “big leaguers,” so how fair would it be for players in just, say, Levels 1 through 3 to sign baseball card contracts? Pricing probably would depend largely on level also—and perhaps availability, too. What a mess.

And through it all: No Baseball Association Cups in San Francisco.

Kuip Pumps Seven!

Among my newsfeeds are Henry Schulman’s Giants blog and the Giants section from the Chronicle, the Mercury’s Andrew Baggarly’s Giants blog, and ESPN.com’s baseball page—which rarely tells me anything interesting.

Last night Tim Lincecum—who, I should emphasize, won the National League Cy Young Award in 2008—pitched eight innings of a 4-0 win over the Braves. This is what the ESPN newsfeed had to offer (and bear in mind that many of the titles predate last night’s Giants game by hours or even days:

Ooo! A lineup change for the Boston Red Sox! Somebody who was in the Brewers’ lineup, then evidently wasn’t, is back in! A pitcher who’s been canned by four teams from 2006 through spring training this year, and who hasn’t been healthy in five years, now plays for an independent minor league team! Some team’s gonna bring up a prospect! Some guys are injured! Other guys are called up! Someone hasn’t won a game in three years! A bunch of Mets are hurt! The new Tim Lincecum beats the Tigers! Whee! Is there a damn word about the Giants? I feel as though if there had been, it would’ve said “Atlanta Braves Rookie Medlen loses 4-0.” (Those items almost always give the complete city and team names, as if fans wouldn’t understand, say, just “Giants” or even “Nats.” Some potentially relevant stuff gets lost in those ellipses, because….)

Zach Greinke threw a complete game, giving up six hits and a run, walking none and striking out eight. Lincecum went eight, giving up zero runs on five hits and two walks, striking out eight. But Greinke apparently is the flavor of the month—no doubt he’s good enough. And since I didn’t use the newsfeed last year, I don’t know whether everything Lincecum did was covered, but ESPN’s history does not suggest as much.

Okay, I really don’t care that the ESPN.com newsfeed didn’t mention Lincecum or last night’s victory in particular. I honestly don’t. It’s just something I noticed because it’s symptomatic of the network’s general approach. I mean, even print-media sportswriters make fun of the fact that ESPN has rarely given Crap One about anything that happens outside of New York and Boston, and sometimes maybe LA. On the Giants newsgroup, we’d been complaining about this on and off for years, sometimes really dropping the hammer on ESPN. Once or twice, someone at ESPN would respond, saying something along the lines of, “Hey, I care about the Giants!” But that doesn’t really appease the faithful, who for the most part are cheesed off because aside from Giants fans, people only seem to care about the Giants enough to hate them, or at least to make fun of them for front-office foolishness or, more likely, the increasingly conspicuous failure of “San Francisco Giants: World Champions!” rings to exist.

The new MLB Network is a little better, at least—they sound almost like they know who a lot of the Giants players are, and they actually do show some highlights (which beats the snot out of ESPN’s common practice years ago—maybe they still do it; I wouldn’t know—of offering up a teaser about a Giants game during SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight, then failing to say anything about it by the end of the program). Plus, it’s probably unfair to criticize ESPN too heavily about the lack of even-handed baseball coverage, since those folks are mostly about college football and hoops anyway.

I mention the MLB Network because they said something about some team—I can’t remember who; nobody relevant—whose fans are impatient because their team hasn’t won a championship in 17 years, or 23, or 31, or whatever. Yesterday, while looking up something else, I happened upon a Reds’ fan blog that said, “It has been X number of days, X number of hours, and X number of minutes since the Cincinnati Reds’ last World Championship.” I suppose I visit the blog again so I could tell you what those X numbers are, but who cares? It’s only the Reds—it’s not like it’s important economy news, terror alert upgrades, the Giants, or major medical breakthroughs. Still, I can’t fault the misled—they’re misled. Each of us is entitled to his or her opinions, no matter how wrong and foolish they are for not being Giants fans. They can’t help it. (Well, they could, if they really wanted to be okay.)

Now, if you’re a faithful reader of this blog—well, first of all, you’re one of (and here comes a generous estimate) maybe half a dozen people, not counting me (and I don’t really read it except while I’m writing it), but second, you know very well how I feel about other teams’ fans moaning about their teams’ failures to win any World Series lately. Namely, you know I believe that only Giants fans have any real right to moan about their teams’ failures. And you know why. (Hint: 51 years and counting—and no sign of running out of numbers to count.)

Still, whaddayagonnado? I have learned—and this has been reinforced, over and over, possibly since long before any of my ancestors even came to this country—that I have no control over the Giants’ fortunes, except in situations such as the 2002 World Series. (If you read EEEEEE! afterwards, you know that the Giants’ failure was pretty much my fault. But that’s one of the many exceptions, not the rule.) It’s just that since so few of us have much control over our lives, you’d think a guy could have control over the baseball team he follows, but nooooooooo! I mean how fair is life? Shee.

This is why the Good Lord invented tabletop baseball games, which have been around since long before Major League Baseball even settled on a sacrifice-fly rule everybody could live with, and why they, and computer baseball games survive and thrive today. People want to win—or lose, but mostly win—on their own merit. And if they decide to helm their favorite Major League Baseball simulated teams, those teams can finally win, no thanks to the folks who run the real teams. Indeed, one of they main purposes of “replay”-type baseball games is to show how much better you could do than the people who ran the actual team did. And hell, if you don’t like the way things are going, you can cheat, if you really feel the need.

When David Beck and I were avidly working on our baseball game eons ago, we tended to keep the major leagues out of the picture, probably because we didn’t need any imaginary Giants frustrating us to death, too. So Dave had his NBL, and I had my various leagues. Eventually, in a gesture born out of desperation, Dave developed The NBL Superiority Overrule Roll. See, The Game had, annoyingly, more than its share of dice-rolls that, once a play was finally determined and carved in stone, still could overrule that play, turning a hit into an out and vice-versa. The NBL Superiority Overrule Roll took this to the limit: When frustration became too much to handle, Dave—and I, I must admit—would pit one of his NBL teams against a team we hated, such as… hmm… lemme think… what teams might we have hated in those days?… hey, how ’bout, oh, the Dodgers! And, under the premise that the NBL was superior in every way to the Major Leagues, every moment of Dodger success or NBL-team failure in such a simulation could be overruled and, essentially, reversed. Now, the overrules weren’t automatic. Oh, no. You’d still have to roll a 12-sided die, and depending on the result, a play might not be overruled at all. That’s how, after many NBL-vs.-Dodgers contests, the Dodgers finally scored their run. Of course, we had to do the same thing with the Giants, developing a Giants Superiority Overrule Roll. Perhaps you cannot see the attraction of laughing like a loon while Duane Kuiper jacks his seventh home run in as many innings in support of Renie Martin’s 143-0 perfecto over the Dodgers. Of course, one cannot spend too much time in such pursuits—ask those people who delight in stepping on ants—but its fun while the imaginary superiority lasts.

One of the first things I wrote for publication was a review of MicroLeague Baseball, back when I worked on a magazine that catered to 8-bit Atari computer owners. I liked MicroLeague a lot, really, and eventually I actually purchased—yes, Atari people: I actually purchased some software, rather than copying it—the disks that let you set up leagues, make trades, and compile statistics. And one of the teams I made up consisted entirely of Dodger players I heartily disliked (as opposed to just disliking them for the uniform they chose to wear), all of whom were turned into .160 hitters and 14.00-ERA pitchers (because I didn’t want to make the disparity too ridiculous). This team played frequently against what were then the current Giants, all upgraded to .750 hitters who were capable of hitting, say, 80 home runs a year, to say nothing of a bunch of 0.50-ERA pitchers.

Watching runners circle the bases á la that part in “Baseball Bugs” where hundreds of opposing baserunners are doing a conga around the bases was a hoot, but for sheer hysterical giggling, you need to see opposing outfielder after opposing outfielder chase baseballs as far as possible before running out of room. Again and again. Hee. The best part—yes, I know: if this is the best part…—was that once the Giants reached 127 runs in a game, MicroLeague would freeze. Then the challenge was to see how soon they could get to 127.

Today’s the last day to get the new version of Out Of The Park Baseball for ten bucks off the retail price, and because I’m still not working, I shan’t indulge myself—although, hey, at this writing I almost have a job: that is, it was offered, then, at least momentarily, rescinded—so I’ll end up paying full price in the future. And now it’ll let you create players based on statistics you input, which means I may just have to pit a bunch of .750-hitting 2009 Giants against a Dodgers team that tends to cough up, say, 27 runs a game.

Even then, I wonder if ESPN.com would deign to put Giants-related headlines into my newsfeed.

Random Grumping

Lincecum. Cain. Sandoval. Those are the only players on the Giants’ 25-man roster whom I insist that they keep, and as much as I like him, I’m not entirely positive about Sandoval. But what do we hear today? Brian Sabean’s after somebody who can freakin’ hit. Well, that’s good, but the other part is that supposedly he’s shopping Cain. Well, heck, it could be worse: it could be Lincecum.

Part of the problem is that the Giants don’t have much to trade, at least not at the major league level. That is, the Giants’ most tradeable assets are guys they don’t want to trade. Or at least Lincecum. Occasionally we hear rumors about Bengie Molina, but how much could the Giants really get for a catcher in his mid-thirties; a man who, by himself, is The Argument for baseball to introduce the Designated Runner; a man who really seems to have trouble corralling pitches at the letters? Really, it’s hard to fault him that much, but he’s the Giants’ cleanup hitter, and his best OPS with the team was last year’s .767; this year it’s .766. Again, I like to use the trick, which really isn’t a trick, of dividing OPS by three to get an idea of how a hitter’s doing. That is to say, Molina’s OPS/3 is .255, which is about as good an OPS as .255 is a batting average. Molina doesn’t walk, which might lead you to think he makes up for it in his Big-Money sluggitude. He doesn’t. Right now he’s slugging .484, which is his best as a Giant to date, and that’s only 400 points below Barry Bonds’ slugging percentage in 2001. Now, nobody expects him to be Bonds—that would be ridiculous—but for crying out loud, a cleanup hitter slugging .484 isn’t doing a lot of cleaning up.

Molina, however, should hardly be the whipping-boy for the Giants’ troubles. I’m not sure who should be, though, because there are plenty of candidates including (but not limited to) Randy Johnson, Jonathan Sanchez, Aaron Rowand (who led off the game by taking an 0-2 pitch at his shins for strike three—have I complained enough about the umpires lately?), Travis Ishikawa, Rich Aurilia, Edgar Renteria, Fred Lewis, Brian Wilson…. It’s disheartening, isn’t it?

Johnson, by the way, has managed to throw two or three good games as a Giant, but EEEEEE! staffer emeritus David Beck compared the situation to that of Steve Carlton. This was a reference, as you old-timers know, to the Giants suddenly picking up the future Hall-of-Famer on waivers during the 1986 season—a guy once so great that when people mentioned “Lefty,” you knew who they meant—and hanging onto him long enough for him to go 1-3 with a 5.12 ERA… before Carlton announced his retirement from baseball… a week before he signed with the White Sox. (Yeah. “Retired,” we said. “Yeah, suuuurrrre.” He pitched into 1988.)

I told Dave I’d be delighted if Randy Johnson were putting up Carltonesque numbers—and I was talking about those 1986 numbers. Only because he pitched pretty well a couple days ago, his ERA dropped 60 points to 6.26. Until then, he’d given up a home run every four innings.

One thing Carlton and Johnson do have in common is that… remember that weird Levi’s commercial in the early ’80s, the one with the blonde in the tight jeans hollering, “Travis! You’re years too late!”? Well… while you’re busy trying to rid yourself of mental images of blondes in tight jeans—and good luck to you—here’s a list of some other players the Giants were years too late in acquiring: Moises Alou, Shawon Dunston, Steve Finley, Marquis Grissom, Yamid Haad, Orel Hershiser, Randy Johnson, Kenny Lofton, Mark Portugal, Dan Quisenberry, Benito Santiago, Darryl Strawberry, and Barry Zito. I know other teams do that as well, but put those guys on the field, and you’ve got an awfully impressive team. Except Haad. Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

All Right, I Did It

As threatened, and with little better to do, I ran an Out Of the Park Baseball simulation wherein I took the reins of a team that batted its pitcher eighth all year. That is, I ran one fictional, eight-team league, in which the pitcher batted eighth for my team, the Steamers. (The game came up with that name randomly. Since “steamer” has acquired a rude and widespread connotation, and is therefore reasonably funny, I chose to run that team, which comes from a city called “Team 4.” And since there are 15 more teams in two leagues, I’ll leave it up to you to guess the other city names. No peeking.) Once I’d set up this league, I made a copy of the league folder, then finished the simulation, called Pitchers Bat Eighth (PB8).

Then I completed the Pitchers Bat Ninth (PB9) simulation with the copy of the league—identical in every detail, except that the Steamers’ pitchers always batted ninth. In neither simulation did I want to knock myself out setting up the best possible team; nor did I want to play GM (or even on-field manager) and deal with trades (or in-game strategy). So to pare my roster to 25 players, I dumped as many of the one-star players as possible—see, players are rated in many ways, including number of stars. I have no idea how good my team actually is, but OOTP gave me a “manager’s score” of 21 out of 100—astonishingly bad, but then, it’s not as though I closely scrutinized day-to-day operations. Indeed, I was very much an absent figurehead. I’ve been called worse.

In the PB8 simulation, the Steamers went 72-90, finishing third in their division. They went 81-81 in PB9 and finished second in their (obviously not very good) division. (I still got a horrendous manager’s score of 28—I defy any other absent figurehead to do better.) I know that doesn’t prove anything, but I’m guessing that if I ran another, say, 999 simulations with each version, the results would support the notion that always batting your pitcher ahead of an actual major league hitter is a bad idea. Do the results tell us that it’s stupid to occasionally make this lineup maneuver? No. I could run another simulation in which a particular pitcher always bats eighth, or in which Wednesday was always Pitcher Bats Eighth Day, but I’m not going to. If I did, though, I have no doubt that the results would still show batting the pitcher eighth to be an unwise decision, even if the difference is just one win.

Here’s how my Steamers—interestingly, the only Steamers player whose name I remember is Jim Kirk—did in the respective simulations:

PB8 Steamers  72-90, 3rd place (of 4)
             League    Overall
H      1380      8th     15th
R       730      7th     15th
Avg    .250      8th     15th
OBP    .318      7th     13th
SP     .419      5th     10th
OPS    .737      6th     12th

PB9 Steamers, 81-81, 2nd place (of 4)
League    Overall
H      1512      5th      9th
R       818      3rd      5th
Avg    .259      4th     10th
OBP    .326      5th     11th
SP     .441      4th      6th
OPS    .767      3th      7th

First, note that the PB9 Steamers averaged about four more hits every five games, so it should not surprise you that they scored about 0.9 runs a game more than the PB8 team. Bill James’ work showed that in a practical sense, 10 runs translated, more or less, to one “win,” so it would fit that the PB9 Steamers won nine more games than the PB8’s.

The above numbers still don’t prove anything, I realize that—small sample size, only a simulation, etc.—but still, in none of these categories did the PB8 Steamers outperform their PB9 counterparts. You can be certain that much of these differences had to do with the lineup change.

In any case, I really don’t want Bruce Bochy even to consider batting his pitcher anywhere but ninth.

More Bullpen Stuff

In case you failed to read the comments on my last couple of pieces about relievers, saves, and pitching staff size (in which case: shame on you), EEEEEE! staffer (I refuse to say “former”) David Malbuff responded to (not “former” either) EEEEEE! staffer David Beck’s comment about “Why not have 14-man staffs, all relievers?” David M. says, “I’m on the other side of this one. (Yes, I still exist.) Pick your nine best pitchers and let ’em get all the innings they can handle. Carry three catchers, two guys who can hit coming off the bench, and three utility men.”

That would be fine with me, actually. By now it should be clear that I’m very tired of 12-man pitching staffs (or worse), and the lefty-righty-lefty-righty dance makes me crazy. Also, if the tendency were to leave starters in until they simply could pitch no more (or the game ended), you’d have much more of a “thinking man’s game,” for want of a better expression. Pitchers would “pace themselves,” as they used to—it would be a return to, say, 1960s-brand baseball. You’d see pitchers getting by on guts and brains more than “stuff,” and there wouldn’t be any Jake Peavy Cy Youngs, wherein the winner never sees an eighth inning all season. The only downside would be the destroyed arms, but would that happen any more than it does now?

(The other thing is, the All-Time All-Star Baseball version of Sports Illustrated Baseball had nine pitchers per team—very few of whom were actual relievers….)

Dave (B.) and I had continued the overall discussion in e-mail and, as he points out in his comment here, the idea of a staff full of relievers is something he and I had discussed over the years, probably more than once. I don’t think either of us looks at it as ideal, but sort of the extreme version of the way pitching staffs are now.

In fact, at some point, probably at least 20 years ago, I tried doing the “two or three innings at a time” thing with the baseball game Dave and I had spent years developing. I’m pretty sure I got bored, but hey. Frankly, aesthetics aside, it makes loads of sense, although probably the manager would have to come up with these intricate little mini-rotations, like Casey Stengel’s fabled (i.e., true or not, but “fabled”) complex platoon system with the Yankees lineup.

You may remember that Tony LaRussa tried something like this several years ago, only he had his guys go four innings. Imagine being a starter on that club. Talk about unrewarding.

(Quick aside about LaRussa: He’s also the brain behind batting pitchers eighth occasionally—not that it hadn’t been done before. His rationale involved more RBI opportunities for Mark McGwire. This came up recently because Joe Torre did the same thing in a game against the Giants. This didn’t work out for the Dodgers—imagine my distress—but then, he’d put his number-five starter up against Tim Lincecum, which probably is a good time to perform an experiment like that. The actual distressing part is that Bruce Bochy was quoted as saying he might try that some day. I really hope he doesn’t, because his team will score fewer runs and, I dare say, win fewer ballgames. The pitcher’s spot, over the course of the season, will come to the plate more often than the actual major league hitter in the ninth spot, and that can’t possibly be a good thing. I might well do an Out Of the Park Baseball simulation just to see.)

I’m not advocating this—just thinking aloud—but I think it’d be possible to do the everybody-pitches-two thing with fewer pitchers—say, eight to 10—because everybody would be used to pitching two or three innings a lot. You could have a rotation(ish) like:

Fri       Sat       Sun       Mon
Lincecum  Zito      Medders   Johnson
Johnson   Cain      Romo      Howry
Howry     Sanchez   Affeldt   Affeldt
Affeldt   Wilson    Wilson    Lincecum

And so on. (You know I’m just fantasizing because Sergio Romo’s in the mix.) You could, as much as possible, alternate lefties and righties for each trip through the lineup, and change up styles and such—e.g., backing up Zito’s 85-mile-an-hour fastball and sharp curve with Lincecum’s electric fastball and effective change, then Johnson’s 92 mph fastball and 89 mph slider, then Wilson’s 100 mph fastball and Nen-like slider. Something like that.

Course, that would change offensive strategies a lot, too, and it could be a real chess game, I guess. The logical endpoint, however, probably would be an Offensive Unit, a Defensive Unit, and a specialist pitcher for each of the other team’s batters.

Further, since this is mostly a discussion about relievers, Dave was whining—whenever you complain about a team you like, even a little, that doesn’t do well and which isn’t the Giants, it’s whining; when it’s about the Giants, it’s (a) analyzing, and (b) relevant—about the Angels blowing a 9-4 lead and losing 10-9 to the Yankees, whom Dave may dislike even more than the Dodgers, if such a thing is possible. “No bullpen is this bad,” he whined about the Angels (or I said in analysis of the Giants—as opposed to “in analysis about the Giants,” which, well, let’s not go there).

I am confident that the Angels and their wads of cash will be able to address the situation effectively. As Giants newsgroup vet Jonathan Bernstein has pointed out over the years, the thing with a bullpen is that except for your closer and one or two other guys (like the setup dude, and often not even him), you’re dealing with pretty interchangeable parts. A guy like Doug Henry—remember him?—throws hard, gets guys out nonstop, then breaks down… so you go and find John Johnstone, who’s more or less the same guy, at least until he breaks down, and then you go with… well, whoever—I mean, it didn’t work all that well for the Giants, but still.

Dave said he simply couldn’t think of any team whose bullpen was as atrocious as the Angels had been up to that point. “I cannot see how any team ever could ever have been this bad to have had so many huge leads and blown them in the last two innings,” he said. “Small leads, yes, even moderate leads, maybe.”

Without actually checking, my recollection is that the Giants were about this bad in 1996. It was different, though: they got lit up without regard to the score, really, and since they didn’t take many leads into the late innings, it wasn’t as heartbreaking, at least not in the sense Dave is talking about.

Oh, No Need to Listen to Me

Not that it matters all that much, but Brian Wilson had to finish off the eighth inning in a moderate pressure situation. In the ideal world described in my last post—okay, I didn’t call it an ideal world, because in an ideal world, the San Francisco Giants would have won at least one World Series by now—Wilson would have hit the showers with his teammates’ thanks and the knowledge of a job well done.

But no. He has to stay in the game and pitch the ninth, or else he won’t get the save. By then the Giants had a six-run lead, which is not to say that the game was in the bag (because they’re the Giants), but it was probably safe enough to give, say, Merkin Valdez a pressure-free inning. The team’s best reliever had already done his thing.

Instead, two batters into the ninth, the Dodgers have scored. Now, true, nothing bad happened after that, but it’s clear that closers just don’t concentrate unless the game is seriously on the line. Robb Nen as much as admitted this, and you can see it on the face of any closer who enters a game with too big a lead. He’s thinking about babes or the latest episode of Family Guy or the fact that pizza maybe sounds like a plan after the game. But probably mostly babes.

“Theme” My Bippy

When Matt Cain left today’s game with a 4-1 lead, broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper were aglow about how, for a change, this year’s “theme” was, “Score Runs for Cain.” The Giants had a number of opportunities to score more than four, but they went into the ninth with that three-run lead, which Brian Wilson coughed up in a heartbeat, leading to extra innings. At this point, hey, the Giants could still win, but they’ve already burned all their best relievers, having used Jeremy Affeldt, Bobby Howry, and Wilson. Who’s left? Brandon Medders, Justin Miller, and Merkin Valdez. Of these, the best appears to be Valdez (and he’d better be), but he generally can’t throw more than an inning. I’m not entirely convinced that Medders and Miller can either. So I can’t say I have a good feeling about the rest of this game.

Now, Wilson came in with that three-run lead. That’s SOP for ballclubs these days: If it’s a save situation, bring in the closer, without fail. A save situation, as you probably are aware, is one in which the reliever enters the game and meets the following conditions (according to Rule 10.19 of the official baseball rules): 1) he is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his team, 2) he is not the winning pitcher, and he either (enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, at bat or on deck; or pitches for at least three innings, no matter how big the lead is.

Most often you’ll see your closer on the mound at the beginning of what his team hopes will be their opponents’ last offensive inning. Those are the easy saves. The pitcher’s coming in with a built-in lead, and all you have to do is shut down the other team for an inning. A one-run lead, certainly, is precarious, and this is where closers to be at their most intense. The bigger the lead, though, the less they concentrate, to the point where they seem to dread coming in with a three-run lead. Heck, I don’t know, maybe Wilson was exactly as intense and focused as usual, but I betcha... not. He got battered around, finally giving up the tying runs on a two-run homer by Juston Upton of the Diamondbacks, who seems to hit only Giants pitchers particularly well.

Now, this happens to every closer at some point. He’s not always gonna shut ’em down. In fact, closers tend to succeed about 80 to 90 percent of the time, which I don’t think is so great given the advantage they have when they enter the game. Granted, not all saves are easy. Closers aren’t going to throw three innings, so you won’t see Wilson enter the game with a 16-3 lead in the seventh, so get that out of your head right now. (Like the Giants are ever gonna score 16 runs in a game this year.)

And when I say “easy,” I mean in a relative sense. Starting the ninth with a one-run lead doesn’t seem so easy if, for instance, you’re facing three straight hitters who routinely knock baseballs out of parks. That one-run lead can disappear rather quickly. Plus there are those save situations where a pitcher might enter the game with a one-run lead, no outs, and the bases loaded. One sacrifice fly later: blown save.

In essence, my standard rant about saves is that saves are a gaudy statistic. Francisco Rodriguez saved over 60 games last year, smashing the existing record. And it’s not as though that’s not impressive. But you can’t equate it to, say, a starting pitcher winning 20 games—I’m not even sure you could equate it to 15 games—because success is built into the statistic. Usually you have to really screw up if you want to blow a save.

All that said, it’s still a better-defined stat than wins for a pitcher. Wins seem far more arbitrary, and on some occasions, they can be awarded on the whim of an official scorer. Yesterday’s victory over Arizona would be a good example, because Randy Johnson came out in the fourth inning, having walked seven hitters, but the Giants won anyway. Johnson’s immediate replacement, Justin Miller, got the win, giving up a run in an inning and two-thirds. Now, had the official scorer judged that Miller had pitched either “briefly” or “ineffectively,” he could’ve given the win to any of the four subsequent pitchers. Not that he should have.

But what do you do in a game where one team had an 8-0 lead and kept scoring, while the other team scored in bunches of four or five or eight but still couldn’t catch up? Let’s say the starter left in the first, and seven relievers all got lit up? Hard to know who gets the win, really. Let’s say that last pitcher doesn’t get lit up, and puts down the opposition in order in the ninth, with a one-run lead. Well, he really should get the save, but since all his teammates had pitched either briefly, ineffectively, or both, he ends up getting the win, which probably doesn’t help him when it comes to contract negotiations.

So neither wins nor saves (albeit clearly defined) is a great statistic. The Giants have shown us over the last few years, thanks to pitchers such as Matt Herges, Tyler Walker, and Brad Hennessey, that anybody can rack up plenty of saves. A guy could save a good 40 games despite an ERA over six, but Lord, what if he leads the league in saves? He’s your closer again next year. Yeccchhh.

Current conventional wisdom has a major league manager putting his best reliever into the closer role, which means that sometimes the games he enters aren’t on the line. How wise is that? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with bringing him in with that one-run lead, but shouldn’t your best reliever pitch in situations that are more crucial than, say, a three-run lead? Bill James espoused this, and I think he has a point. For example, assuming Brian Wilson really is the Giants’ best reliever, I’d sure rather see him in the game right now, with the game tied in the bottom of the eleventh, in an effort to keep the game exactly where it is. And what if the Giants score a run in the twelfth and are poised to score more? Wouldn’t that be an opportune time for Bob Melvin to bring in Chad Qualls, the reliever most likely to douse a rally? In fact, Qualls pitched an inning earlier, with the game tied and no save to be had. In fact, that was a fine time for Qualls to pitch. But in extra innings, you’d be reasonable to expect the home team’s closer to pitch with the game still tied.

You don’t see a closer entering a game in the eighth to preserve a tie, or to keep the opposition down to a one-run lead. You sure don’t see him in the third inning, trying to get through a bases-loaded, nobody-out situation. But what if you did? Would this put a permanent rend in the fabric of baseball space-time?

Yeah, pretty much. It has a lot to do with people’s comfort in pigeonholing other people. Pitchers like to have a role, even if it’s just “You’re the guy who comes in when we’re down 10 runs.” If you’re the closer, you’re the guy who comes in in a save situation—indeed, if you pitch in a non-save situation, it’s either an extra-inning scenario or you’re just in the game to “get some work.” You aren’t going to prepare to come into the game before—at the very earliest—the eighth. You certainly won’t even consider the possibility of being brought in with the bases loaded and nobody out in the third, even if the next three scheduled hitters are a combined 0-for-60 against you and have slider bat speed at best.

This is due to the “closer mentality,” which just means the mindset that major league managers use a hundred percent of the time. I’m not sure I’d know how to do things any better—I fall into the same pattern when playing tabletop or computer baseball games—but the closer mentality has to do some harm. For some teams, it has to be far more harmful than it’s worth. Look at the 1987 Giants, when closer Scott Garrelts blew 10 saves in 22 opportunities. Maybe he just shouldn’t have been pitching in save situations. Maybe he would’ve thrived in middle relief, or as a starter, as he did later. But no. He’s the closer, so until the manager changes his mind, he’s always going to pitch in save situations. Not tie games on the road. Never to preserve a one-run deficit.

Baseball hasn’t done a great job in evaluating relief pitchers. Even blown saves and holds aren’t yet official statistics. But on a team when the best reliever pitches in a variety of situations, when managers use their relief staff based on matchups, who’s pitching well and who isn’t, etc., his baseball card might well show a good ERA, a healthy WHIP (that’s walks-plus-hits per inning pitched), and an incredible strikeout ratio, but it won’t show a lot of saves, maybe not even holds. This’ll cost a guy money.

It might be worth trying out such an approach in a tabletop game or something, but it won’t be happening in major league baseball anytime soon.

(Nor will the Giants be winning today’s game, as Connor Jackson just whapped a drive that bounced on the warning track with the bases loaded in the twelfth. Not a sniff of Merkin Valdez was to be had, either.)

Cellllll-a-brate Good Times, Come On!

Randy Johnson’s career numbers in Dodger Stadium were something like 17-0 with a 0.13 ERA, so it goes without saying that he’d get doused in an accelerant and lit up today. The man looks completely lost out there—well, not anymore, as he’s now leaving the game with two out in the fourth. Yet again, the Giants go after a significant player—about 10 years too late. (I’m thinking here of guys like Steve Carlton, Benito Santiago, and Steve Finley: a Hall-of-Famer and two major Giants killers, irrespective of how good they ever were against the rest of the league.)

Well, that’s okay, I guess. Who doesn’t hope their free-agent signees play well? In particular, what Giants fans aren’t rooting for Johnson to dominate, and for Edgar Renteria to annoy other teams for a change? Instead—maybe just because I’m the Giants fan I am—I envision Johnson and Renteria as a pair of $8 million millstones. Given what the team was looking at internally for second base and shortstop—i.e., Emmanuel Burriss and Kevin Frandsen—how is it that the Giants wind up paying more than twice as much to a two-time Gold-Glove shortstop (but not since 2003) with an OPS+ of 84 (with Detroit last year) as the Dodgers do for Orlando Hudson, a younger player, a three-time Gold-Glove second baseman (most recently in 2007) with an OPS+ of 108 (with the Diamondbacks last year)? Hudson would have been very much an “outside the box” type of choice, and I’m wondering if Brian Sabean, et al., entertained even the tiniest thought of bringing him aboard? After all, Burriss pretty much took shortstop away from Omar Vizquel last year, so why not consider bringing in a free-agent second baseman rather than a shortstop?

Maybe I’m being unfair. No doubt lots of people would look at this and think, “Well, that’s a classic second-guess.” But that doesn’t wash if these had been my views before the aforementioned free agents had signed with anybody. For Hudson, well, I can’t claim that, but I would’ve been moderately pleased had the Giants signed him, in contradistinction to my reaction after the Giants actually did sign both Johnson and Renteria, which was along the lines of “Why?”—at its kindest. There’s no question both men have put up some terrific years (Johnson more so, obviously), but would you say either of them has an upside? I wouldn’t. Hudson’s 31, and theoretically past his prime as well (though I tend to believe that players these days have longer (and often later) primes), but he’s not close to being over the hill yet. Johnson’s hill is a distant speck in his rear-view mirror, and Renteria is more than halfway between his own hill and the barbecue pit that signifies the end of his career.

Meanwhile, the Giants just signed third baseman Dallas McPherson to a minor league contract, which suggests that they’re a little iffy about Pablo Sandoval. McPherson’s major league numbers have been fairly putrid, but he did hammer 42 home runs at Triple-A Albuquerque last year, with an OPS just a shade under a thousand. I don’t know how that would translate to AT&T Park, or if we’ll ever find out.

(And should I mention that Orlando Hudson has hit for the cycle in today’s game? This is the first cycle ever at Dodger Stadium, says Mike Krukow. No, hitting for the cycle is not an indication of overall offensive prowess, but it makes perfect sense to me on a day when Renteria and Johnson have pissed me off tremendously, and I’m wondering if Hudson even got a look from the Giants’ Brain Trust.)

More important than any of this, though, is the health of Joe Martinez, who, as you know by now, took a line smash off the forehead a few days ago. He has a concussion—and baseball takes concussions a lot more seriously these days, as they should—plus some hairline fractures. The report is that he’s doing well and could be back sooner than anticipated, but the Giants ought not rush him. The play made me think of Pete Smith, the Braves pitcher, who took a line drive to the face, courtesy of a Giants batter—I can’t remember who—about 20 years ago. I feel fortunate to have listened to this (as well as the Martinez play) on the radio—as opposed to watching it on TV, I mean. I do not enjoy watching ballplayers get hurt.

I also thought about Terry Mulholland taking a liner off the bat of Atlanta’s Gerald Perry in 1988. That one I did see, though from the upper deck. Still, you can almost feel the impact. Mulholland felt it more, though: broken arm; season over.

(Okay, then, should I mention that with the Giants down 7-1 and Dodgers on first and third with nobody out, Aaron Rowand just caught a fairly deep fly ball and then threw the ball to third? Nah. Nor should I point out further that the throw enabled the runner on first to tag and go to second, thus removing the double-play possibility. This is what I’m always talking about with Rowand, who seems to throw to the wrong base at least twice a week. Did Rowand just not make any mistakes the year he won the Gold Glove? I mean, I do not see “Defensive Wizard” in this guy.)

I shall close by passing on jolliest annual celebration wishes to EEEEEE! contributor David Beck (who got to witness the Mulholland injury with me, and who now is almost spectacularly old), knowing that he would have had to wade through all the foregoing just to be thrown a “Happy Birthday” bone.

It’s 9-5 in the Seventh, but...

Know what bothers me?

• Bengie Molina’s astounding lack of speed and the fact that lots of pitches seem to get by him. No, I’m not all snitty because he won’t be stealing any bases.


• Geez, Pablo Sandoval will swing at anything, won’t he?


• Brian Wilson, Bobby Howry, Joe Martinez, and Brandon Medders, and Merkin Valdez. Jeremy Affeldt and Alex Hinshaw. That’s five righthanded relievers and two lefties. I remember specifically from first grade that five plus two equals seven. Seven relievers. A twelve-man pitching staff. Wow. It’s a different world, isn’t it? I should check the statistics over the last, say, 10 years (but won’t), but it used to be that at-bats where the hitter has the platoon advantage—i.e., batting right against a lefty, left against a righty—led to an overall batting average of about 10 points higher than at-bats where the pitcher has the platoon advantage. So I’m wondering if this has changed drastically in the last few years, because so many managers play the left-right-left-right thing that teams have to carry seven relievers. Can this really be a sound strategy? This leads to...


• Rich Aurilia, Juan Uribe, Nate Schierholtz, Eugenio Velez, and Andres Torres. A five-player bench. Each of these guys can play more than one position, which is a good thing. It’s a bad thing, though, if you’re gonna burn Velez and Torres as pinch-runners a lot, because it seriously limits defensive versatility. And if you routinely go the Felipe Alou route of pinch-hitting for a position player with a slow guy, pinch-running for the pinch-hitter with a fast (or faster) guy, and then having to depend on J.T. Snow to score from second on a base hit to the outfield with two outs in the ninth and the Giants trailing by a run, you’re vastly screwed. (Anybody else have a craw jammed with that particular memory?)


• What the hell is up with that beard thing on Affeldt’s chin?

Let No One Say I Didn’t Post on Opening Day

I hate when work gets in the way of the ballgame, especially on Opening Day or something of even more importance.

Perhaps I should clarify: No, I’m not working yet, but I’m trying to be, with many of today’s hours being devoted to finding a job. By the time I realized that the game would be on (assuming it wasn’t rained out, as had been feared), it was 2 o’clock, and Tim Lincecum had just finished walking Milwaukee’s Mike Cameron to lead off the second. What usually happens when I tune in late is that the Giants immediately go into tank mode: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned on the radio to hear the beginning of a home run call for the other team, for instance. Lincecum didn’t do that, though. Instead, he gave up a two-out RBI double to the pitcher. Apparently the lad has been “off” all day.

How very “me” this game has been already. I mean, I’ve had the radio on for just 10 minutes. Oh, even better: next guy up hits a run-scoring double. The Giants are still ahead, 3-2, thanks to a bases-loaded triple by Travis Ishikawa in the first. That should last! Yeah! No problem! I swear, runs scored as a result of a pitcher’s hitting prowess should count double on the pitching pitcher’s ERA. In this case, Lincecum’s would stand at 18.00, now that he finished the inning without further damage. Perhaps we should refer to these extra, phantom runs as “un-unearned.” To determine un-unearned runs (UURs), you reconstruct the inning as though the pitcher had done what he’s supposed to do, namely strike out. I haven’t worked out all the logic yet, but I’m thinking that if the pitcher reaches base on an error, all runs scoring as a result would be un-un-unearned.

Meanwhile, my almost superhumanly vast legion of fans has been wondering when I might be writing some kind of 2009 season preview, which is silly because what they should have been wondering is “if.” And well should they have been wondering. And the answer is, no time soon. I’d rather take a more general look at the team.

(And just so you know, Lincecum, with Emmanuel Burris on the move (after being hit by the first pitch of the inning) just faked a bunt, then bounced one hard off the plate and into center, putting runners on first and third. Two potential un-unearned runs are sitting there, waiting to be knocked in. Ah, there’s a sacrifice fly by Randy Winn, so that adds two UURs to Jeff Suppan’s ledger—but that’s all, because Edgar Renteria, our very expensive new shortstop, has just hit into an inning-ending double play. That’s very annoying. But hey, at least the Giants are up by two. Well, one. And guess what? Lincecum’s through after three innings, and now we’re being treated to the major league debut of Joe Martinez. What the hell is going on out there?)

Most predictions I’ve seen have the Giants finishing third in the West, usually behind the Dodgers and Diamondbacks, in that order. Though I really don’t picture the Giants finishing much higher, I don’t see a reason not to consider the division wide open. Oh, the Padres are abominable, and the Rockies were a total fluke two years ago—a fluke which no longer employs Matt Holliday—and thus returned to form last year: 14 games under .500, and yet two ahead of the Giants. Baseball Prospectus evidently thinks the Giants and Rockies will tie for third, with close to 90 losses apiece. Now, far be it from me to poke holes in that prediction—so far be it, in fact, that I’m unable to do so. I sure can’t analyze the predictions in a quantitative way. But you know what? The Dodgers led the division with 84 wins, and the Diamondbacks had only 82. Has either team really become much better during the offseason? Then again, have the Giants?

Which is the question. I, being the terminally pessimistic Giants fan I am, will immediately say “Nah!” But is that fair? Think of who’s not around anymore (or, at least, not on the Opening Day roster):

• Guys I won’t miss (I’m pretty sure): Brian Bocock, John Bowker, Rajai Davis, Ray Durham, Geno Espineli, Brian Horowitz, Osiris Matos, Scott McClain, Pat Misch, Ryan Rohlinger, Billy Sadler, Erick Threets, Clay Timpner, and Omar Vizquel. I bet you don’t even remember some of these guys. Others, I think just aren’t needed on the team right now. Vizquel, well, we all enjoyed watching him play shortstop, and we’ve all heard about what a great presence he was on the team, but—depending on how Renteria does—I don’t envision myself wailing, “Why—O! Oh, why!—did we let Omar Vizquel go?
  
  
• Guys whom I’m perfectly happy not to see on the team: Eliezer Alfonzo, Jose Castillo, Vinnie Chulk, Brad Hennessey, Ivan Ochoa, Dan Ortmeier, Matt Palmer, Dave Roberts, Jack Taschner, and Tyler Walker. Oh, and J.T. Snow.
  
  
• Guys about whom my feelings are mixed: Kevin Correia, Kevin Frandsen, Steve Holm, and Keiichi Yabu. Frandsen is easy to like, but does a team really need both him and Burris? Holm will be back before long, probably, because right now the backup catcher is Pablo Sandoval—which I wouldn’t see as a problem, except that he’s already the regular third baseman (which I’m afraid I do see as a problem, but not one that looks easy to solve; however, it does make me feel nostalgic for the days when the Giants tried to turn most of their outfielders into third basemen). Yabu, too, will be back soon—when Martinez hits a wall, probably. (It seems to be happening right this minute, now that the Brewers have taken the lead. Boobs.) Correia made the Padres’ starting rotation, which either says something unfortunate about the Padres or tells you the Giants gave up on him too soon. Rationally, the former should be the case. Because I’m the Giants fan I am, though, I fear it’s the latter. Not that I particularly want the guy back.
  
  
• Guys I’m mildly bummed about but am not losing sleep over: Travis Denker and Noah Lowry. I’d love for Lowry to get healthy and dazzle hitters—and Giants fans—with that amazing changeup, but how would he be used? The starting rotation looks impenetrable—by other pitchers, I mean, not by opposing hitters. It’s the lefties who concern me. For instance, as much as I’d like Barry Zito to be an $18-million pitcher for the Giants, I don’t expect it. Oh, everybody in the organization’s looking for a “bounce-back year” from the guy, but I don’t know that he’s ever going to be much more than an innings-eater (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), and perhaps an innings-eater who continually puts up two digits’ worth of losses but only one of wins, to say nothing of, say, a 5.68 ERA. I really don’t need to see that anymore. Meanwhile, do you expect Randy Johnson to be Randy Johnson? That’d be cool, but it sure doesn’t seem likely. I figure he has to be better than Zito, assuming he stays healthy, but is he a number-two starter anymore? And then there’s Jonathan Sanchez, who strikes out lots of people but still manages to get lit up quite often. He had a nice start last year, and it’d be nice to believe he could spend a whole season pitching well—and in good health. I don’t know what exactly will happen with Lowry, but unless he’s nearly permanently injured, it looks like he’ll have a place in the rotation at some point. Not Denker, though—because he’s an infielder. He showed some pop, grit, and moxie (all of which, I guess, are comestible substances), and I was surprised that he didn’t get a late-season call-up (though he may have been injured—I don’t remember). I was surprised also when, early in the offseason, he went to the Padres on waivers. I thought he was someone at whom to give a longer look. But hey, maybe not.
  
  
• Guys whose absence is no surprise, since they’re really green and need time in the minors: Conor Gillaspie. That’s a pretty easy one. I assume they brought him up last September solely because it was in his contract.
  
  
• Guys whose absence definitely hurts: Sergio Romo. I don’t think it’s any accident that he pitched well last year. The Giants were excited about adding Bobby Howry and Jeremy Affeldt to the bullpen, figuring that Romo (and probably Yabu, eventually) would help them form a formidable relief corps that also features Alex Hinshaw—but unfortunately, that hinged somewhat on Romo actually being able to pitch, which is something that’s difficult to do from the disabled list.

Oh, yay! A two-run homer by Aaron Rowand gives the Giants the lead again, 6-5. Granted, it’s the fourth, so it’s too early to get too excited, but the guy was so bad in Arizona, and I lost all confidence in him by the end of last season. I was mildly surprised—because I hadn’t heard media folk complaining about this—to hear Ralph Barbieri on KNBR point out recently that Rowand made some brutal, ill-advised throws from center field. In fact, because I seemed to be the only person complaining about this, I wondered if perhaps my perception was off the beam. Not that Barbieri thoroughly vindicates my opinion, but at least I’m not alone. (I ought to be nice and say that Rowand broke hundreds of his ribs, perhaps thousands, going after a ball early last season, and I have no doubt that his mobility was somewhat limited all season long.)

What’s nice about the Giants is that for the first time in what seems like eons, they’ve got several players you could reasonably characterize as “exciting,” without the quotation marks: Sandoval, Burriss, Fred Lewis, Lincecum, Cain, and Johnson, at least. Players like Rowand, Molina, and Winn are, or should be, Steady Eddies Who Come Up Big With The Game On The Line. And Ishikawa and Brian Wilson should be fun to watch, assuming they develop. Yeah, Wilson saved a load of games last year and made the All-Star team, but (a) you probably know how I feel about saves anyway, and (b) I don’t think he pitched nearly well enough to merit much, plaudit-wise. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s any good, because I do. He throws very hard—I like guys who throw very hard—and he seems to be developing a slider not entirely unlike Robb Nen’s. His control, though, is a concern, way more than Nen’s ever was. Ishikawa, worryingly, strikes me as sort of a J.T. Snow clone, but without as good a glove. I doubt he’ll ever put up the kind of power numbers you want from a first baseman, though I think he could be a .300 hitter (in a while). I don’t know if the statistics will back me up, but he reminds me of players like Doug Mientkiewicz or even Dave Magadan. At best, I think he’d be almost but not quite as good as Keith Hernandez. The other upside is, he’s not J.R. Phillips.

And in the meantime, Our Boys have managed to hold onto a 7-5 lead all the into the seventh.

Preeping Toward A Championship

by Cudgy Preep

Editor’s note: Once again, Cudgy Preep steps into the breech (which makes a nauseating squishy sound), donning the mantle of your humble Almost EEEEEE! correspondent—a mantle trimmed with ermine and hand-stitched using silk thread soaked in the tears of Giants fans who are still pissed off about the 2002 World Series. Preep, whose real name also isn’t Bat Fastard, often gets a lot of pleasure from making fun of my employment situation, whether I’m employed or not (that would still be “not”), is, himself, one of the many longtime award-winning Bay Area journalists who’s found himself looking for work despite not having won any actual awards. (I, at least, got a “good website!”-type award about 10 years ago, which I mention solely to rub Cudgy’s nose in it. But I digress.) In any case, Cudgy now has breech all over his best open-toed slippers, chiefly because I couldn’t think of much to say about the two latest Giants developments except “Hurrah!” and “Guh?” I’m hoping Cudgy can be even marginally more articulate.—GP

Recently, not once but twice, I’ve had the distinct lack of pleasure to hear something about our Giants that astounded me unto the point of spitting out my mouthful of microwaved sauerkraut, which I’d attempted to consume straight from the white-hot jar. The first would be Tim Lincecum winning the Cy Young Award. The second would be the Giants’ latest foray into the free-agent market.

“Hurrah!” I shrieked, spattering shavings of pickled cabbage at least seven feet in every direction, for Lincecum had become the first Giant since Mike McCormick in 1967 to win a Cy Young. Marichal? Perry? Swift? Burkett? Krukow? Reuschel? Bryant? Schmidt? Some closer? No effing way, no matter how clearly a given Giants pitcher should’ve won it in a given year.

It’s not just Lincecum winning the award that warmed my cockles. No, it was the combination of that and much of the sauerkraut falling into my lap, which warmed the damn things way more than I would’ve liked. Plus there was the fact that suddenly I felt that there might, somehow, some way, be some kind of hope. I mean, for as long as I’ve been a Giants fan, Giants DO NOT win Cy Young Awards. They DO NOT throw no-hitters. They utterly, utterly DO NOT win World Championships.

But now that one of these three mighty oaks has fallen (or is it “have”? I’m never really sure—I think you’re supposed to maintain subject-verb agreement. That said, I might instead just decide that we’re talking about a different kind of tree), I feel as though the barest whisper of hope might somehow have squeaked its way in through the steel-bolted door of Giants fandom.

Now, I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to go into the 2009 season thinking, “Yeah! This is our year! It’s gonna happen! The Giants are finally gonna get me a ring!” I’ve been conditioned over the years, as has every fan of the type who would read Gregg’s and my stuff, to know that even if there’s something to be enthusiastic about, pessimism and skepticism should always be right at hand. It’s not unlike Dave Barry’s description of his mother’s idea of a balanced meal, namely that for every food item the kids liked, there had to be one that they didn’t. I think the specific items were hamburgers and Brussels sprouts.

Until today there were 171 ballplayers hoping to be signed as free agents. These included a fair amount of big names, lots of “hey, he might fit nicely” people, and plenty of guys who, in testing the market, had better be awfully optimistic and willing to overlook their myriad flaws. And the first of these dominoes (or perhaps oak trees, or maybe beech) to fall was… lefty Jeremy Affeldt: two years with the San Francisco Giants, eight million simoleons, according to ESPN.com, which further insists that the Giants have wanted Affeldt for two years.

Because I’m a Giants fan, I’m guessing that those two years will have been the best of his career, as he put up a 3.51 ERA pitching for the Rockies and a 3.33 in Cincinnati. Neither of these is a mean feat. His strikeout-to-walk ratio has improved from 46-to-33 in 2007 to 80-to-25 last year. That ought to be a pretty good sign, no? (That’s ought to.) His splits were a little odd last year: .269/.293/.444/.738 vs. lefthanded batters, .255/.329/.391/.719 against that other kind. His ERA was quite a bit higher at home than on the road—another pretty nice sign, given that the Reds play in more of a hitter’s park than the Giants; however, AT&T Park favored the hitter last year, which was weird, especially with no Bonds around.

So at the moment I’m neither excited nor not about Affeldt, who I think has got to be a better choice out of the pen than, say, Osiris Matos or Patrick Misch. (He’s just got to!) In fact, the bullpen as a whole looks somewhat better now that we’ve seen the back of Brad Hennessey (who just signed with Baltimore), Tyler Walker, Kevin Correia, and Gino Espineli. Eric Hinshaw was the best lefty reliever this year, and Jack Taschner was… well, he was a lefthanded reliever. Either way, it looks as though there will be some rather fierce competition among the bullpen lefties next spring, with Affeldt virtually guaranteed a place.

But for $8 million over two years? Guh? I truly don’t get it, and I am convinced that only the San Francisco Giants—Brian Sabean or no Brian Sabean—would poop out that kind of dosh for a middle reliever.

As for the big names, such as C.C. Sabathia or Mark Teixeira, The Marin Independent Journal has Sabes saying, “If their interest in us is sincere, we'll continue to talk. But we're not going to let anything drag out. We won't be used to drive the price up.” The writer, Andrew Baggarly, goes on to say, “The Giants fell into that trap two winters ago in failed pursuits of Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Lee.”

Does that give you confidence? Hey hey! There’s nothing like knowing for sure that your team is a patsy, as opposed to merely suspecting it all your life.

And finally, in one of my earlier pieces I made passing mention of the silly crush I had on some blonde actress in some English cop show. More than one reader wanted to know who I was talking about, and what show. And I’m still not going to tell you because you’ll only taunt her and send her pictures of me. I shall say merely that I would appreciate it if she left her husband and kids behind to frolic in the surf with me in, I dunno, somewhere sunny and beachy. Probably I shouldn’t mention that it’s the character I’m in love with, not the actress. If she wants my love, she’s got to be a Giants fan—a Giants fan who’s not afraid to remind me that sauerkraut, microwave ovens, and astounding Giants news just don’t mix.

The Inevitable Forestalled—For the Time Being

The Tampa Bay Rays did not win the 2008 World Series. Now we won’t have to worry for 11 months about some upstart claiming a ring before the Giants. Let me be the first to say: Hurrah.

Tonight my friend Steven Rubio posted a blog article, titled “51 Years and Counting,” that echoes what I’ve been saying for years. I’d have to look through my three billion pages of EEEEEE! archives to see if I actually made Steven’s points in print, but I’ve uttering them out loud and typing them into e-mail for yonks, and I’m figuring that somewhere in the archives, the main point can be found, and it is this: as Steven says, “There are no San Francisco Giants fans with that memory [i.e., of their team winning a World Series], because their team has NEVER won it all. No fans in baseball today have a longer zero-title streak than Giants fans.” Steven, an even longer-time Giants fan than I am, may be even more fed up with the suffering than I am—which is pretty hard to fathom.

What I think gripes me most is that traditionally, those who have run the Giants—and not just during the Magowan years—find it acceptable that the San Francisco Giants have never won a World Series. Perhaps they think their fans find it acceptable, too. This here fan does not.

Oh, it’s not as though I shall issue an ultimatum (“Win a damn ring or I’ll kill this dog!”), switch my allegiance to some other team, or give up on baseball altogether, but my current mood can be summed up thus: I’m mad as hell, but I’m gonna take it evermore. That is, I don’t know how I’ll manifest my newfound failure to accept the status quo, because it’s not as though I have any control over the situation. I will, however, offer these words of advice to those who are in control of the Giants, and I’d love to believe that this is old news to them:

• Think great. Think champion. Think different.
  
  
• Give a crap about your fans. Win for them, not just for you.
  
  
• If your bottom-line goals involve not winning, get some new bottom-line goals.

Anything unreasonable about that? I thought not.

Hatin’ Them Rays Right Now

If you’ve spent any time talking baseball with me or reading my stuff, you know that one of my tiny little pet peeves is the fact that the San Francisco Giants have staunchly refused to win even a single World Series in the entire 50 years of their existence. Now, yes, I too am aware that they spent lots of years in New York, where they won a handful of World Championships, but that’s the New York Giants. The San Francisco Giants are still holding tight to their championship cherry.

Some fans feel a sort of proud ownership of those New York titles, and I have to admit, so do I, to an extent. What Giants fan doesn’t get chills every time they hear the recording of Russ Hodges screaming “The Giants win the pennant!” over and over? What Giants fan feels no particular way about the Giants sweeping the heavily favored Cleveland Indians in 1954? But to me, the San Francisco Giants are as far apart from the New York Giants as San Francisco is from New York. They’re different worlds. It’s one franchise, but two teams. And sadly, the difference between the two isn’t that far off from the difference between M*A*S*H and After M*A*S*H.

All right, maybe that’s harsh, and maybe that’s my annoyance talking. Well, it is, to an extent (but that’s okay because annoyance is what the concept of “EEEEEE!” is all about). It’s wrong to say that the Giants have been worthless for 50 years: They were pretty much the best National League team in the 1960s; they were mostly fairly good from 1986 through 2003, if you can believe it. But no freaking rings. Frustrating? How can it not be? Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Perry, Cepeda. Clark, Clark, Thompson, Beck, Nen, Aurilia, Kent, Williams, Schmidt, Bonds, Bonds. Krukow, Kuiper, Brenly, for that matter. Nary a ring among them—at least while they were Giants.

The one constant, at least since 1958, is the fans. For the most part, I’m talking about fans who, for example, actually know who Marichal is and his place in Giants history. (For those who don’t, well, it’s not their fault they were born too late.) I don’t know how many long-time, rabid Giants fans there are in the world, and they fill the spectrum from highly optimistic to, well, me, I guess. But those who don’t feel frustration about the Giants’ half-century of non-winnerness probably are those lucky few who don’t feel frustration about anything, and good luck to them.

Almost all of the Giants fans I know, no matter how optimistic, feel deep down that It Just Ain’t Gonna Happen. And it’s a crappy feeling. Giants fans truly have had to sing for a supper that still fails to arrive, and we’re lucky—I guess—that the kitchen didn’t close forever after 1992, when the Giants nearly moved to Tampa-St. Petersburg.

Which suddenly brings me to the team I’ve tried to avoid thinking about: the Tampa Bay Rays. I hate the Tampa Bay Rays. Well, I don’t, but they certainly will annoy the hell out of me if they win the World Series this year. I will resent them forever, or until the Giants win their own World Series, whichever comes first, and I fear that I know all too well which will come first. And my current hostility toward the Rays is exacerbated by the fact that, throughout their 10-year history as the Devil Rays, they were awful awful awful, never winning more than 70 games in a season; and now, all of a sudden, they’re juggernauts who might become the next team to win a World Series before the San Francisco Giants ever do. And because baseball isn’t baseball without annoying me along the way, I’m quite convinced that the Rays will win this year’s World Series easily.

As far as I’m concerned, even Phillies fans would have a reasonably fair gripe if the Rays beat their team, since the Phillies have gone nearly 30 years without a championship—having won their previous one 30 years before. But until the day the San Francisco Giants win their first World Championship, you will never convince me that fans of the Phillies—or any other team, including the Cubs—have a more legitimate gripe than Giants fans.

Those are pretty chilling lists. (I decided arbitrarily that the last 20 years were recent enough.) For one thing, of all the teams that have ever won a World Series, only three have not done so since 1979 (inclusive)—and, of course, only one of those teams has moved from the place where it last won a ring. That in itself is so odd: In the 48 years since the leagues first expanded, the Giants are the only non-expansion club never to win a ring after moving to a new metropolitan area. (That’s only mildly different from my usual gripe, namely that no club in its current home has gone longer than the Giants without even once having won a ring, but still, I hadn’t thought out the non-expansion thing before, so now I’m mildly more annoyed.) As far as I’m concerned, only Montreal fans have anything like as much to complain about, given 37 years of no championships… and then no team.

Also amazing, really, is that the Dodgers and A’s haven’t won it all in such a long time—which I’ve failed to lament. In fact, most of the teams in that second column had a real “story”… and yet haven’t won since: Giants (sweep heavily favored Indians; Dusty Rhodes), Pirates (“We Are Famileee,” “Pops” as MVP), Phillies (first ring in eons), Tigers (35-5 start, Roger Craig’s book), Royals (bad call, Andujar meltdown), Mets (Buckner), Dodgers (Hershiser, Gimpy Gibson, crappy team, hateful season).

I deeply wish to be wrong about this, but I see no reason for the Giants to win anytime soon, if ever. Well, you could remove the words anytime, soon, and if. Indeed they currently play in a weak division, but they’re one of the key reasons the division’s so weak. This year the Dodgers were 84-78, and the Giants, at 72-90, were only 12 games out. The Rockies started to return to form, which is fine, but the Padres were almost entirely injured all year and should’ve been better. I don’t think the Dodgers played over their heads, and what’s really disturbing is that they started playing well when they started benching (or disabling) multimillion-dollar millstones such as Juan Pierre and Andrew Jones. So barring loads of injuries next year, I don’t see them going away. Ditto Arizona, which seems to have put together a good team, and not by simply throwing money around. So unless, say, the Giants’ rotation seriously puts it together, and they pick up a bat (or two) that matters while getting rid of some deadwood, I don’t see them doing better than third place for the foreseeable future… by which time Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain will have become free agents in order to go and win Cy Youngs for other teams, and the guys the Giants are really high on won’t have panned out, so they’ll be a tail-ender again. (As it happens, though, the Giants have gotten rid of some deadwood, which I suppose is encouraging.)

David Beck directs my attention to the 1973 Giants, who finished in third place at 88-74. “I’d always just had this idea,” Dave says, “that after ‘71 the Giants just sucked always. What’s awful is that this record was not only better than the Dodgers this year, but was way better than the 1973 Mets, who came within a game of winning the whole thing that year. It is just so putrifyingly Giantsesque.”

I remember that year all too well: good team that faded down the stretch. Reruns took place in’78 and ‘86. Mostly, though, 1973 was the year Bobby Bonds hit 39 home runs and stole 43 bases. I thought he had a terrific year and was most annoyed when Pete Rose won the MVP anyway.

At the time, though, I didn’t connect this to the Mets’ rather pathetic 82-79 record, probably because I was as yet unaware of the utter, utter unfairness of life and/or Major League Baseball. You should know, too, that the Mets’ top RBI man had 76, and the top slugging percentage on the team was .423; the team had an ERA of 3.26, but still somehow managed just those 82 wins. But I digress.

Dave points out the injustice of the Giants being such a good team in the 1960s, yet almost always being a bridesmaid—usually the maid of honor. “Yes, it is meaningless to go over this,” he says, “because bad things happen to all teams, and it’s a long long time ago, but you know? Sorry, the entire San Francisco Giants history has just been more horrific than any other team.”

Cubs fans, who at least have a 100-year-old ring to feel proud about, would say that they have it worse because the Cubs almost always reek, and let’s not even talk about what Kansas City A’s or Montreal Expos fans might say. But I too am sorry: we have it worse. The way many of us feel about the Giants can’t be that different from how Sisyphus felt about the boulder.

Sort of a Postmortem

The Giants stink. This is not news, as you know, but it needs to be said. They are, however, entertaining at times—those times, for the most part, being after July 31—which is saying something. Tim Lincecum, Bengie Molina, Omar Vizquel, Eugenio Velez, Aaron Rowand, Brian Wilson—they’re all interesting to watch, though not always for good reasons, but that makes them no less entertaining. That’s this team’s silver lining—a lining covered in tears and snot, but silver nonetheless.

Since we hadn’t seen them for so long, I’d almost forgotten about Eliezer Alfonzo, Brian Bocock, Vinnie Chulk, Rajai Davis, Travis Denker, Brian Horwitz, Dan Ortmeier, Erick Threets, Clay Timpner, and Merkin Valdez. So did you, I’ll bet. That’s 10 guys right there. More recent forgettable players include Jose Castillo and Matt Palmer, and some guys are easy to forget—Ivan Ochoa, Pat Misch, Osiris Matos, Geno Espineli—despite still being on the team. That’s 16 players who, if you forget them, still make you think the Giants employed more players than they did. If I hadn’t counted for myself just now, I never would have believed that 49 men took the field as San Francisco Giants this year. I would’ve guessed more like 60. And I’m sorry to say that in no way does this list include everybody who was just plain bad.

Still, there were some bright spots. No, really! This year’s team finished 72-90, granted, but that’s still better than last year’s finish—71-91—and there I was, certain that the Giants had no prayer of accomplishing this feat. Does that mean we should be encouraged? Does that mean we should take heart in the fact that this team was “better” without Barry Bonds than with? I don’t know. I’ll assume it’s none of my business.

I’ll cover all 49 of this year’s Giants in this article, even J.T. Snow. At various points I’ll mention a player’s OPS+, which—don’t ask me why—stands for “adjusted OPS,” This is regular old OPS—on-base percentage plus slugging percentage—which has been adjusted (No! Really?) for the effects of a player’s home park and league, but not for defensive position. You derive it via these factors: take a player’s OBP and divide it by park-adjusted league OBP; divide the player’s slugging percentage by the park-adjusted league slugging percentage; add these two numbers together, then subtract 1; then multiply the result by 100. As for how to calculate park-adjusted stuff… well, different people do it differently. If you really wanted to, you could try it the baseball-reference.com way. (For pitchers, you might see me use ERA+, which is analogous to OPS+ and differs from ERA in that you want to have a high ERA+.)

A league-average OPS+ is 100. The way it works is, 50 is awful, 150 excellent. It probably would be easier to interpret if the average were zero, but who am I to argue? And why should a player’s defensive position matter anyway? For the same reason it always has: the level of demand that each position has, as illustrated on the defensive spectrum, which basically tells you how demanding a defensive position is, relative to the others, and the more demanding a player’s defensive position is, the less you can reasonably expect from him at the plate. From least to most demanding it goes: DH 1B LF RF 3B CF 2B SS. (Catcher isn’t included on the defensive spectrum because the position is that much more demanding even than shortstop.) So because shortstop is so much more demanding a position than first base, you really have the same expectations of offensive output from shortstops than you can from first basemen. That means that it’s more impressive when a shortstop hits .300 than when a first baseman does. But since OPS+ doesn’t use defensive positions, each hitter is compared to all hitters, not just the ones at his position. OPS+ also doesn’t take left-right breakdowns and other splits into consideration. (Well, it could: You could have “OPS+ vs. lefties.” I’m just saying that an overall OPS+ doesn’t involve those breakdowns.)

For the 2008 Giants, it might be worth knowing that two-time Willie Mac Award winner Bengie Molina’s OPS+ is 99. This is almost exactly dead average in terms of all hitters, and while technically it does mean that as a hitter, he was ever so slightly below average, that doesn’t mean that this is necessarily a horrible thing, mainly because of the defensive demands on catchers. Bearing in mind that it’s hard to get a particularly good read on a player with less than, say, a few hundred at-bats, the best OPS+ on the team was 125, put up by… Nate Schierholtz. You weren’t expecting that either. I figured it would be Pablo Sandoval, and indeed his OPS+ was 120. We shouldn’t read a lot into this, though, since Schierholtz had only 75 at-bats, Sandoval 145. Among the players you could reasonably call regulars, Randy Winn and Fred Lewis each put up a 107 OPS+, leading the team. Aaron Rowand, the big offseason free-agent signing, had an OPS+ of 96. You might not be amazed to know that Omar Vizquel’s OPS+ was 46, but would it surprise you to know that he had only 266 at-bats? It surprised me.

If you’d rather look at plain old OPS, it won’t tell you how a player did in comparison to his peers, but it’ll still give you a decent idea. Usually I mentally divide by three—that is, I mentally divide OPS numbers by three; I don’t turn into three people—because since a .400 on-base percentage and a .500 slugging percentage are the unofficial standards for “good,” that means that a .900 OPS is “good.” The same is true for a .300 batting average, meaning that dividing an OPS by three gives you a number that looks like a batting average, and most fans probably are more comfortable with batting average than any o’ them newfangled stats like OPS. So if you see a guy such as Ray Durham, who batted .293 and put up an OPS of .799, you’ll get the sense (since .799 divided by three is .266) that it was a pretty soft .293. I suppose you could say that he was “really only as good as a .266 hitter,” but I doubt you’d enjoy it any.

I’d love to give you a converse illustration, such as “On the other hand, Ted Tinkle’s .248 batting average belies his production, as he put up an OPS of .930,” but I can’t because the highest OPS on the team, even among guys who hardly ever played, was Schierholtz’s .864—even better than Sandoval’s .847. As a whole, the team OPSed .703—divide that by three, then stop weeping—compared to their opponents’ .745. Remember Barry Bonds, that broken-down has-been? Last year his OPS was 1.045, with a 170 OPS+… not so great for him, but way better than anyone on the team this year. (For the sake of comparison, though, from 2001 through 2004, each of which, at one point, was called “the best offensive season ever,” his OPSes were 1.378, 1.381, 1.278, and 1.421, with OPS+-es of 259, 268, 231, and 263. He spoiled us rotten.)

Among the pitchers, Tim Lincecum led all Giants starters with a 164 ERA+. Among relievers, Merkin Valdez and Sergio Romo put up ERA+-es well over 200, but they both pitched so few innings that it doesn’t matter much. Brian Wilson’s ERA+ was 93; Barry Zito’s was 83.

Since I usually do these (for lack of a better word) assessments by position, I’ve decided to throw you a curve and do them by position again, in order of playing time. When a player’s name appears in italics, it means he’ll be discussed under a different position:

First Base: John Bowker, Rich Aurilia, Travis Ishikawa, Pablo Sandoval, Dan Ortmeier, Scott McClain, J.T. Snow.

Not counting Snow, who only donned a uniform for his lone appearance at first base because the rules say that he had to, the only natural first baseman on the team was Ishikawa. None of these guys played a great first base, though you could probably argue that he was the best of them. Bowker led the team with 550 innings there—the rough equivalent of 61 games—so obviously first base was a problem spot, and a rather big one. His only other professional experience at first base consists of 13 games at Fresno, also this year. It’s fair to say that he played first because he had to play somewhere, and the outfield was full. He never showed much in the minors, but he homered three times in his first two starts with the Giants, which seduced them into giving him over 300 at-bats, which included only seven more dingers, to go with 14 doubles and three triples. He hit .255, and his OPS was only .708, with an OPS+ of 84. He was not impressive. He walked only 19 times, which has to change, while striking out 74 times (although by today’s standards, that’s hardly calamitous: This year Mark Reynolds of the Diamondbacks became the first hitter to crack the 200-whiff barrier, and Ryan Howard struck out 199 times this year and last year; but don’t worry: I will not point out that Reynolds’ OPS+ was better than Aaron Rowand’s). Bowker hardly ever batted against lefthanders, but that appears to be a good thing, since he managed only five singles in 33 at-bats. Strangely, he put up far better numbers during Giants losses than during their wins. Of course, he had far more opportunity to do well during the losses. Went 9-for-23 as a pinch-hitter, though.

Ishikawa had only 95 at-bats—hardly enough to prove himself—but he didn’t look bad, with three homers and six doubles. In only two of these at-bats did he face a lefty, though, and I assume the Giants have good reasons for that. He batted only 35 times at home and 60 on the road, and on the basis of those limited samples, one might guess that he despises home cooking and flourishes on the road. I’ll reserve judgment, though, until he has several more at-bats under his belt. However, he ought to avoid pinch-hitting: he went 0-for-6 in that role, striking out four times and hitting into a double play.

Ortmeier had a lost season, and I have to figure that his is a lost career, since the Giants ended up dropping him from the 40-man roster. He had only 64 at-bats, only 14 of which resulted in hits, and he struck out 18 times. He looked overmatched most of the time. He’s really an outfielder, and he made no errors in left or right field, but for all the talk about his speed during broadcasts, he was well below average in terms of actually getting to fly balls. Then again, he played only 85 innings out there. He played first for 52 innings, but probably that should have been zero—not that he was a rotten first baseman; just that the move may well have screwed up his head enough to make a lousy hitter out of him.

Snow, of course, didn’t really play. He was signed to a one-day deal so he could retire as a Giant. One day before the end of the season, the team had him take his position and warm up the other infielders, all of whom threw difficult one-hops to him. Before the game actually started, Ishikawa took his position, and Snow walked off into the sunset to warm applause.

Second Base: Rich Aurilia, Emmanuel Burriss, Jose Castillo, Travis Denker, Kevin Frandsen, Ray Durham, Ivan Ochoa, Ryan Rohlinger, Eugenio Velez

Sadly, the best of the lot was Durham, who wound up being traded to Milwaukee. He did manage a .293 batting average and .385 OBP for the Giants, though, and I wish him well in the postseason (though not the Brewers as a whole…). His range was pretty bad compared to other second basemen, but then, none of the Giants’ second basemen had an above-average range factor. Given that none of them hit all that much, that’s a problem.

Another problem, all by himself, might be Velez. If you like players who make dumb mistakes, you won’t have missed Pedro Feliz at all. What Velez is, mostly, is fast. They say he’s got pop, and indeed he hit seven triples this year in only 275 at-bats, but his slugging percentage was only .382. Also, he rarely walks, so if he doesn’t hit about .350, he’s not very useful as a hitter. And he didn’t hit any .350. Early in the season he ran a lot, going 6-for-8 in steal attempts before May, but after getting picked off about seven dozen times, he pretty much shut down the running game, going 9-for-13 the rest of the way. I think all those pickoffs made him gun-shy, but in his case, maybe that’s good. In any case, as the Giants’ announcers seemed fond of pointing out over the last month of the season, Velez is good for about one boneheaded maneuver per game, whether in the field, at bat, or on base. And when the Giants couldn’t find time for him at second base, he wound up in the outfield—and even in center field once, late in the season. He’s not an outfielder. He’s barely an infielder.

I’m not sure why Denker didn’t receive a September call-up. Seems to me that he did what the team asked of him, though he did appear in only 24 games and bat only 37 times. Six of his nine hits, however, were for extra bases, and he had an OPS+, for what it’s worth, of 112. It could be that the Giants don’t like his glove much, though. He only played 70 innings at second base, but his range factor was 2.69, whereas the league average was 4.04.

Next year’s second baseman could well be Frandsen. He didn’t actually play on defense this year, mainly because he tore up his Achilles’ tendon in the spring. If it’s not him, it might be Burriss, but I have the feeling he’ll be the shortstop.

Shortstop: Omar Vizquel, Emmanuel Burriss, Ivan Ochoa, Brian Bocock, Jose Castillo

Before Opening Day the Giants made the somewhat eccentric decision to go with Bocock as their starting shortstop, as Vizquel was going to begin the year on the disabled list. Bocock was only 23 and hadn’t played above A-ball, plus he’s not much of a hitter, but the Giants were happy with their choice, until they watched him try to hit big-league pitching. At the moment, he can’t. He went 11-for-77, though one of those hits managed to be a double; he struck out 29 times. His OPS+ was 13. He failed to earn a September call-up. I don’t know if that means anything, however.

Once Vizquel returned, though, he got off to such an amazingly bad start at the plate that the Giants started taking a look at Burriss and Ochoa, and he spent quite a lot of time on the bench. This is no big surprise, as he’s 41, and though he still plays a pretty mean shortstop, he’s just about through as a hitter. He did bring his batting average all the way up to .222, which is pretty amazing considering he hit .159 in the first half. He also was scintillatingly bad on the road, managing a .460 OPS, which is a rotten OPS for a potted plant. But though he hit for no power at all, he batted .344 in September with an .840 OPS and managed to annoy lots of opposing players in the process. He says he wants to keep playing, preferably in San Francisco, but I’m not sure he has that option, especially since his 3.93 range factor was well below the league-average 4.43. (Sadly, none of the other shortstops did much better in that regard, if at all. Bocock did manage a range factor of 4.44, but Burriss was at 4.09 and Ochoa was at 4.39. Castillo doesn’t count.)

Burriss, though, is someone you could reasonably call “exciting.” He’s fast, and he managed 13 steals in 18 attempts. Not much power there—a .283 average and a .329 slugging percentage—but he walks a fair amount and doesn’t strike out that much. I get the sense that he probably would fit better in the eight-hole than in the one or two, though.

Ochoa, meanwhile, might fit in no holes. He doesn’t hit. It’s true that he only had 120 at-bats to show this, but his .200 batting average and .511 OPS were not encouraging. (His OPS+? Why, 35—higher than I thought it would be.) He made some amazing defensive plays, but doesn’t appear to be an amazing defensive player, so I don’t know what the plan is for him. I have the feeling he’s Just Another Middle Infielder.

Third Base: Rich Aurilia, Jose Castillo, Travis Denker, Conor Gillaspie, Scott McClain, Ryan Rohlinger, Pablo Sandoval

Once Sandoval came up and started hitting, naturally Giants fans wondered where he’d been all season while we’d had to endure over 100 games of Castillo, who showed below-average range and made 15 errors besides (or, not very preferably, “to boot”). Add to this the fact that Castillo provided almost nothing at the plate, and you have something of a lost season. He did pound 28 doubles, four triples, and six home runs, but his OPS was .671, in large part because of a .244 batting average and .290 OBP. He also hit into 16 double plays. Still, I was mildly surprised (though not bothered) that the Giants simply cut him loose.

Aurilia put up what I think is a pretty decent year, at least at this stage of his career. I would not be surprised if he’d played his last major league game, though I don’t think he’s even close to through. Still, I imagine the Giants will jettison him, but I’m not sure he’s a bad guy to have around. His OPS was only .745, but that’s still well above the team average, so it’s hard to complain. To my surprise, he played zero innings at shortstop this year—which is fine, actually—and it’s pretty clear that there’s not much defensive prowess there anymore, but I still think he’s valuable. The Giants did, anyway, which is why he managed over 400 at-bats as a bench player.

I have the feeling Rohlinger wishes he were someone else, or at least had come up at a different time, or maybe with a different team. He went 3-for-32, comical enough by itself, but a scream when coupled with a -20 OPS+. The Giants had been impressed with him in spring training, and 32 at-bats is hardly any kind of sample size, so there could well be hope for him. I like him better than Edwards Guzman, anyway. The poor guy made two quick errors in his debut, and his range was a touch below average, but it’s hard to tell after only 68 innings at third.

McClain isn’t so much a baseball player as a “story.” He’s 36 and has played 44 games in parts of four major league seasons, starting in 1998, and he hit his first two major league home runs this year after 287 in the minors plus about 75 in Japan. What’s funny is that he had the highest range factor among Giants third basemen—funny since he wasn’t up there for his glove (which isn’t bad, actually). I’m not sure why he just never got a real shot, since he was a pretty solid minor league hitter. Maybe the timing was always bad. If he were 10 years younger, I’d be just fine with him on the team as a backup corner infielder and stud pinch-hitter, but he’s not, and he may well have played his last major league game. As it is, I still don’t think I’d mind him on the team as a backup corner infielder and stud pinch-hitter.

Gillaspie, the Giants’ second-round pick this year, is about 14 years old. I’m not sure why they brought him up, especially since Buster Posey, the first-round pick, wasn’t afforded that courtesy. Gillaspie, who spells both of his names wrong, went 1-for-5 as a Giant, with two walks, and he doesn’t look bad at the plate. He was fair in rookie ball and not particularly good in low-A, but I see no reason not to have high hopes for the guy. So I will.

Left Field: John Bowker, Rajai Davis, Brian Horwitz, Fred Lewis, Dan Ortmeier, Dave Roberts, Clay Timpner, Eugenio Velez, Randy Winn

Lewis is one of those guys who makes difficult plays look easy and vice-versa. Statistically, his glove is a bit below average, and so far, so’s his range. He should stay in left field, though, because in center, his range is even more below average, but, I think he could turn into a better outfielder. I’m reluctant to talk about him in terms of “as he develops,” however, since he’s already almost 28. His OPS+ is just over 100 in 636 lifetime at-bats, and while the Giants are convinced he’ll turn into someone with pretty good power and that he already has pretty good strike-zone judgment, I just don’t see it. I do think he could hit .300—but it’d be a weird .300. He missed the last several days after getting surgery on one of his feet—he’s said to have played with painful bunions all year. I don’t know what that’s like, but I do know that if your feet aren’t right, it’ll screw you up completely, so you may as well get them fixed.

Roberts, you may be surprised to know, played zero innings in center field this year. Or maybe you won’t be surprised. But I was—almost as much as I was surprised to see that he’d only played 205 innings in the outfield, albeit 205 pretty good innings, from a range standpoint. Too bad he can’t hit. He spent about 90 games on the DL, but was he injured the rest of the time, too? Still, he only had 107 at-bats, so it’s hard to be too critical—except that only four of his 24 hits went for extra bases, and his .224 average was backed by a .280 slugging percentage, which is absurdly bad. Evidently he’s one of those Good Guys To Have Around, so I wonder if they’re gonna keep him. I don’t know why—I can’t say I missed him while he was gone. And he’s not cheap.

Horwitz was dropped from the 40-man roster, which surprised me mildly. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of “there” there, but he did hit a pair of home runs in 36 at-bats. Then again, as I look at his minor-league stats, I see that while his home run power has picked up some, his doubles and triples power has dropped, such that his slugging percentage at Fresno this year was lower than last year, in the same number of at-bats. He’s about 26, which suggests that he’s not going to improve much if at all, but I guess it’s better to decide early that a guy’s not going to make it than to wait until he proves he won’t.

Timpner struck out in both his major league at-bats, which tells us almost nothing, but his minor-league stats do not acquit him well. Early on, he stole bases at a pretty good clip, and at a pretty good percentage, too; the last three years, though, both totals and percentage have dropped (which, to be fair, has a lot to do with playing time), and speed might be just about all he has. He’s 25, doesn’t walk much, and doesn’t seem to have much range.

Center Field: Rajai Davis, Fred Lewis, Aaron Rowand, Eugenio Velez, Randy Winn

Am I being unfair by being disappointed in Rowand? I didn’t expect all that much—lots of people expected less than that—but I got the sense that the team’s expectations, and those of lots of fans, was that he’d put up great numbers, like he did in Philadelphia, and play Gold Glove center field. I expected maybe an .800 OPS to go along with 20 home runs, but in fact those numbers were .749 and 13. His fielding percentage was a point below league average, but his range factor was 2.95, compared to a league average of 2.61 for NL center fielders, so it’s hard to complain about his defense… and yet, I will. It reached a point where I winced whenever it looked like he was going to try and throw a runner out on the bases. It seemed as though, with very few exceptions, the throws he let fly would go 50 feet up the third-base line, and the Giants were lucky if anyone could track the ball down before it reached the dugout. Often, these throws were a bad idea even before they were executed—which means, in essence, that he threw to the wrong base a tad more often than you want to see from the reigning Gold Glover. To be fair, I wonder if the cracked rib(s) that hampered his swing early in the season never stopped bothering him and affecting his play. That might account for the lousy throws—and lots of lousy swings, too. Heck, perhaps it’s why he drove in only one run in all of September. Also, I wondered if his home ballpark was hurting him, and indeed he threw up a .714 OPS and 86 OPS+ (which makes me want to throw up), but his .784 (and 115) on the road isn’t much better. He was quite a bit better on the road in 2007, which is more impressive considering that he played half his games in a pretty serious hitter’s park and that AT&T was one of his road parks then. That is, Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia clearly was a hitter’s park, with a 1.034 park factor, while AT&T was a pitcher’s park, at .987. Weirdly, while the Phillies’ home stayed pretty much the same at 1.029 this year, AT&T’s park factor was 1.045. (That particular park factor is derived by dividing all runs scored (per game) in a team’s home games by all runs scored (per game) in a team’s road games.) So while playing his home games in a park that was way more hitterish this year than last year, Rowand still did better on the road.

This is not to say that he’s a bust or anything. I mean, how can one not like the guy, for one thing, and he strikes me as the kind of player who could be a very important part of a winning team. Indeed, he’s shown this twice in the three years before 2008. But now the team he’s with is fairly bad, and it can’t be easy to be an important part of a losing team. What went wrong, I think, is that he was billed as practically the savior of the Giants, the guy who’d get them out of the sewage Barry Bonds had put them into by being such a cheating slacker. That’s an awful lot to ask of any player, especially a guy who’s not the type of player that you could ever call “The Man.” He’s a number-six hitter whom the Giants tried to plug into the five, three, and even two holes. In some ways it’s Tsuyoshi Shinjo all over again, except that Rowand isn’t a joke.

Davis made such a big splash when he came to the Giants in the Matt Morris deal last year. He was fast, exciting, and a good fielder—exactly the kind of player the Giants seem to want most these days. For all the denigration of the stolen base that you’re likely to hear from those who are way more well-versed in baseball statistics than I am, I happen to think that—irrespective of the actual, statistical effect—a top-level base stealer who gets on base a lot can be tremendously disruptive to a pitcher and the defense behind him. Rickey Henderson spent his career proving that. And even Davis, who’s no Henderson, had this effect as well. This year, though, he went 1-for-18 before getting canned and winding up in Oakland.

But a fair number of Giants had—or at least tried to have—that effect on opposing defenses, though none of them is what you’d call a world-class base stealer. In fact, for all the speed the Giants tried to tell people they had, their top thief was Randy Winn, with 25. However, he was only caught twice, making him a baserunning force to be reckoned with, sort of. Fred Lewis was 21-for-28, Eugenio Velez was 15-for-21, and Emmanuel Burris was 13-for-18. Together, those four guys had a 79% success rate, which ain’t bad. Still, if a running team is what the Giants want to put on the field, they’ll need to do way better than that, because they sure as hell aren’t a power-hitting team.

Right Field: John Bowker, Emmanuel Burriss, Rajai Davis, Brian Horwitz, Fred Lewis, Dan Ortmeier, Nate Schierholtz, Eugenio Velez, Randy Winn

Winn put up a .306 average and a .363 OBP, but just a .426 slugging percentage, thanks to only 10 home runs. He did hit 38 doubles, though, and if he’s going to remain with the team—and I wouldn’t put money on that—I think they need to keep him out of the number-three slot. Though I think it’s pointless using him (well, most people) to bunt fast people to second, perhaps the two-hole is best for him. I don’t think he’s a leadoff hitter. He did awfully well in right field, though, considering that he hadn’t spent all that much time out there until 2006. He’s a Steady-Eddie kind of player, however, and while I’m not exactly in love with the guy, I wouldn’t mind seeing him come back.

Schierholtz had only 75 at-bats, but he was fairly impressive, with a .320 batting average and .864 OPS. He doesn’t seem to have nearly enough power , though (in the majors, anyway; his power has been decent in the minors), and given that he drew only three walks, he sure doesn’t seem like a high-in-the-order kind of hitter. His range in the outfield is pretty good, though he does seem to make the occasional odd decision on fly balls. I think what we’re going to end up seeing is a guy whose offensive weaknesses will be exposed if he doesn’t keep his batting average high enough.

Catcher: Eliezer Alfonzo, Steve Holm, Bengie Molina, Pablo Sandoval

I would bet that most Giants fans would call Molina the team’s 2008 MVP (unless you’re going to count pitchers), and sadly, maybe he is. Those 95 RBIs look good, but he got them all in the cleanup spot, where you’re supposed to drive in loads of runs. He hit a few home runs late in the season to wind up at 16—leading the team, if you can believe it—but for a long time there, it wasn’t obvious that the Giants would have any players in double figures. Indeed, they only had five, and three of those had exactly 10. Somehow I picture the Giants’ Powers-That-Be feeling just fine about this, since they’d made the organizational decision to de-emphasize the home run. However, if you’re gonna do that, you’d better pick up the slack somewhere, and they didn’t come close to doing that.

Molina deserves loads of credit for rarely striking out—38 in 530 at-bats—but he walked only 19 times (and got plunked nine times), so that .292 batting average was almost all there was to his .322 OBP. Still, he’s a catcher, so it’s hard to complain about his output at the plate. Behind the plate… well, evidently the pitchers like him, so he must do something right, but he sure seems to let a lot of pitched baseballs zoom on past him. Also—and understand, I don’t expect speed from a catcher—his almost superhuman lack of foot-speed is no longer an adorable novelty. I’m amazed that he hit into only 23 double plays, and that that’s a career-high figure; my only explanation is that he must not hit that many ground balls, because if he does hit one with a runner on first and less than two outs, it’s automatic. He may as well not even run. At this point in his career, if not for his entire career, he is to foot-speed what Duane Kuiper was to home-run power. They call him “Big Money” ’cause “Sloth” would just be mean. No matter what, though, Molina deserves applause for putting up significantly better offensive numbers after the All-Star Game than before—noteworthy because he’s a catcher who plays almost every day, and it’s easy to expect him to fall off the map in August and September.

Holm only got into 49 games and managed just 84 at-bats, but he drew a few walks and hit some doubles. Not sure if this matters, though, because if Molina sticks around, he and Sandoval will do all the catching, barring injury.

Sandoval is a fun player—I mean, who’s the last catcher/first baseman/third baseman you can remember? Does Paul LoDuca count? (If so, who cares?) It’s not obvious to me which is his best position, though I’m not going out on a limb by saying that third base is his worst. As a catcher, he threw out 30% of those who tried to steal against him—just 10 guys, but still, 30% isn’t bad these days (and he didn’t throw any balls into center field). Molina’s success rate was 35%, and Holm’s was… 9%—that’s 2 of 23. I’d love to say that as a hitter, Sandoval’s something special, but he’s not—not that I have any complaints. He doesn’t walk, but, well, some guys just don’t walk. He hit 10 doubles in 145 at-bats, but only three home runs. He generally hits the ball hard, and I’d like to see a little elevation on some of those line shots, but if he were forced to hit, say, 12 home runs over the course of a full season, it wouldn’t be so bad if he hit, say, 50 doubles. He spent a lot of time batting third in the order, and I’m not sure he’s that kind of hitter; maybe a five. The Giants must not like him as a righthanded batter much, though, because he had only 38 at-bats against lefties. (I forgot to mention that he’s a switch-hitter, which is something the Giants are saturated with, having played seven of them (not counting pitchers): Sandoval, Vizquel, Winn, Velez, Burriss, Ortmeier, and Durham.)

Alfonzo got a long suspension for a drug violation, but the Giants liked him enough to bring him up in midseason. I don’t know why. He’s not much of a hitter. Or much of a catcher. If he doesn’t come back, I won’t mourn, even though he’s always spoken very highly of me.

Starting Pitchers: Matt Cain, Kevin Correia, Brad Hennessey, Tim Lincecum, Patrick Misch, Matt Palmer, Jonathan Sanchez, Merkin Valdez, and Barry Zito

In several late-season games, Bruce Bochy left Tim Lincecum in too long, evidently in an effort to bolster the kid’s Cy Young chances. Lots of Giants fans, at least in the newsgroup , were pretty angry about this, but I don’t know what to think. Lincecum’s being widely touted as a “freak” who just never gets tired or sore. Clearly that’s not strictly true, since he looked worn out in several of his late starts, but it’s easy to look at that physique of his—he looks like he weighs 78 pounds—and think that leaving him in for 130 pitches absolutely must be detrimental, especially since they babied him a lot last year and early on this year.

Is he gonna win the Cy? Nah. This is the limb on which I shall go out: It’ll be Brandon Webb, who won 22 games. Lincecum won 18. He led the league in strikeouts, by a wide margin, and lost out on the ERA title by .04 (because he got knocked around in some of those late-season starts). I’m not sure how many games he would have won if the bullpen had been able to keep his leads, but I have no doubt it’d be over 20. One of his five losses was due to a really stupid balk call early in the season, and he reasonably could have won two of those, plus seven of his 11 no-decisions. (Maybe Webb could make a similar claim.) But the thing is, Cy Young voters tend to be seduced by gaudy win totals—not that there’s anything wrong with gaudy win totals—and a 22-game winner for a second-place team will almost certainly trump an 18-game winner for a fourth-place team. But the Giants haven’t seen a Cy Young winner since Mike McCormick did it in 1967, so they were kind of desperate to get Lincecum that award. Even though I don’t see how he can win it this year, I’ll be annoyed if and when he doesn’t, just like I was when Mike Krukow (in an odd departure from the “Wins Trumps ERA” format), Billy Swift, and Jason Schmidt failed to win the award in their big years.

But I can’t remember another Giants pitcher for whom you had to stop what you were doing to watch. (Actually, Atlee Hammaker in 1983 comes to mind, and the only thing that keeps people from remembering how good he was—aside from his horrific All-Star outing—is the fact that he lost his last five decisions after a 10-4 start.) For some reason, I get a kick out of pitchers who can strike out loads of hitters (unless they’re Giants hitters, I mean). Nolan Ryan was a lot of fun to watch, for instance, and I consider myself lucky to have seen him no-hit the Dodgers in 1981 (on TV, I mean). I loved it when Schmidt would whiff, say, 12 guys, thanks in large part to that 90-mph changeup. Lincecum could easily be a 300-strikeout guy, though ain’t nobody gonna be blowing by Ryan’s record—people just don’t pitch nearly as much nowadays. Another thing that makes Lincecum fun to watch is his demeanor. He looks like he’s having a ball when they show him in the dugout between starts, but when he’s on the mound, with a face like an 11-year-old, he looks all business, and there’s even something intimidating in his expression. I really, really hope they don’t screw him up, because I’d love for him to have a great career, especially as a Giant.

I wish Cain would, too. He has pretty rotten luck out there: 15-30 over the last two years, but with ERAs well below the league average. He had an ERA of 2.90 in his 12 no-decisions this year, too. He walks too many guys, though. Even so, he strikes me as a potential Cy Young winner, and if he accomplishes that feat, I sure hope he’s still with the Giants.

Zito never put up an above-league-average ERA until he came to the Giants. This year the difference was 0.85 earned runs per nine innings, which is a lot. He also walked over 100 batters for the first time. I don’t know what it is. I refuse to believe that now that he’s got the big contract, he doesn’t care about earning it—in fact, I don’t believe that about any big-leaguer—and I really don’t think it’s a mental or emotional thing. I swear, if he were a righthander, you wouldn’t hear talk about the fragility of his ego, or whatever. One factor that’s easy to point to is that he has trouble getting his fastball up over 85 anymore. Right now, as I’ve said before elsewhere, he’s the last couple years of Kirk Rueter, only way more expensive. If Zito has physical problems, I’d sure appreciate it if he got them fixed.

Sanchez strikes out a lot of guys, but he walks too many and gives up too many hits. That pretty much sums him up. His ERA was 5.01—substantially better than last year, but still rotten—and I don’t get why the Giants are so high on him. Perhaps it was his 8-5, 3.97 showing in the first half—it sure couldn’t be his 1-7, 7.47 second half. Actually, he was pitching just dandy until hitting the disabled list in midseason, and the easy call is that he never recovered from the injury. The announcers, especially Miller and Flemming, made much of the trouble he had against opposing pitchers, but to his credit, he wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared: .225/.326/.325—9-for-40 plus six walks, which is still pretty awful, but hey, you can’t have everything.

The Correia experiment might need to be over, though. He was pretty good in 2006 and 2007, actually: a whole run below the league-average ERA. But this year, mostly in a starting role, he showed us what he showed in 2005: don’t put him mostly in a starting role. How he managed to get his ERA up over six this year might be a mystery, but one main culprit has to be the 141 hits he gave up in 110 innings. Opposing batters hit .310 against him, with an .856 OPS and an OPS+ of 128—higher than any of the Giants’ actual hitters. He too had trouble retiring pitchers, who went 10-for-37 against him: a .270 average. He only threw 7-2/3 innings in relief, but gave up 13 runs on 20 hits and four walks. Even so, I’m pretty sure he’d be strictly a reliever, if I had to keep him in my bullpen.

Misch was also quite terrible, albeit in only seven starts and eight relief appearances. He can’t really get lefties out, but then he can’t get righties out either, so it probably doesn’t matter. He’s 25 and may well have some value, but I’m not sure I need to see him back in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, I don’t understand why they bothered with Palmer, who started three games and put up an 8.53 ERA. He has a lifetime minor league ERA of 3.46, which looks impressive, but he spent two and a half years in Triple-A before coming up, so how good can he be? He didn’t rate a September call-up—in fact, he was dropped from the 40-man roster—so we might not see him again.

Relief Pitchers: Vinnie Chulk, Geno Espineli, Brad Hennessey, Alex Hinshaw, Osiris Matos, Sergio Romo, Billy Sadler, Jack Taschner, Erick Threets, Merkin Valdez, Tyler Walker, Brian Wilson, Keiichi Yabu

Wilson might have had the worst season a 40-save pitcher has ever had. It’s true that he was an All-Star, but even that makes me wonder, given his 4.58 ERA at the break. In fact, as much as I think I like Wilson, he pretty much embodies the inherent flaws in the “closer mentality,” and he’s virtually proven how dangerous it is to evaluate closers in terms of the number of saves they put up. I would say that Wilson was this year’s Jeff Brantley, whose middle name is Hoke, but that’s really unfair to Brantley, whose ERAs as the Giants closer were 1.56 and 2.45. Wilson doesn’t even stack up all that well against Armando Benitez. However, I’d still rather have Wilson as my closer, because Benitez is sort of hateful and Brantley is 45. Wilson’s main asset is that he throws hard, sometimes topping 100 on the gun. His main problem may be that he has trouble retiring the first batter he faces, and he has trouble getting outs when there are none. Also, interestingly, he threw 27-2/3 innings on two or more days’ rest and gave up 24 runs (7.81 ERA), as opposed to eight runs in 34-2/3 innings (2.08) on zero or one day’s rest. Sounds like the key is to keep him busy. However, since the closer mentality requires you to use your closer only in save situations, you wouldn’t expect Wilson to pitch much at all, since the Giants so rarely have a late-game lead. But if Wilson’s that good on little rest, here’s a novel idea: why not use him in tie games, or even when the team is just a run or two behind, so as to keep the opposition from inflicting more damage? That’s a Bill James thing from years back, i.e., the idea of using your best reliever when it matters most. And it might be disturbing to note that Wilson led Giants relievers in innings pitched.

Yabu’s only previous major league experience was with Oakland in 2005, and he’s 40 now. He put up a 3.57 ERA this year and thus is hard to complain about, but I’m sure I’ll find a way: Lefties pounded this guy for a .355 batting average (.901 OPS), and he stank on the road (5.20 ERA). His 3.28 first-half ERA was a whole lot better than his 4.22 second-half ERA. Other than that, he did pretty well, really, but how much longer can he be effective?

Walker tricked the Giants by putting up a 1.26 ERA in 15 games toward the end of last year, so, on that basis, he had a fairly important role this year and, in my opinion, pitched worse than a 4.56 ERA would indicate. I’m not sure where all that ERA comes from, though: He gave up fewer hits than innings pitched, and struck out nearly a batter per inning; he only walked 21 in 53-1/3. True, he couldn’t get lefties out (.969 OPS, 146 OPS+), and he had a 6.38 ERA at home, but he was awfully good at preventing the first batter he faced in a game to reach base (.266 OBP). Perhaps it was the fact that of the 47 hits he surrendered, 10 were doubles, one was a triple, and seven were home runs. I really don’t know. I do know that if he were to depart again, I would fail to grieve.

Lefties hit .288 against Taschner, which is a little troubling since he’s so frequently brought in specifically to face them. And the first guy to face him in a game, lefty or not hit .314 with some power. Perhaps the solution is to keep him out of the game until the second batter he faces comes to the plate. I like Taschner, but is he gonna get any better? Well, I guess you could say yes, given that his last three ERAs, in order, were 8.38, 5.40, and 4.88. But he’s 30 now, so how much more faith can you place in him?

Know who had the fifth-highest total of innings pitched in as a Giants reliever this year? No, it was Sadler. Know why? Me neither. I was shocked to see that his ERA was only 4.06, if only because he gave up eight home runs in 44-1/3 innings, which is appalling. He gave up only 34 hits, but he walked 27 and drilled eight, if you can believe it. He’s good at getting that first guy out, but not those subsequent guys, apparently, and he’s pretty useless on more than a day’s rest. I don’t get the attraction here. A little Sadler sure seems to go a long way.

Hinshaw was one of the team’s best relievers—certainly the best lefty reliever. He gave up five home runs, which is more than you might want to see in 39-2/3 innings, but he struck out 47 and gave up only 31 hits. If he had only one aspect of his game worth improving, it would be his control: 29 walks—or 6.6 per nine innings. That’s appalling. Righthanded hitters drew a lot of those walks and knocked him around some, for an .888 OPS despite a .235 batting average. He also was way better before the All-Star Break than after.

The bullpen revelation this year was Sergio Romo, who put up a 2.12 ERA in 34 innings, during which he gave up 16 hits and eight walks. When he entered a game, the first batter he faced got one hit, zero walks, and two hit-by-pitches—that’s a .107 OBP. Sure, the hit was a home run, but it’s still hard to be too bent out of shape.

Chulk might be lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry. He’s the guy we had instead of Jeremy Accardo, who at least was good last year. Chulk was the guy you could count on to give up the key dinger, righthanded batters had a .512 slugging percentage against him, and when he entered a game, the first batter he faced had an OPS of 1.126 against him (with a 190 OPS+). Still, he’s been gone since June, having been outrighted to Fresno. I’m guessing he’ll get a look in spring training, but if the Giants think he’ll be a vital piece of the puzzle, they’re direly mistaken.

Matos was almost as bad, though he threw only 20-2/3 innings, so it’s hard to tell. Still: too many hits, too many walks. He had a 1.23 ERA in Double-A, and gave up no runs in 9-2/3 innings at Fresno. He didn’t inspire me with the big club, but he’s only 23, so there’s hope. I hope.

Espineli threw only 16 innings, walking and striking out eight apiece, and giving up 17 hits—of which five went over far-distant walls. His ERA at Fresno was 2.66, though, which may be a good sign. He throws about 80 with a weird sidearm/submarine delivery such that every hitter should try bunting on him, and it seems to me that the Giants have enough lefties who throw about 80.

Valdez also threw only 16 innings, but that’s because he got hurt. Again. Mostly his career has been about being hurt. It’s a shame, too, because he looked like he’d be such a stud when he came here in the Russ Ortiz deal before the 2003 season. Sure, his debut four years ago was highly forgettable, but this year he was on a pretty good roll. Righties couldn’t touch him, and neither could the first guy he faced in a given inning. He gave up runs in only three of his 17 outings, and of the five runs scored, three of them came in the game before he went on the DL. He’s pretty clearly a one-inning guy, though his in lone two-inning appearance, he retired all six batters, striking out four, in that weird start he had against the Dodgers during that long rain delay—Lincecum was the scheduled starter, but Bochy, et al., didn’t want to risk injury, so they opted to sacrifice Valdez instead.

Threets always seemed Just About To Make It, but last year was his first major league experience, when he was terrible in three games. This year he pitched only 10 innings and gave up four runs, but that hardly tells the story: He walked nine batters, for a total of 12 in 12-1/3 major league innings, and he hit three guys. He started the season with the big club because he was out of options and the Giants were afraid of losing him on waivers, but it turned out that they had worried for naught. Threets cleared waivers and pitched pretty well at Fresno, but he still walked too many people.


Overall, it’s hard to be disappointed with the 2008 Giants, since you have to admit that they exceeded expectations. You certainly have to admit that they exceeded my expectations. The offense isn’t very encouraging in terms of 2009, but hey, maybe they’ll get something out of Sandoval and Schierholtz, and even Ishikawa. If Noah Lowry returns—and returns to form—the starting rotation ought to be reasonably good, and I’m pretty sure I prefer a bullpen with Romo, Valdez, and Hinshaw to one with Chulk, Walker, and Taschner. Barring some major acquisitions (or even with them), I don’t see this team being great next year by any means, but hey, if they finish above .500, I wouldn’t be surprised. I would be disappointed, of course, because yet again they won’t win me a damn ring, but we can’t have everything in life. Sometimes we can’t have anything.

Witnessed Firsts, or Look! A Blog Entry!

Watch a ballgame every day, and you’ll see something you haven’t seen before. You’ve heard that hundreds of times, and you’ve never believed it. But if you limited your sample size to games number 160 and 161 of the 2008 season for the Giants and Dodgers, you’ve become a believer. I have, anyway, because stuff happened in each game that I’d never seen before, and I’m really glad to have had the chance to witness this stuff. I’m pretty sure.

Last night was the really weird one. With a runner on first and the Giants down 2-0, Bengie Molina hammered a high fly ball to right field that struck... well, it was hard to tell what it struck. If it hit the green tin roof, it was a home run; if not, then not. Initially the ball was ruled in play, so Molina—who would have a tough time beating a pregnant harbor seal around the bases—wound up on first with yet another “long single.” (Note: I do not advocate beating harbor seals. Hey, you asked!)

Bruce Bochy emerged from the Giants dugout to grump about the call, eventually asking for an instant replay review. Now, that’s something I never thought I’d see: a baseball manager requesting that an umpire’s call be reversed—or not—with the help of instant replay. And yet that’s been okay in the major leagues for the last several weeks, thanks to MLB’s eccentric decision to introduce instant replay on certain plays—eccentric, that is, because of the timing.

Why make the rule change during a season, especially right around the stretch drive? I’m very much in favor of umpire calls being right, and I like the fact that bad calls sometimes actually get reversed nowadays. And I’m fine with the use of replay when a call is disputed. Sure, let’s be reasonable: no challenges on ball-strike calls. But I don’t see how the camera can lie on fair-foul, home run-in play, or even safe-out—though let’s not have protests on every call we don’t like. In any case, I’d much rather they’d waited until next season, even if it meant sacrificing a vital Giants victory like last night’s.

As I understand it, would-be home-run calls can be challenged: that’s “home run-in play” and “fair-foul” (but only if what we’re talking about is a ball with home-run distance). Hey, fine with me, especially since the first official challenge in a Giants game went in the Giants’ favor.

And that, for those who might read this several years from now, is not the “haven’t seen before” part. As Bochy came out to argue the call, Emmanuel Burriss jogged to first base to pinch-run. Several minutes later, the umpires decided that Molina’s hit was a home run—no doubt their decision was influenced by the presence of green paint on the ball that was the same color as the tin roof. So okay, it’s a home run... but who scores the run?

Jon Miller and Dave Flemming chewed this over on the radio. Flemming was concerned that Molina wouldn’t be credited with the home run if Burriss scored the run, and Miller was sure that since the home-run call would supercede the decision for Burriss to pinch-run—meaning that Burriss’ entry into the game “never happened,” so Molina should be able to run out the home run. And both seemed concerned that Molina wouldn’t get both RBIs, since he didn’t drive himself in. I figured they were both wrong (even after I imagined the umpires deciding to nullify the home run on the grounds that it’d make it too hard to render a decision).

I thought they were wrong in part because of an incident I heard about involving the Yankees sometime in the 1980s: Lou Piniella, the DH, went out to first base between innings to warm up the infielders while Chris Chambliss, the actual first baseman, was taking his time getting out of the dugout for some reason. Then Chambliss got out to his position and took over for Piniella, only the umpires ruled that as soon as Piniella had reached Chambliss’ position, he was now officially in the game on defense. As far as I can remember, that’s the right call: If you go out to a position and do anything, such as take a ground ball or a throw from an infielder, you’re in the game at that position. That is, if you run out to, say, second base between innings, then learn immediately that no, the manager doesn’t want you out there, he wants to stick with the incumbent, then it’s not a problem, and you can return to the dugout without having been entered into the game officially. It’s not that different from a guy standing in the on-deck circle, apparently waiting to pinch-hit, and then—before an official announcement is made—returning to the dugout in favor of the already-scheduled hitter.

The exception to the “If you go out to a position and do anything” rule is when somebody—a backup catcher or other bench player who otherwise is not in the game (or has left it)—warms up the pitcher while the current catcher is busy getting into his gear. Once he’s ready, the actual catcher can return, and the bench player can go away, all with impunity. (Admittedly, this makes me wonder what happens when a player who has already left the game runs out to first base to warm up the infielders. I’ll assume that this is treated just like the catcher situation, i.e., as though no substitution has taken place. I could look it up, but that would involve effort, so screw it.) So as soon as Burriss reached first base, he became the pinch-runner.

Another reason Miller and Flemming were wrong was that unless things have changed in the 10 or 20 years since I read this in a “what if?”-type book about baseball rules, Burriss would run out the homer—which he did—and get credit for the run, while Molina would get credit for the home run and both RBIs, but not the run scored. In other words, if it had been Molina’s only plate appearance, the boxscore would show one at-bat, zero runs, one hit, two RBIs, and one home run. I think the book mentioned instances where this had happened—say, because the batter had somehow hurt himself during his trip around the bases. Not only that, but the utterly thoroughly realistic and not at all completely stupid or particularly insulting documentary movie The Babe, starring the roughly 40-year-old, 300-pound John Goodman as not only the 40-year-old, 300-pound Babe Ruth, but also as the 19-year-old, 300-pound Babe Ruth, even though the real Babe Ruth, listed at 215 at baseball-reference.com, might not even have cracked 200 pounds by age 19, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he never topped 275. Anyway, late in his career, Goodman/Ruth is shown as having hit a home run, then huffing and puffing—in that order; accept no imitations, especially those showing him puffing and huffing—to first base, then stopping as a younger, thinner guy runs out the rest of the home run. Did that ever happen to the actual Babe Ruth? I don’t remember hearing as much. But then, I also don’t recall any stories about the actual Babe hitting a popup so high that he was able to circle the bases before the ball touched the ground. (Nor do I remember stories about the Babe farting real loud to entertain a bunch of rich people, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had happened, and neither would you.)

So I took about 1,200 words to describe the first thing I’d never seen before, but take heart: 1,200 is a fraction of the actual words spoken by broadcasters all over the place. The second thing is not Billy Sadler celebrating far too exuberantly after striking out Casey Blake, and both dugouts emptying because the Dodgers got all huffy about it. We see that kind of thing all the time. No, the second thing is J.T. Snow’s appearance in tonight’s game. Well, J.T. Snow appearing in a game is not exactly a first, but it may well be the first time in major league history that someone has signed a one-day contract for the express purpose of taking the field in the top of the first inning, then leaving before the game actually starts—thus making an official appearance without actually playing. (He wore his old number, 6; I never got a look at Tim Flannery’s back, so I don’t know what number he wore. Even if it was 6, that wouldn’t be unprecedented: Just last year, several Giants wore 42 in the same game to honor Jackie Robinson.)

This happened because Snow wanted to retire as a Giant—he last played in Boston in 2006—and the Giants wanted to grant his wish. The fans got to give him a nice hand as he took the field; everybody got to laugh as Eugenio Velez, Omar Vizquel, and Rich Aurilia all threw difficult one-hops to him during warmups; Jate got a good hand as he left the field; and a good time was got by all. I thought it was a nice (albeit silly) gesture.

My eyes popped, though, upon seeing—that’s what my eyes do: they see—that Snow got a prorated contract for the major league minimum: roughly $2,100 for that one day of work. Since my work schedule is wide, wide open these days, I sent the Giants a note offering my services for $2,100 a day—for however many days as necessary—and added that I look forward to beginning negotiations. To date I have received no reply, but then, hey, there’s a lot to do at the end of the season. But I say this to my legions, my multitudes of fans: Don’t worry. I fully expect to be the first 48-year-old center fielder to make an Opening Day start for the San Francisco Giants. Wish me luck.

Blarg!

Read Dave Zirin’s latest column about Barry Bonds. I order you. Zirin’s written a lot about Bonds, and he isn’t what I would call a staunch defender of Bonds so much as a staunch defender of the notion that the knee-jerk vilification of the guy is moronic.

Essentially, Zirin makes the point that Bonds isn’t on a team right now due to collusion on the part of club owners—in other words, he’s being blackballed. Indeed, AT&T Park (and I haven’t been there lately to confirm this with my own eyes, and even if I had been, I probably woulda just sat in my seat and confirmed it via turning my head) is now devoid of anything associated with Bonds: no big ol’ banner proclaiming his home run kingitude, no portrait on the left field wall, no good team, certainly no retired number, etc.

And as much as the Giants would love to distance themselves from the guy, apparently, so would the rest of Major League Baseball. Now, Zirin is hardly the first person to bring up the collusion angle—I am—but to be fair, I ought to point out that in any given year, you can pretty much count on all club owners to collectively refuse to dish out seven figures to any 43-year-old player with bad knees who can’t play defense anymore and who’d be likely to contribute maybe 20 or 25 home runs. In other words, on that basis alone, I don’t blame clubs for not signing Bonds, and I find it odd that the Players Association has Launched An Investigation into this matter—sort of a hoot in itself, as Zirin points out, given that “In 2003, [Bonds] became the first player in thirty years to not sign the Player’s [sic] Association’s group licensing agreement.” (Normally I would only “sic” someone if he or she was a complete boob and made a really stupid spelling, grammatical, or factual error, and I wanted to act all superior. I usually see it rendered as “Players Association,” though “Players’ Association” probably would be more correct. Since you asked.)

I love the San Francisco Giants, and my heart tells me they can do no wrong. My brain tells me otherwise—quite often, really. For instance, I find it awfully hypocritical of the Giants to pretend Bonds doesn’t exist, given—assuming (as I do) that Bonds is guilty guilty guilty—the tacit approval and encouragement by the front office of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Now it’s as though they’re making Bonds out to be a big fat cheater, but they were perfectly happy to turn a blind eye when he was hitting loads of home runs and walking 232 times in a season. (Understand that, as I’ve said before, I really don’t care about performance-enhancing drugs except to the extent that they could harm an athlete or, by extension, his loved ones. I do not believe that such drugs can turn a 40-homer hitter into a 70-homer hitter, and I certainly do not buy the notion that if a player hits even one tainted homer, that nullifies all his honest ones. Thus, I do not care whether Bonds used or not, and I’m grateful for having been able to watch the guy be amazing for 15 years.)

Even stinkier is Major League Baseball’s apparent stance on the matter: again, tacit approval and encouragement, on the premise that “Chicks dig the longball.” Is someone gonna tell me that the people who run the sport didn’t know players were using? Is someone gonna tell me—believably, I mean—that wasn’t okay with them?

Peter Magowan said, in a radio interview the other day, that Bud Selig is the greatest commissioner in baseball history. After spontaneously and vigorously throwing up on my shirt, I thought about just what that might mean, and it pretty much comes down to “bottom line,” which, obviously, means more mmmmmmmmmmoney—again, essentially, because of the chickitudinal preference for the longball. Home runs positively affect the bottom line... ergo performance-enhancing drugs positively affect the bottom line. Oh, and pitchers striking batters out a lot—it would be wrong of me to forget to mention Roger Clemens here. (I also don’t care whether Clemens has been using. He’s always sort of annoyed me, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t put together a Hall-of-Fame career.)

This whole thing is just one reason I roll my eyes every time some Bonds- or Clemens-basher blithers about how this player has Sullied The Virginal And Pristine Grand Old Game. Gimme a break. Major League Baseball stinks from the top down. By miles, the best things about Major League Baseball all take place on the field.

“Muse Muse,” he Mused

Remember the 1996 Giants? Of course not—you’re not an idiot. You took all necessary and judicious steps to wipe them from your mind. I, on the other hand, remember them—or, at least, whenever I feel a queasy kind of heartburn, I think of them. But you know what? With the 1996 Giants, at least there was some hope that somehow they could pull out of their yearlong swan-dive.

There was! The team had Barry Bonds, for one thing. (You remember Bonds, right? He was a 40-40 man that year.) That right there spelled “hope.” And that’s the difference between the 1996 Giants and the 2008 Giants: not so much the lack of Bonds (which had to happen at some point anyway), but simply the lack of hope. It is frightening to think that they’re at the beginning of this steep descent. That is, the descent has been in progress since, at the latest, October 2003, but the downward slope was more gradual—something you could at least drive on, if you had to, without significant danger to yourselves or others. But the end of the 2007 season was basically a precipice. It’s not exactly a cliff—in a graph where the X-line represents time, a cliff would be pretty impossible—but you certainly want to stop the car and possibly erect a barrier festooned with signs saying things like “Go back!” and “If you continue, you most surely will die!”

Tragically, we Giants fans—or at least this one—keep putting that car into a forward gear, crashing through the barrier, hurtling down the 89-degree slope, futilely hammering the brake pedal. Now, if this were an actual scenario, involving an actual car and an actual, paved, nearly vertical grade, there would at least be an end in sight—a horrifying, prayer-inducing, “EEEEEE!”-screaming, ultimately messy end, but an end nonetheless. As it is, though, how long will you keep plunging downward, out of control? Will the angle ever lessen? If so, will it be enough to matter? Or will the Giants suddenly throw you a curve, like they did in 1997—the kind of curve that’s hard to hit, Zeets—and become good enough to turn the slope sharply upwards, thus enabling you to collide head-on with suddenly, sharply rising pavement, but enabling you at least to expire with a mingled sense of mild relief, extreme frustration, and resigned acceptance, knowing that it’s actually getting better but you won’t be around to see it? Or is any illustration of upward movement an indication of too much hope?

The 2008 Giants! What Fun!

This blog sprang to life late in the 2006 season. My website, EEEEEE!, mostly had been collecting dust since the 2002 World Series, and I wanted to get myself back into the habit of writing about the Giants several times a week. Those of you who have stuck with EEEEEE! (or even this blog) from the beginning know that hasn’t happened. I’m a little disappointed with myself, but I’m not rending any garments over it. Mostly I blame the Giants for being just so excrementally awful.

The funny thing is, the Giants’ awfulness is what led me to start EEEEEE! in the first place. Indeed, it started out as just one area of my first yet long-gone website, Pearlmanland, which covered a few topics, including baseball. Most Pearlmanland pieces, some over 20 years old, now are part of EEEEEE! Every so often—well, not so often, really; more like “every so seldom”—I hear from someone who’s read one of my silly little Star Trek pieces, or what have you, and while I appreciate the recognition and even praise—Yes! It happens! It does too!—it’s not easy for me to get into the spirit, since those pieces are so far removed from the present day.

I no longer get e-mails about EEEEEE!, partly because my entire user account was deleted from my Web server inadvertently, and I haven’t fixed it, but mostly because... well, it’s not as though fixing it, and thus making available boatloads of weekly season notes from 1999, is likely to lead to vigorous discussion or, say, a great new job. I should fix it, but it feels as though it’d just be sitting there, not being read. Once in a while I look up some things on the site myself to answer a burning question, but it’s been a long, long time since those fantastic days when perfect strangers would walk around the San Francisco Bay Area in EEEEEE! T-shirts, carrying signs that said “Read EEEEEE! You’ll be glad you did.” (Okay, that never happened—the signs or the shirts.)

In fact, EEEEEE! sort of fell off the table in 2000. The Giants were good that year, but I’d really run out of energy, and I’ve never gotten it back. As I said in at least a few pieces on the site, my EEEEEE! routine involved collecting loads and loads of posts from alt.sports.baseball.sf-giants, e-mails, and various other sources (including newspapers), then rereading and editing them painstakingly until I had something to put on the site. Usually these pieces contained lots and lots of words. So I’d collect (and write) those posts during the week, then on Saturday night, starting an hour or two before midnight, I’d process them. By then I’d usually written at least a few paragraphs about something or other, and generally I led with that, then tacked on the newsgroup quotes. This tended to keep me up till three or four on Sunday morning. Roughly four years of that took its toll, as I had an actual full-time job at the time (though not one that demanded more than 40 of my weekly hours, usually). There were other full-time (and part-time) aspects of my life that demanded more time than I could devote to EEEEEE!, so this site, for which I had received an actual award at one point (though I don’t remember what it was for, exactly), and which had gone down well with readers, suddenly was static—the one thing a website really shouldn’t be.

So the idea of a blog appealed to me in 2006. I felt as though I could just write stuff when I felt like it, about whatever caught my attention at that moment, and I didn’t have to post any “formal” pieces. I could put up messages every 15 minutes if I wanted, complaining about some game or other; or I could back off for several days. Unfortunately, the latter appealed to me much more than the former. I’d like to blame the Giants—because of their lousy play, the buzzing stress brought about by everything that centered on Barry Bonds, the team’s ever-increasing bereftness of World Championships, etc.—but I probably shouldn’t. I mean, if I could devote so much time to writing about a wretched team in 1996, why couldn’t I do so in 2006? Or 2008? I think I just reached a point where I was tired of complaining ceaselessly about the Giants. In any case, Grant Brisbee’s McCovey Chronicles blog is terrific.

So Important!

Like many of you—most, I daresay—every loss ached, especially the really important ones. The 2002 World Series, for example, took a lot out of me; even the 2003 Division Series put me in an angry funk. The losses ached way more than the stirring victories stirred. I suspect that’s true for a large percentage of sports fans, but you know what? It can really wear one out. It’s fair to say that my level of “active devotion” has waned somewhat since 2003. I mean, I still love baseball, I still love the Giants even more, and I still grit my teeth at some of their more retarded losses and player moves, but every year I find myself looking forward less and less to the upcoming season because I know—even if I’m wrong, I know—that yet again, my team will not win the World Series. And now it’s fifty years—five-oh why-EEEEEE! ay-are-ess—of Bay Area baseball in which the championship pennants all hang on the wrong side of the bay. The Giants, essentially, are the team equivalent of Charlie Brown’s favorite player, Joe Shlabotnik, about whom Chuck once said, “Other kids’ heroes hit home runs; mine gets sent to the minors.”

I’m at a point in my sports fandom wherein, if my team doesn’t Win It All, the season is lost. That’s especially true with the Giants. Even in 2002, when they won the pennant on Kenny Lofton’s stirring base hit and David Bell’s mad dash to the plate, I was pleased... but not all that excited. Instead I began focusing immediately on the upcoming World Series, knowing that I had a minimum of four more games to get through before I could finally relax with the knowledge that my team was actually a World Champion. Of course, “minimum of four games” carries the implication of “maximum of seven games,” but I meant it in terms of a very open-ended future. That’s why it was life or death to me that my team Win It All. Which reminds me that the “death” part blasted me pretty hard, as a longtime friend, a guy I’d grown up with, died suddenly in September of that year (and was buried on September 11, of all days). He’d finally found the love of his life and had been married just over a year, and then bam! So in addition to obsessing on the World Series, I was pretty much freaking out over my friend (and in many ways I still am). I felt awfully silly being just so concerned about the Giants’ fate, knowing that my friend’s wife and family had something on their minds that was much closer to home, and much harder to push out of their minds. In other words, when I wasn’t mourning or thinking about him, I was thinking, “How can all this baseball stuff get so much of my attention when I should be thinking about his family?” So I did both. And it was stressful, to say the least.

Meanwhile, I’ve gotten in the habit of crazily and desperately exhorting my team, aching for their ultimate success, because of the increasingly firm belief that if they don’t do it now, they never will. That peaked in 2002, it’s fair to say, though I did feel it acutely in 2003. But it’s also the main reason the World Series failure knocked me on my butt: I really did honestly believe that it had to be now; otherwise it would be never. And the idea of “never” was hugely daunting and nurtured in me a kind of dread similar to that felt by people forever doomed to push boulders up hills, only to have the boulders crash back down to the bottom after getting to within inches of the top. The idea of continuing to devote so much emotional energy into this ever-futile race, knowing that I would do so whether I wanted to or not, became, at that time, the kind of horror that the prospect of encountering Lord Voldemort put into the hearts of J.K. Rowling’s magical community. It came down to this: I wasn’t sure I could go through it again and again and again... but I knew I would. I had to. I’m a Giants fan—that’s my job.

So I’ve found it increasingly difficult to enjoy being a Giants fan. Because of that, and other priorities in life, the losses still bite, but not quite as hard; the wins are pleasant, but hardly sublime, since there’ll be another game tomorrow that Our Boys could lose in spectacular, innard-wrenching fashion. What this has all made me do is try to back off somewhat from the obsessive nature of my Giants fandom. Sometimes I stop listening to or watching a game when I don’t like the way it’s going—I never used to do that. And when faced with an obligation that conflicts with the Giants’ schedule, I experience a pang, but I don’t go crazy wondering what’s happening in the game. Mainly that’s because I figure that all I’m going to find out is: they lost. This doesn’t mean I care less than I used to—just that I can no longer agonize to the extent that I have for so long. I’m guessing I’d feel differently if they were this unstoppable powerhouse that had no choice but to win at least one World Series in a row—and would again express myself in flowing detail about the team’s fortunes—but I wouldn’t know for sure.

I get sick of other teams’ fans exuding a sense of entitlement—Yankees fans can epitomize this: “Let’s bring the trophy back to the Bronx, where it belongs!” Screw that. I guess it’s jealous behavior on my part, because I’d like to feel that entitlement, and have it fulfilled; and it shows me that God got it completely right in saying “Thou shall not covet,” not because the jealous feelings and expressions themselves are necessarily wrong, but because of how awful it feels to covet. It’s way easier to rationalize it into sour grapes, but no more satisfying.

In EEEEEE!, over the years, I’ve mentioned what fandom has entailed for me, but I’ll go over it again here, with fewer words (I hope): When I first started really following sports in 1970, every Giants victory was cool (and ditto A’s, but not as cool), and the postseason was for showcasing other really good teams. It didn’t faze me when the Giants didn’t at least win their division, because it never occurred to me that they might. I mean, yeah, they did in 1971, and that was fabulous; but after that, for several years, it didn’t bug me that much when they lost, because I figured they’d win it again soon enough. Their run in 1982 was one of the most fun, most exciting times I can remember as a Giants fan, and even that wasn’t as disappointing as it could have been—because I hadn’t yet reached that stage of fandom I’m about to discuss.

Starting with the Roger Craig era in 1986, it became important to me—crucial—that the Giants Win It All Now. I don’t know how that happened. Maybe Craig had me believing—for which I won’t blame him (much). Apparently I didn’t enter that phase gradually, but so suddenly that I didn’t even notice it. So when Atlee, Candy, et al. lost the playoffs in 1987, well, that was horrible. It wasn’t so bad in 1989—in fact, the moment Robby Thompson threw that ball to Will Clark at first base to seal the pennant was, and still is, one of the happiest moments in my life—because the Giants were never going to beat the A’s in that World Series; I had resigned myself to that disgusting truth. But next year, oh, that was gonna be our year.

No. They had to win it in 1990, much as they had to win it in 1988. But no. They’d peaked in 1989—heck, perhaps they’d peaked in 1987—and it was only going to get worse, at least for a while. And it did. The 1990 through 1992 seasons were ugly. Then along came Barry Bonds, and suddenly there was hope. The man helped the team to 31 more wins in 1993 than the year before. Of course, other teams conspired to make them an also-ran with 103 wins; and a strike the next year took care of any postseason hopes. (Well, a strike and not being good enough.) And then poof! They were actively bad for two years. Next came eight years in which they just couldn’t get over the hump. And now they’re horrible. There’s just no hope. I don’t like feeling that way, but oh, well.

I’m still in that “must win” mode, and I think I always will be, though I’m manifesting it less desperately than in the past. I would like to get back to a state where it was enough that it was baseball, but I don’t see that happening.

Stuff About the Actual 2008 Giants

Granted, much of my negative attitude right now has to come from the team I’m trying to watch. Perhaps you’ve heard of them: the San Francisco Unwatchables. My friend Woody, a former newsgroup denizen, sums it up thus: “I hate Barry Zito. I hate Jeff Kent. And I now hate Joe Torre, and hate Anduh-ruw Jones even more than before. Know what else? I kinda hate the Giants, too.” I’ll never hate them, but they sure are hard to love right now. Let’s ignore the fact that at this moment it’s the eighth inning of what appears to want to be a 5-0 loss. Let’s ignore Joe Beimel, before even throwing a pitch, picked off Brian Bocock, the Giants’ new shortstop, whose major league debut suddenly became one of those memories we’d all like to forget. Perhaps we should try to remember that after today, the Giants will be only one game out of first place. It’s all we’ve got.

Bengie Molina is the cleanup hitter. This is the man who started last season batting seventh solely because he was too slow to bat eighth. But now he’s the new Barry Bonds. Backing him up behind the plate is Steve Holm, a longtime minor leaguer. Well, hey, it was either him, longtime minor-leaguer Eliezer Alfonzo, or longtime minor-leaguer Guillermo Rodriguez. Catching for the Dodgers is Russell Martin, and I really don’t want to say anymore about that.

Rich Aurilia got the start at first base today, and he’s actually played well—on defense, anyway. At the plate, he looks like he’ll never get another hit. This fails to make him unique. Tomorrow Dan Ortmeier will probably start at first. He homered six times in 191 at-bats last year, and despite being new to the position (having been a pretty good outfielder), suddenly the first base job was his to lose, almost. If the Giants were looking into a real first baseman during the offseason, that news was kept pretty quiet.

Ray Durham started today’s game and dropped an easy, looping line drive to give the Dodgers a run. He had a great contract year two years ago. Then he re-signed. And now... you know, it’s easier not to talk about him. Kevin Frandsen had a good chance of becoming the starting second baseman, but the most remarkable thing he did in the Cactus League was rupture his Achilles tendon. Whenever that happens, know who I think of? Bobby Tolan. He was coming into his own as the Reds’ center fielder in the early 1970s—in fact, he may well have been on the way toward superstardom—before rupturing his Achilles playing basketball and was never close to the same player again. I don’t see how the hopes can possibly be as high for Frandsen, but it’s still unfortunate that this happened. Replacing him on the roster is Eugenio Velez. (Actually, it’s Jose Castillo, but he’s been put at third base.) The Giants announcers rave about his speed, and with good reason, but he’s not much of a fielder, and I fear he won’t hit much either. So obviously second base is in fabulous shape, too.

Omar Vizquel is on the disabled list, so the shortstop these days is Bocock. He threw out Andruw Jones from short left field on a ground ball way into the hole; defensively, he looks like the real deal. Offensively... well, I’ll put it this way: the other day, Mike Krukow was raving about him and, with delight in his voice, said that Bocock reminded him of Mike Benjamin. Even Krukow knew that this sounded awfully lefthanded as compliments go, so he quickly added that Benjamin had put together a nice career. Know how exciting that is? Me neither, except that curling is more exciting.

The aforementioned Castillo is the third baseman so far. He actually has a little pop, or at least he did in Pittsburgh. Well, he has pop compared to what I expected before I looked up his stats; he’s not an inspiring choice at all. The guy the Giants were rumored to be pursuing was Joe Crede of the White Sox, who hit .216 last season after a pretty darned good 2006. Also part of the rumor was Noah Lowry, whom I would have hated to see go in such a deal (before he got hurt, at least).

Dave Roberts, Fred Lewis, and Rajai Davis will hop from outfield position to outfield position, but mostly they’re the left fielders this year. And yet, a huge proportion of Giants fans are delighted to see the back of Barry Bonds. For crying out loud, the Giants themselves are doing all they can to disassociate themselves from the guy. In the process, they’ve also disassociated themselves from anybody you’d call a legitimate power threat. This isn’t to say they should have hung onto Bonds—frankly, I don’t know whether they should have or not—but you’d think he’d be worth replacing with someone who... well, I’m sorry, but the answer they’ve come up with? They ain’t the answer. (Roberts led off the game with a single, then got thrown out trying to steal. This team can’t steal with Martin behind the plate, and yet speed is what the Giants are pushing this year, trying to tell us that they’re True Gamers, as if to say “Well, with Bonds here, we were lazy and complacent.” Wait. Maybe they have a point.)

Aaron Rowand was the Giants’ Big Offseason Free-Agent Signing. Last year, at age 29, he hit quite a few dingers, hit over .300, and reached base a fair amount. He had what was probably a better year in Chicago in 2004, but other than those two years, he’s been pretty boring. They love his defense, but he made two absolutely idiotic throws in today’s game alone. Yeesh.

And the number-three hitter these days is Randy Winn, who’s now the right fielder. He hit .300 last year, but his OPS was only .798—if OPS doesn’t mean anything to you, divide it by three for an idea of just how impressive that is. (Heck, OPS is a discussion in itself. Somebody else discuss it, please.)

The starting pitching is what the Giants believe will carry them this year. Noah Lowry’s out, so the starters are Barry Zito, who gave up four runs in five innings today; Matt Cain, who lost 16 games last year despite a 3.65 ERA because his team chose not to score for him; and Tim Lincecum and his “no-hit stuff” (which is legit, by the way—for now). The fifth starter will come out of the group consisting of Kevin Correia, Brad Hennessey, and Jonathan Sanchez, and the best you can say about that is, at least we’re not talking about the number-one starter. (Well, Correia has put up pretty good ERAs the last two years.)

At the moment, the bullpen consists of new closer Brian Wilson, who took the job from Hennessey last year and gave the Giants a 2.28 ERA (albeit in only 23-2/3 innings) and a WHIP below one. (That’s “walks plus hits per inning pitched,” for those who don’t know.) He’s fairly impressive, and I’d love for him to be terrific—but how many save opportunities could he possibly have this year? The eighth-inning guy could well be Tyler Walker, who was very impressive in only 14-1/3 innings. Does this give you any confidence? Me, not so much. The rest of the bullpen consists of three newcomers-ish: Erick Threets and Merkin Valdez, longtime Giants prospects, and Keiichi Yabu, possibly the first Giant ever to have two consecutive I’s in his name. His only previous major league time was 58 innings with the A’s in 2006—when he was 36.

It might be fun to load this team into a baseball simulation like Diamond Mind or Out of the Park with, say, the New York Yankees of 1927 just to see if the Giants would win even one game. The sad thing is, I’m already feeling the same way about real life, against much worse competition.

I Hate When They Pull Him in the Sixth with a One-Run Lead

As of today, August 7, 2007, the all-time home run champion for a career is Barry Bonds. Not:

• Hank Aaron
  
• Babe Ruth
  
• “Barry Bonds *”

It is Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants.

To restate: The person who has hit the most home runs in a major league baseball career is Barry Bonds. I should also point out that the person who has hit the most home runs in a major league baseball season is Barry Bonds.

I mention this because of all the messages posted to the Giants newsgroup, and others, from people who refuse to acknowledge Bonds’ accomplishments. To them I say that the True Career Home Run Champion is not Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, or anybody other than Barry Bonds, and that the True Season Home Run Champion is not Mark McGwire, Roger Maris, or Babe Ruth. Right there in the record books, atop both lists, is Barry Bonds, with 73 for a season, 756—and counting, I hope—for a career.

One can whine all one wants about steroids or other performance-enhancing substances. I say, for the umptieth time, that those substances do not enhance performance. They may enable one to enhance one’s performance by allowing that person to work out more, and more frequently—i.e., to work harder. It’s funny that Bonds is so commonly called a cheater, accused, essentially, of achieving his particular level of greatness “without having to work for it.” Drugs or no, the dude probably works harder than any other ballplayer.

The title of this post refers to the fact that after the home run (which Bonds hit in the bottom of the fifth inning of what had been a 4-4 tie against the Nationals), a shot of the dugout showed Bonds and Bruce Bochy “discussing” something (as opposed to exchanging high-fives or something), and then, after Bonds took his position in the top of the sixth, Bochy came out and pulled a double-switch, getting starter Barry Zito out of there as well. I thought that kind of stank. I really wanted to see Bonds come to the plate again, maybe hit 757, and maybe 758. I mean, what else do Giants fans have to look forward to this year? Anyway, the title also came about because of Bochy’s tendency to pull Bonds after the seventh or eighth inning of a one-run game, which would be great if Bonds’ spot was unlikely to come up again, but it always seems as though it does… and instead of Bonds batting, we’d get Fred Lewis or somebody. Whee.

Meanwhile, Matt Murphy, the guy who came up with the ball Bonds hit is gonna be one wealthy individual. (I assume he’s gonna sell the ball, anyway.) At first glance, he looked a lot like my friend Pat, but then I noticed that the baseball jersey Murphy wore bore some other team’s logo—Pat would never wear such a thing—and Pat’s got about a 15-year head start on Murphy in terms of losing his hair.

All-Star Spluttitude!

Okay, we all know that the whole Major League Baseball All-Star Extravaganza is awfully silly these days, what with the Fox Network and its football-style coverage, the endless hype, ballplayers as animated by The Simpsons animators, and the completely unnecessary pomp and grandeur normally associated with presidential coronations or a Super Bowl. But there I was, living with it, having turned on the TV at five, just in time for a touching if odd tribute to Willie Mays. And there I was, sitting on the phone with original EEEEEE! staffer David Beck, making silly remarks about everything related to the splendor. And in mid-laugh… Fzzzzzzt! No more Comcast Digitial Cable. No more Comcast High-Speed Internet. No more Comcast Digital Voice.

At about 5:30 my “immediate area” sustained an “outage,” the Comcast folks said. Of the 141 “subscribers in your area,” only 40 currently had service, meaning that I was the “1” on the end of the remaining, screwed 101. “And why am I not one of those 40?” I ventured. The Comcast lady laughed, reasoning that I was joking, because what kind of an idiot would even ask a question like that?

So anyway, as I write this, it’s 7:30, and the cable just went back on, in the bottom of the sixth. What a terrific All-Star Game experience. That’s two and a half hours I refuse to pay Comcast for.

The National League hero so far is Ken Griffey Jr., not Barry Bonds, who went 0-for-2, then did the“four and fly” thing. Griffey, meanwhile, has driven in the National League’s two runs and thrown out Alex Rodriguez at third base. Or maybe home. Ask ESPN radio. It should go without saying, however, that the AL leads it 3-2, thanks largely to an inside-the-park home run—I swear—by Ichiro Suzuki. At least I think it was him—it’s hard to pay attention to the ESPN radio guys. At least I think it was ESPN. In any case, I liked it way better back when the NL used to win every single All-Star Game.

Meanwhile, the crowd was very kind to Bonds in the pregame introduction, however, and I have to hand it to Fox for restraining themselves from pointing out that you’d expect to hear a lot more boos, even from home-town season-ticket holders, for such a cheating, genocidal maniac. So kudos, Fox. Or at least a kudo.

And earlier today, there was I, cracking myself up over the notion, “Boy, National League manager Tony LaRussa is such a classless boob that he refuses to voluntarily select a Giant to the team as a reserve or one of the pitchers! What a classless boob, that boob!” Because I cannot honestly name a San Francisco Giant aside from Bonds who would rate more than maybe a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 illustrating how All-Star worthy a given player might be. Even in lean years, usually I could name at least two guys who could’ve or should’ve been added to the squad; even in 1984, the last time we saw All-Star Baseball in San Francisco, the horrendous San Francisco Giants sent two representatives. And this time LaRussa coulda picked… um… Bengie Molina! Yeah! He’s gotta be a 4, easy! Or Matt Morris! Another 4! What about dark horse Noah Lowry? A 3.5, maybe a 4! But noooooooo, LaRussa had to pick two Dodgers, to go with starting catcher Russell Martin. So fair!

Wow, this team is weak.

The Giants, I mean.

From Rubio and Me

With Steven Rubio’s kind permission, I’m reproducing two of his recent blog entries at http://begonias.typepad.com/srubio/, partly because his stuff’s always dead on and insightful, but also because I responded at length—as is my wont, poor creature—rather than just putting it all on this blog, which might have made more sense.

We begin with “giants at the break”:

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Might as well spend a bit of time talking about the Giants, as All-Star Fever hits San Francisco.

First, a statement of my basic set of assumptions. While it has been shown that in most cases, one individual player is not worth as much as people think (it’s common to hear people say “he saved the team ten wins with his glove,” for instance), Barry Bonds is such a remarkable baseball player that he is an outlier… he makes more difference than people think, not less. The specifics for the Giants are this: they have done well over the past decade, but far and away the primary reason for this is Barry Bonds. Duh, I know, but because he is an outlier, that statement is less obvious than it seems. Others get lots of the public credit for the team’s successes, but I give that credit mostly to Bonds. The primary recipient of the public praise (in the past… their current problems have resulted in a decline in his reputation) is General Manager Brian Sabean. I contend that Sabean had little to do with the acquisition of Bonds, so he shouldn’t get credit for Barry. I further contend that while Sabean has his strong points, they tend to be old school in an era of new paradigms, so that his strong points become less useful with each passing season. Therefore, I have always been suspicious of Sabean… that’s not true, I think he does a bad job… even though a team he put together came closer to winning a World Series than any Giants team since 1962.

OK, there’s a summation of my biases. What’s up in 2007? Is the team performing as expected, better, worse, different? And what does this tell us about their future?

First, to get the obvious out of the way: things aren’t going well. Their current winning percentage is their lowest since 1996, and they are in last place. The year 1996 is significant, because the next year was Sabean’s first as general manager, and that year the Giants won their division, starting an eight-year run of winning seasons that included four trips to the postseason and one trip to the World Series. It is that record on which Sabean’s reputation rose: he took a bad team, the story goes, and turned them into winners. The bloom is off that particular rose, though, since 2007 looks to be the third straight losing season for the club, and Sabean’s job is reported to be on the line.

What was expected in 2007? Partly, your expectations revolve around your opinion regarding the value of keeping Barry Bonds on the team. Since Barry makes a lot of money, some argue that the team is wrong to spend so much on an old guy when they could get two or three good younger players for the same amount. There are two problems with this theory. First, Barry is still performing as well or better than all the other guys at his position… he may cost a lot, but he still gives value, even at his advanced age. Second, the theory assumes that Brian Sabean would get some good talent with the money he saved on Bonds, while Brian’s track record suggests otherwise… while he doesn’t do too badly at evaluating pitching, his idea of a good hitter is very much old school, behind the times, and thus poor relative to his peers.

Anyway… the 2006 Giants were mediocre. Their bullpen was OK, and they had a couple of good starters, but they lacked depth in the rotation, and their offense was filled with old guys, some of whom were over the hill, others who had never really made it up the hill in the first place. Since the Giants had some potentially good pitchers in the organization, the strategy seemed pretty clear: gradually work those younger pitchers into bigger roles on the major league club while weeding out the bad old hitters and making moves to both improve the offense and make it younger.

The plan has not been a total bust. Some of those younger pitchers are indeed showing promise, and while mega-bucks starter Barry Zito was not worth anything near what Sabean paid for him, the guy he essentially replaced (Jason Schmidt) has fallen victim to injuries. The pitching is better now than it was last year, and there is every reason to believe that improvement will last into at least the near future.

Ah, but the offense. It’s almost exactly the same as in 2006. Last year, the Giants had Barry Bonds, two other aging but effective hitters, and a bunch of crap. This year, they have Barry Bonds, one aging but effective hitter, and a bunch of crap. Their offense is still too old, and the hitters’ skills are still too old school (I might as well be specific on this point at least once: Sabean tends to sign hitters who have proven veteran status with decent numbers in categories like RBI, but who don’t draw many walks and thus don’t get on base very often, on-base percentage being perhaps the single most important step between what was considered good back in the day and what is considered good under the new paradigm).

The Giants have been unlucky this year… they’ve scored more runs than they’ve allowed, suggesting a team that should thus win more games than they lose. The improved pitching is the reason they’re better this year than last, despite the W-L record. They have indeed taken steps in the right direction, as far as pitching goes. But they are stagnant on offense, not because they have Barry Bonds (he remains far and away their best offensive player), but because Brian Sabean doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing when it comes time to get hitting talent.

So, to the questions I asked earlier. How are they performing? The pitching is better, the hitting is the same, their luck is bad, their record is poor. What does it mean for the future? The pitching looks good, so if they can improve the hitting, they will be contenders very soon.

Which leads to the most important question of all: is Brian Sabean the right General Manager for what this team needs? Clearly, the answer is no. The area that needs the most work is the area where Sabean is at his worst. He is not the worst GM in the game, and he could be a good fit for a team just shy of contention that needed one or two players to put them over the top in 2008. But the Giants need a GM well versed in contemporary baseball analytics, they need an entire team in the front office of people who understand the new paradigm, they need, in short, the anti-Sabean. I can think of a couple of candidates… Jonathan Bernstein, a poli-sci professor in Texas and a long-time Giants fan, would be great filling an analyst role, although he kinda already has a job. Jacob Jackson has the best solution, though: a man named Paul DePodesta. You can read Jackson’s thoughts in his piece “The best unemployed GM in baseball.“ DePodesta is available, he knows what he’s doing… what the heck, he was even fired by the Dodgers (and replaced by a Sabean protégé), which would make his successes with the Giants that much more enjoyable. If Sabean’s replacement is at the level of a DePodesta, the Giants will rise again, sooner rather than later. If they hire the usual hack, or even worse, if they keep Sabean around, they won’t be winners for a long time to come.

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Here’s where I come in, daring Steven not to know that I would respond. First, I should congratulate Steven on his classiness in not mentioning that my response is longer than his article, and then some:

• “Barry Bonds is such a remarkable baseball player that he is an outlier… he makes more difference than people think, not less. The specifics for the Giants are this: they have done well over the past decade, but far and away the primary reason for this is Barry Bonds. Duh, I know, but because he is an outlier, that statement is less obvious than it seems. Others get lots of the public credit for the team’s successes, but I give that credit mostly to Bonds.”
  This should be such a “duh” that there should be no need to explain it to anybody more on the ball than Ali G. Indeed, it’s been pretty clear that Bonds has essentially been Brian Sabean’s armor, and the more it erodes with time, the more exposed Sabean’s weaknesses, and chitlins, are.
  

• “The primary recipient of the public praise (in the past… their current problems have resulted in a decline in his reputation) is General Manager Brian Sabean. I contend that Sabean had little to do with the acquisition of Bonds, so he shouldn’t get credit for Barry.”
  I will assume that you are employing understatement in saying “little to do,” because Sabes had zippo to do with signing Bonds in the first place. He wasn’t even around. In fact, technically, Bob Quinn, his predecessor, wasn’t even around. Evidently, during the job interview process, when asked which single player Quinn would pursue, he said “Bonds,” and that pretty much got him his job. What’s interesting to me is that most folks’ gut reaction to that would be long the lines of, well, “Duh!”—translated as, “Any general manager (or candidate for such a position) would have said “Bonds.’” But apparently this isn’t true. Al Rosen reportedly said that he never would’ve gone after Bonds. That right there made me awfully glad Rosen was out.
  

• “I further contend that while Sabean has his strong points, they tend to be old school in an era of new paradigms, so that his strong points become less useful with each passing season. Therefore, I have always been suspicious of Sabean… that’s not true, I think he does a bad job… even though a team he put together came closer to winning a World Series than any Giants team since 1962.”

  The 2002 team was mostly about Bonds, Kent, Aurilia, Schmidt, Ortiz, and Nen. Well, those were the stars. We’ve already established that Sabean can’t take credit for Bonds—except in being savvy enough to re-sign him here and there—and Aurilia’s not really his boy either, as he came over in the John Burkett trade after the 1994 season and came up at the end of 1995. I guess one could give him credit for recognizing that Aurilia was a major leaguer, but lots of Richie’s early at-bats were stolen by Jose Vizcaino and Rey Sanchez, so just how much credit is debatable. I do give Sabes credit for getting Kent, but not for knowing how good he’d actually be. In fact, it was Julian Tavarez who was supposed to be the key acquisition in the Matt Williams trade. Certainly, though, Sabes pretty much stole Schmidt and Nen, and he deserves recognition in a big way there. Ortiz too, I guess.

  But the rest of the team? Hits and misses. Tsuyoshi Shinjo might have been to center field what Hal Lanier was to shortstop—I mean, obviously Shinjo wasn’t nearly as bad a hitter as Lanier (since almost no one could be), but I would say that he was about as below average a center fielder as Lanier was a shortstop (or second baseman), to the point where—recognizing this, amazingly—Sabean went and got Kenny Lofton, and Dusty Baker wound up changing horses after that… right up till the World Series, when he insisted on (a) playing Shinjo, and (b) using him as a DH instead of a ninth-place-hitting center fielder (if at all). I mean, it wasn’t even clear that Shinjo should’ve been on the postseason roster.
  

  The David Bell acquisition turned out good for the 2002 team. His numbers weren’t spectacular, but he was asked to inhabit either the leadoff spot of the second slot on any given day—and that ain’t Bell—and he played all four infield positions, which he wouldn’t have had to do except for injuries. And the trade for Lofton turned out just dandy.

  Snow was Snow, though he picked it up in the postseason, ish, and Reggie Sanders was Reggie Sanders. He had a rough postseason, but I don’t blame that on Sabean. And Benito Santiago was just fine. No complaints there. In the postseason, I mean. During the season, he drove me bats a lot of the time.
  

  Kirk Rueter did more or less what he was supposed to do, and Livan Hernandez… well, I know it’s not as though he put up Jim Poole-like numbers in the World Series, but let us just say that he did not pitch well enough to win. Some Giants fans called him “the real deal” when Sabes traded for him, but no one was saying that anymore in 2002, even well before the postseason. I won’t say the guy was a head case, but it appears that he wouldn’t allow himself to be coached. What we hear about him since is that “He’s throwing inside a lot more—why wouldn’t he do that when Dave Righetti was trying to get him to?” So I’m guessing that as happy as some folks might have been when we got Livan, they were equally happy when he exited. I know I was.
  

  Aside from Nen and Felix Rodriguez, the bullpen sort of came down to Scott Eyre, who turned out to be a good pickup, although despite a superb ERA, he gave up a hell of a lot of baserunners. Still, he was a waiver-wire pickup. It seems that whatever acumen he might have had for such transactions Sabes no longer trusted it after 2002. And Rodriguez… well, he’d been great before 2002, so congratulate Sabean, I guess; but probably he’d been overused and then went coo-coo for Coco-Puffs.
  

  What I’m getting at, I guess, is that Sabes did have a pretty big hand in building that league champion, but so much of it also was, as you say, Bonds; and Kent was an amazingly lucky break.
  

• “What was expected in 2007? Partly, your expectations revolve around your opinion regarding the value of keeping Barry Bonds on the team. Since Barry makes a lot of money, some argue that the team is wrong to spend so much on an old guy when they could get two or three good younger players for the same amount. There are two problems with this theory. First, Barry is still performing as well or better than all the other guys at his position… he may cost a lot, but he still gives value, even at his advanced age. Second, the theory assumes that Brian Sabean would get some good talent with the money he saved on Bonds, while Brian’s track record suggests otherwise… while he doesn’t do too badly at evaluating pitching, his idea of a good hitter is very much old school, behind the times, and thus poor relative to his peers.”
  This is a great point, i.e., that baseball has passed Sabean by. Even at his best, though, would you call him an “outside the box” thinker?
  

  The other thing about the idea of having gotten two or three or four or 80 talented guys for Bonds’ salary is the notion that those guys’ contribution would equal or surpass Bonds’. Which they wouldn’t. Still, that statement presupposes that one Bonds is worth two or three or four or 80 other talented guys, and that’s a hard one to get past the sensors.
  

• “The plan has not been a total bust. Some of those younger pitchers are indeed showing promise, and while mega-bucks starter Barry Zito was not worth anything near what Sabean paid for him, the guy he essentially replaced (Jason Schmidt) has fallen victim to injuries. The pitching is better now than it was last year, and there is every reason to believe that improvement will last into at least the near future.”
  The Zito/Schmidt thing, I think escapes notice solely because of the sheer amount of money Zito’s getting, which I don’t think is exactly a fair way to evaluate the guy. The way I see it, he’s supposed to be our ace. It’s not that he’s not pitching like a guy worth $126 million—he’s not—but, more importantly, he’s not pitching like an ace. He’s a game or two away, maybe three, from getting his ERA down to league average, though, and he’s got a whole post-All-Star stretch to work it down even further. He’s frustrating, but not a bust. Yet. And, as you point out, there’s the Schmidt thing—i.e., Zito’s giving us at least as much value as Schmidt is giving the Dodgers, depending on one’s definition of “value” (i.e., ERA, “eating up innings,” whatever). However, since people like to bitch about Zito’s contract, the “at least as much value as Schmidt” thing will never sound good enough.
  

• “Their offense is still too old, and the hitters’ skills are still too old school (I might as well be specific on this point at least once: Sabean tends to sign hitters who have proven veteran status with decent numbers in categories like RBI, but who don’t draw many walks and thus don’t get on base very often, on-base percentage being perhaps the single most important step between what was considered good back in the day and what is considered good under the new paradigm).”
  Sabean’s preferred offense sounds a lot like Dave Barry’s mother’s idea of a balanced meal: for every food item that he and his siblings liked, such as hamburgers, she’d serve a food item they hated, such as brussels sprouts. Pedro Feliz, here, would be a Brussels sprout. And what gets to me about him is the same thing that got to me when Sabean got J.T. Snow: the notion of “How can you complain about a guy who hits 20 home runs and drives in 80 every year?” The best answer is, “Watch Feliz.”
  

• “The Giants have been unlucky this year….”
  Ha! I put it to you that they’re unlucky every year.”
  

• “Brian Sabean doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing when it comes time to get hitting talent.”
  I don’t know that the Billy Beane approach is the approach to building a champion (especially ‘cause Beane hasn’t built any champions yet), but I’m willing to find out.
  

• “… the Giants need a GM well versed in contemporary baseball analytics, they need an entire team in the front office of people who understand the new paradigm, they need, in short, the anti-Sabean. I can think of a couple of candidates… Jonathan Bernstein, a poli-sci professor in Texas and a long-time Giants fan, would be great filling an analyst role, although he kinda already has a job. Jacob Jackson has the best solution, though: a man named Paul DePodesta. You can read Jackson’s thoughts in his piece ‘The best unemployed GM in baseball.’ DePodesta is available, he knows what he’s doing… what the heck, he was even fired by the Dodgers (and replaced by a Sabean protégé), which would make his successes with the Giants that much more enjoyable. If Sabean’s replacement is at the level of a DePodesta, the Giants will rise again, sooner rather than later. If they hire the usual hack, or even worse, if they keep Sabean around, they won’t be winners for a long time to come.”
  Of course, since I’ve known Jonathan online for about 11 or 12 years and think of him as a “kinda” friend because we swap genial e-mails now and again (but not often enough), I’d be happy to campaign for him as the next Giants GM. He is, in my opinion, a fantastic analyst—one whose stuff in the newsgroup I never fail to read—and also someone who I think would have an excellent big-picture view. Plus, I’m hoping that by touting him this heavily, he might return the favor and find me a highly paid sinecure position within the organization.
  

• “Given where the Giants are now, [Fred] Lewis should be playing a lot more than Randy Winn… Lewis isn’t likely to be a part of the next good Giants team, but Winn is defintely not going to be a contributor to that club, so the Giants should be giving Lewis every opportunity to show what he can do. It will be interesting to see what Bochy does the second half of the season… so far, he keeps running Winn out there almost every day, and Winn’s decent BA is just covering up the fact that he no longer hits well enough to be a regular, and pretty much hasn’t since those great two months with the Giants at the end of ’05.”
  I don’t think it’s Winn who’s the problem. It’s Roberts, who (a) is signed to a disturbingly long contract, and (b) stinks. It’s not like he gets on base enough or hits with enough power to cover that .218 batting average—which has stayed steady since about the third week of the season. I would be much happier with an outfield of Bonds, Winn, and Lewis than Bonds, Roberts, and Lewis—or, for that matter, Bonds, Roberts, and Winn.
  

  Meanwhile, I feel a little bad for both Dan Ortmeier and Nate Schierholtz, because it’s Roberts and Lewis who are keeping them out of the bigs. Though certainly Schierholtz, is the better hitter and younger player, I liked what I saw of Ortmeier, to the point where maybe it’s Mark Sweeney who’s keeping him out of the bigs.
  

• “They should dump Roberts and Winn for whatever they can get, run Lewis and Schierholtz or whoever out there every day, live with the losses that will surely pile up, and work on the future.”
  I could live with this. Sadly, if they get any takers for Roberts, we’ll wind up either paying some Neifiesque clown a million and a half dollars to suck, or some 25-year-old single-A pitching “prospect” whose fastball went from 98 to 88 after Tommy John surgery.
  

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Next, poor Steven makes the mistake of commenting on Barry Bonds and the Home Run Derby:

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I’ll post some pix later, but here are some quick thoughts:

It’s more fun than you’d think. The competition, I’m talking about… the endless breaks for television commercials meant the entire affair moved at a snail’s pace, but watching these guys hit homers was actually a blast. Much of the between-batter “entertainment” was lame, although I understand they felt the need to do something to fill those five-minute commercial breaks. Kudos, though, to the Bucket Boys, four guys who pounded on buckets with drumsticks… they rooled.

More proof, if needed, that Barry Bonds is from another planet: they had some of the best home run hitters in the game here tonight, and after the first round, all of the lefties were eliminated. AT&T Park, you see, is a very hard place for lefties to hit homers. Barry Bonds, who has hit more homers than anyone not named Hank Aaron, is a lefty hitter. He set the single-season record for HR playing his home games at AT&T Park.

Apparently there are a lot of people saying Barry crapped on the local fans by opting out of the contest. We’ll show America just how much we hate him for that tomorrow when he is introduced. Here’s a preview: he’ll get far and away the most cheers of any player unless Willie Mays gets more.

Probably the most entertaining thing about the contest was… no, not the Counting Crows mini-concert… was the kids they had shagging flies during the competition. Some big stud would hit a fly ball about two miles into the air in right-center field, and 25 kids would chase after the ball, most of them beginning from some place far away from the eventual destination of the ball. They wouldn’t come anywhere near close to the ball when it landed, of course, but they sure didn’t lack for hustle!

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Maybe it’s standard Giants-fan paranoia, but I feel as though he, and the ballpark, have been denigrated in the sense of the park being tailored for him, making it that much easier for him to set records and such. Paranoia or not, though, somehow the place really was built for Barry Bonds. I have no idea why he, and no other hitter, including lefties, succeeds at that place. (Obviously, lots of folks who hate the guy will say that they have an idea why, but I don’t care.) But it’s not like he’s a dead-pull-hitter (Shut up, dissenters: a ludicrous infield shift doesn’t mean he pulls all his fly balls, too.) in a bandbox with a low fence and the win always blowing out.

Indeed, when Bonds set the single-season home run record, I think he hit one more home run at home than on the road, but I wanted to mention, for those who might not know, but not for you, ‘cause you know, so you can stick your fingers in your eyes and hum “Camptown Races” during this part, that the place is hard on all hitters, including lefties, which the distance to the right-field foul pole might well belie. I could be wrong, but I think there’s a general assumption that Bonds just pokes lazy little fly balls down the right-field line that somehow carry into the bay, but in fact, it’s not as though he hits all his home runs in the same place. He’s lost plenty of home runs in the wind and high off that right-field wall, but he’s hit a bunch just over the 421 sign. Anyway, what I’m getting at is, somehow that park works for him, and all the naughty substances in the world can’t explain it. Neither can I.

Any reasonable fan can understand Bonds opting out of the home run derby—He’s 87 years old with 151-year-old knees, doesn’t want to get hurt of screw up his swing for the rest of the season, etc.—but lots of unreasonable fans have wet lots of pants over it: “What a horrid human being he must be!” Of course, if he had opted in, these same goofs would be ripping him for risking his health and the rest of the season. No way this guy ever wins.

As I’ve said in the past, if Barry Bonds were to save the life of a sportswriter by pushing him out of the way of an onrushing bus, the headlines would read, “Bonds Shoves Reporter.”

And, yes, I know: Why am I not putting this stuff in my blog?

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Shooter

We haven’t heard the how or the why yet: just the who, what, and where:

Rod Beck.

Died.

In his Arizona home.

Wow.

He was 38 and had young kids. What a horrible, appalling loss for his family. My thoughts go out to them, and to anybody to whom he was important.

For years, Beck has been the closer on my all-time favorite Giants team. How could one not like the guy? He was more like the fans than any other player I can think of. In interviews he always came across as a nice guy, honest and funny. In one interview I remember, he made the point that the players really don’t quite comprehend exactly how much money they make, saying that they think in terms of the number of years, and the number divided by a million, as in "12.6." He said that the actual numbers are just too big to fit into people’s heads.

In another interview he said that his name on his Fireman of the Year trophy was rendered as "Ron Beck."

Dusty Baker is the first person I ever heard call Beck “Shooter,” and I gathered that the nickname came from his way of staring down a hitter before, well, shooting him down. From the time he came up in 1991, he threw an awful lot, and by the time he left the Giants after 1997, he was pitching almost solely on guts. I’m not going to recount a lot of his on-field moments, but watching him get that double play out of Eddie Murray in the Brian Johnson game, after he had loaded the bases to begin the inning… well, when Johnson hit the homer, I felt just as good for Beck as I did for Johnson. There was no way not to root for him.

Beck is the closer on my all-time favorite Giants team and always will be.

The Unwatchables

The “blecchh”-style noise hasn’t been invented yet that can accurately and fully encapsulate the horror that is the 2007 San Francisco Giants. Remember way back when the Giants’ biggest worry was whether Barry Bonds would bat third or fourth? I sure miss those halcyon days, don’t you? Back then the Giants had a double-play combination that was solid on offense and defense; a starting rotation with only one question mark—who would be the fifth starter?—and a healthy, again-effective closer; a longtime superstar whose every at-bat was worth stopping whatever you were doing to watch; a speedy and effective new leadoff hitter; a modest power platoon at first base; some good young pitching; and several other reasons we should be optimistic that the Giants could easily finish as high as third place.

Compared to now, those were carefree days, weren’t they? (The same could be said about the 2005 season, when they merely stank.) But now… wow. The worse they get, the more you think it’s impossible for them to keep getting worse, and the more they do so anyway. Last night’s game saw the Giants down 6-0 after two innings to the inexplicably good Milwaukee Brewers, with Tim Lincecum on the mound. First, know that I wish no success on the Brewers: I resent the Selig-induced idiocy leading to them switching leagues, and they’re still Selig’s team, no matter what anyone says, and Selig makes my skin crawl. But it’s really only worth complaining about those things when the Giants are playing reasonably well and one must complain about something.

Last night’s game ended up at 6-2, but it still brought to mind a major league Dads vs. Kids game, where the major leaguers, laughing all the way, lose 43-0, gleefully doing everything they can to make it easy for their offspring to hit and run all day long. It’s fun for everybody—which is what distinguishes it from last night’s Giants-Brewers game.

The details of last night’s Giants-Brewers game? What’s the difference? “Putrid Giants loss” tells you all you need to know. You don’t want to hear about Lincecum’s wildness or his teammates bringing dead flounders to the plate instead of baseball bats.

It’s way easier to switch over to TV shows about fictional people being murdered than it is to stick with a Giants game these days.

This team is Omar Vizquel hitting weak fly balls; Pedro Feliz whapping grounders to third with nobody out and a runner on second; Randy Winn, off his hot streak, flailing miserably for strike three; Barry Bonds popping up. It’s hit-and-run singles—ground balls hit exactly where a Giants middle infielder would be if he weren’t busy covering second. It’s Kevin Correia or Steve Kline giving up a huge base hit on the first pitch he throws; Jack Taschner giving up a key hit to the lefthanded batter he was brought in to face; Rich Aurilia or Ray Durham batting third but not hitting; curveballs bouncing crazily off the edge of the plate, getting away from Bengie Molina; the false hope generated by Russ Ortiz; knowing that a Giants rally, no matter how big, won’t be enough and won’t be sustained; and knowing, on those rare occasions when the Giants have a lead going to the last inning, that whoever comes in to close it out is not going to get the job done. And somewhere out there is a general manager, smiling in grim satisfaction, saying “I told you so,” but for the wrong reasons.

The 2007 Giants are what EEEEEE!—the concept, the website, the “almost” blog, the noise itself—is all about.

Nobody Else Can Lose Like This

It actually feels sort of odd to report the facts of last night’s game, because anybody reading this will know about it (except maybe if they read it way in the future), but while I can call the Giants’ loss neither quintessential nor typical, it is, never the less, somehow so Giantsesque that I must detail it, or at least parts of it, here. Mostly I’m going to draw on details and one-liners from e-mails and posts I made in the newsgroup while it was all happening.

First of all, Tim Lincecum just didn’t have it. Lasted 4-1/3 and was lucky to have given up only three runs. The Giants loaded the bases a lot, and not once could they come through. Not once. One such culprit, in a key situation, was Bonds, who grounded out meekly to end one of the early innings—who cares which one?

Lincecum actually retired the first seven hitters of the game, whereupon we encounter my nomination for the “Dusty Gives the Ball to Russ” moment: Third inning, Feliz makes a great play on a bunt for a would-be base hit. Mike Krukow says, “That’s the kind of plays they make during no-hitters.” Next batter, Jason Kendall: Base hit up the middle, and the party begins.

Bottom of the ninth, one out, tie game: Dan Ortmeier—in the two-hole because Freddy Lewis left with an injury in the second (after hitting into a double play for the second game in a row—hits a triple. With Klesko and Bonds coming up, the A’s have but one option, really—and even that should ensure a loss (for the A’s, I mean): walking both Klesko and Bonds to set up the double play. This they do. Game over, right? Wrong. Durham pops up. Frandsen—in the sixth slot as a pinch-hitter due to a double-switch, itself undertaken because Molina got hurt at the end of the top of the fifth—does his best Eliezer Alfonzo impression and swings feebly at three sliders out of the strike zone, missing each by an average of two feet. And I thought it was as predictable as if it had been Alfonzo. Or Todd Linden.

Anyway, to expand a little, what the A’s did seems to me to be their only strategic choice on defense, at least if the two guys coming up are any good. You walk the first guy to set up the double play… but even that’s risky, if only because he’ll almost certainly steal second uncontested, so you walk the second guy to set up the force at any base. Obviously that’s risky, too, if only because, when forced to throw ball after ball, some pitchers can’t find the strike zone. The bottom line, here, is that I feel it’s the correct strategy in that situation, but it still shouldn’t work. Even against the Giants.

Top of the tenth: Naturally the new pitcher, Hennessey, is in Frandsen’s spot in the lineup. And because of the injuries, and the fact that both Mark Sweeney and Rich Aurilia were used as pinch-hitters for the pitcher in earlier innings, the Giants have no position players left on the bench. With one out, some A’s bozo—who cares who?—gets a hit, and there’s a major collision at home plate that results in out number two. And now it’s Alfonzo who’s toasted. Then comes a fairly long pain delay, during which Hennessey’s getting antsy and needs to warm up… only we have no third catcher.

So who’s our emergency catcher? I would’ve thought it was Frandsen, but he was just taken out of the game for Hennessey. Turns out it’s… Feliz. Who has caught a total of zero major league (and, I daresay, professional) innings. So he dons the tools of stupidity.

Now who’ll play third base? We’re hearing that Matt Morris is starting to stretch, but where would he play? We have no infielders left… no outfielders left… Klesko’s at first, and lefthanded, so it won’t be him, and we’re not gonna be moving Durham or Vizquel. This leaves Bonds, Winn, and Ortmeier. Of these, only Winn throws righthanded, so it’s Winn—who has played zero infield innings in his major league career. Ortmeier moves to center field, probably for the first time ever.

And now we need a right fielder—a new player, i.e., one not moving from another position. And we have no outfielders left. Nor infielders. Nor catchers. So who’ll our right fielder be? There’s starting pitcher—indeed, we’d already heard about Morris getting ready. And… we’ve used all our lefty relievers—you know, to relieve; we’ve used all our righty relievers except… Vinnie Chulk.

So it should go without saying that our new right fielder is… Noah Lowry.

At this point I hark back first to the Kent Tekulve game in 1979, when he caught a Darrell Evans fly ball in right field to end a game, and then to late September of 1986, the Fan Appreciation Day game against the Dodgers. The game goes 16 innings. The Giants—even with the expanded roster—are laid low with injury and illness. Several guys have to play positions they’d never played before, or since. Two pitchers have to play the outfield, alternating between left and right with Mike Aldrete, depending on who’s batting. Indeed, Mike Krukow pinch-hits for Robby Thompson, who can’t swing the bat, becoming the first pitcher I’d ever seen, or known of, pinch-hitting for a position player. Later, Randy Bockus pinch-hits for Jeff Robinson (now the “outfielder”), becoming the second (and most recent) pitcher I’d ever seen pinch-hitting for a position player. In the bottom of the sixteenth, Greg Minton singles, Bob Brenly doubles, ballgame over.

Is that what would happen on this occasion? Let’s read on, shall we?

First, no, Lowry and Bonds do not flip-flop depending on who’s batting. (Bonds has, incidentally, played in one major league game in right field in his career, 20 years ago—which I know thanks to James Farrar in the group). Either way, we had four guys making their major league debuts in certain positions.

Second, with Feliz behind the plate, Mark Kotsay, the runner on first, starts to try and steal, then stops for some reason. The reason becomes apparent on the next pitch, when the A’s attempt a hit-and-run. Needless to say, the batter hits the ball exactly where Durham should have been had the latter not been covering second. Right before that pitch I was thinking, “He has to get the out, and the Giants have to score in the tenth, because no way can they keep putting that defense out on the field.” But that becomes academic, since eventually the A’s come up with a two-run single, an absolute punch in the stomach—a stomach that was already on the edge of nausea. Nobody, thankfully, hits the ball to Lowry. The half-inning ends on a foul ball caught near the dugout by third baseman Winn.

It is now the bottom of the tenth. The Giants—I hate not to emphasize this—are entirely, completely out of position players. They’re now down by two runs. Catcher Feliz flies out. Vizquel gets out in some weenie way. This brings up the dreaded “man due to bat third in the inning”—not Hennessey, right fielder Lowry.

It should go without saying that not only does Lowry refuse to just go down swinging in a three-pitch at-bat. It has to be a seven-pitch at-bat, replete with the kind of foul balls that suggest that he’s zeroing in. And do you know who the A’s pitcher is who’s in the process of (a) being zeroed in on, and (b) instead, striking out Lowry, for (c) the save? Why, Alan Embree, of course.

This was, in every way, a game that only the Giants could have played, and that only the Giants could have lost. And yet it’s exactly the kind of game that should pull them together as a unit and make them go “Grrrr!” a lot and reel off, like, 14 straight victories. But no, a bunch of guys will hit the DL later today, there’ll be new faces, and the team will have no identity whatsoever.

But if I had to look for a silver lining, it would be the fact that hey, at least the Giants found a creative way to lose.

Humm Baby! It's Gonna Be Fun, Right?

by Cudgy Preep

Cudgy Preep is the new pseudonym for Bat Fastard, who discovered during a Google search that there are about 4,000 links for “Bat Fastard,” none of them relevant to him, EEEEEE!, or Almost EEEEEE! Searches on “Cudgy Preep,” however, turn up empty, which makes Cudgy—i.e., Bat—feel a lot better, albeit still generally grumpy.

Look at this team. Do you like it? I mean, if you weren’t a Giants fan, or if they were some other team nobody gives a shit about, like the Devil Rays or Cardinals or somebody (or a team nobody should give a shit about, like the Dodgers), what would you think? Would you see a team with an established superstar, a solid supporting cast, and some up-and-comers? Would you see a team with one Barry Bonds and 24 Mike Benjamins, to steal one of Gregg’s favorite blithery analogies? Would you see a team with a few seriously old farts, several past-their-primers, and no-name youngsters? What? What, I’m asking you?

Know what I see? A fairly boring team with little to no identity, especially now that Bonds isn’t being awesome. Even so, though, it’s not as boring a team as it has been the last few years. I swear. In fact, I see some entertainment value:

• Omar Vizquel’s defense: These days he’s Johnnie LeMaster at the plate; when he becomes Hal Lanier, that glove ain’t gonna carry that bat no more. But until then, it’s fun to watch ground balls hit toward Vizquel Country, if for the footwork alone. Vizquel, kids, is one of those “Practice Makes Perfect” examples that should inspire us all to practice a lot, but doesn’t. The guy’s an acrobat with an amazing sense of timing, where the runners are, who he’s throwing to, etc. That 4-6-5 double play, last year, was genius. And those double plays he turns where he does these balletic little leaps: poetry. Or ballet. Your pick. Also he’s been barehanding ground balls a lot lately and throwing to first, or second, in a fluid motion, like he’s been doing it all his life (which he has). He does make it fun—although sometimes I wonder if he’s not doing it mostly to amuse himself, given that the overall team is so dull.
  
  
• You gotta like these kids: I’m talking about Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, though more the latter these days than the former. Cain looked great on the mound early on: poised, confident, knowing he was gonna get you out. I think he started the season giving up 12 hits in 31 innings, something like that. Since then he’s not the same guy, which makes me wonder if he’d thrown too damn many pitches in April or something. But if he gets back into a groove, watch out: It’s a ball watching other teams’ hitters get out, again and again. I’m one of those guys who utterly aches for a San Francisco Giants no-hitter—a species not seen in 30 years—and I swear to you, Cain seemed to be going for one every time out.
  
  Lincecum… less so, but he’s fun even when he’s not going good. He sort of needs to get over the belief that nobody’s ever gonna hit his fastball, though, and he needs to stop throwing it groin-high, down the middle, because every time you turn around, he’s given up another home run. That’s fairly off-pissing. What isn’t, though, is watching opposing hitters trudge away from the box after striking out yet again, tossing an embittered look toward the mound, then continuing toward the dugout, shaking their heads. We never have pitchers like that.
  
  
• Freddy Lewis: Way entertaining. Not necessarily good, though. He might be Deion Sanders Lite. Deion had loads of talent and athletic ability, but he never seemed to channel it properly or something. I really liked watching him with the Giants in 1995, even though, despite his age and years of experience, he seemed so green. I feel the same way about Lewis, only I don’t think he’s nearly as talented, which means he probably won’t stick for long, especially since he’s about 26 and, thus, fairly set in his ways. But if there’s been a faster Giant in the last 30 years, I can’t think of who it could be. It’s a kick in the ass to watch this guy run the bases.
  
  
• Bonds: Loathe him, hate him, you can’t ignore him. I love how the tone of the crowd changes when he steps up, even in a nothing situation. I love how sometimes a guy just can’t throw him a strike—I mean “can’t,” not “won’t.” (The “won’t” situations are pretty boring.) I love his swing—even his little bat-waves at the plate are on the same plane as the swing, and when he’s going good, he has that way of bringing the ball right into that plane and murdering it.

Beyond that… what is there to keep our interest? Noah Lowry’s change-up? Not anymore. There was a time when I thought it might have been the best change I’d ever seen, but now it’s ordinary, like all his pitches. Ryan Klesko’s balls-out style? Who the hell wants to see his balls? Especially the balls that he hits into crucial double plays with, or the ones he lets zoom past him to the outfield wall, on those (thankfully) rare occasions when he’s in the outfield. (As I write this, for instance, he’s our right fielder, if you can imagine. I still can’t, and I’ve seen it. Somehow I would’ve excused it more easily from Winn or Ortmeier or even Bonds, but Klesko’s badly timed, ill-advised dive on a sinking liner led to a two-run triple that turned a one-run lead for us into a one-run lead for them. Something not real charming about that. Still not as bad as trying to go to third when there’s already a teammate there, then standing around till he gets tagged out.)

I dunno, these guys are just plain pissing me off. Man on third, nobody out? Other teams score the guy. The Giants don’t. Nor do they hold the guy at third on defense. That guy scores. Gregg bitches about Pedro Feliz not making productive outs, but tonight it’s former All-Star Rich Aurilia hitting a two-hopper to short, with the infield in and Lewis on third—on the first pitch. How adorable is that?

How adorable is it when a guy like Kevin Frandsen, sent in to pinch-bunt, can’t get the job done? Not too. That’s my assessment. Diamondbacks fans love that sort of thing, but fuck ’em. Give ’em a dollar. (One thousand Almost EEEEEE! points for whoever fills in the rest of the punchline.)

Know what else pickles my innards? Watching strikes called on Bonds—strikes that obviously are not strikes. Especially strike threes that obviously are not strikes. What is this, the umpires’ way of showing disdain for alleged performance-enhancing substances?

Sorry if this sounds like a bitch-fest, but that’s what it is, and I’m not sorry. I’m just tired of watching them fail to execute, fail to come through.

But to end this on a happy note: Hey, no Armando!

Roughly a Third of the Way—Whee…

The Giants right now are 27-30, so I missed the one-third cutoff by three games. That’s your fault, so let’s just stop dwelling on it, shall we?

Frankly, 27-30 is better than I thought they were going to be, though at the beginning of the year I really had no idea how bad the offense would be. I didn’t expect the starting pitching to be quite as good as it is, either—not that we’re talking about the 1971 Orioles or anything. But this team certainly is almost exactly as frustrating as I expected. But then, that’s just part of their charm—the majority, to be sure, but still just part.

So let’s go position by position in a qualitative “analysis” of what we’ve seen so far—“qualitative” because, for the most part, I don’t want to look up numbers:

• First base—Rich Aurilia, Ryan Klesko, Mark Sweeney, Lance Niekro, maybe even Pedro Feliz (I forget): Mostly first base has been an awfully dark hole, even compared to J.T. Snow at his most average. Aurilia seems to be pretty decent on defense, but he’s not a first baseman. He’s still sort of a shortstop, but I have the feeling third base is a better slot for him. He started out hitting reasonably well, too, but except for the odd three- or four-hit game (such as last night’s), he’s been in a massive funk, the likes of which would gag Courtney Love’s inner circle, perhaps even Ms. Love herself. Now, if he batted sixth or seventh most of the time, probably it wouldn’t faze me as much as it does with him usually batting third. And it’s not just batting average, which is putrid enough: he doesn’t walk, and he’s not hitting for power. I really like the guy, but Aurilia 2007 and Aurilia 2001 are two entirely different animals. The guy probably should be a four-position backup who starts three or four times a week—or whatever his role was in Cincinnati last year. At most, he should be the more-or-less regular third baseman.
  
  Klesko, meanwhile, has kind of been this year’s Todd Greene: a power-hitting dude without home runs. Granted, it took Klesko less time to hit his first of the year than it took Greene last year, and Klesko even waited less than a month to hit his second. Indeed, I’m filled—to about the quarter-full line—with the hope that Klesko ‘s gonna move into the power-hitting mode he needs to be in. I mean, it’d be nice to have a legitimate power threat in the lineup other than Bonds. Then again, it’d also be nice to have a legitimate not-hit-into-a-key-double-play threat, too. The guy can hit, though.
  
  His presence makes me wonder how bad the Giants need Sweeney. That is, I wondered that more often early in the season, when the Giants still had Niekro. (And let’s not talk about how often I wondered how bad they needed Niekro.) But if Klesko begins to pick up most of the starts, Sweeney’s presence will make more sense—assuming he starts hitting. He’d been something like 4-for-8 as a pinch-hitter—wonderful stuff—but 1-for-18 as a starter, or numbers to that effect. And I suppose I should think of him more as an outfielder than a first baseman, but I’m not sure either appellation applies. He’s not Kleskoesque in the outfield—luckily, almost no one is—but let’s just say he’s not on this team for his glove, which makes the lack of offense all the more frustrating, even given that he hardly ever plays. The dude’s historically a very good pinch-hitter, though, which provides enough juice to want to keep him, and yet I wonder if he really provides anything on the field, at this stage in his career, that Dan Ortmeier doesn’t.
  
  Niekro is back in Frenso, possibly for good, having been outrighted last month. He’s the kind of guy who’s easy to pull for, but clearly he just can’t hit big-league pitching well enough to keep a job for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back with the Giants, but I don’t know why it should happen unless he spends about two months hitting .750 with power.
  
  Overall, Aurilia and Klesko would be an adequate platoon combination, you’d think. Or maybe you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I think their respective proportions of games started needs to lean toward Klesko, and I imagine it doesn’t because of the fear of other teams’ late-inning lefty relievers. Also, does anybody else mentally address Klesko as “Klezzy” or “Klezbo”? I sure hope not.
  
  
• Second base—Ray Durham, Kevin Frandsen, Rich Aurilia: I guess Durham has pretty much been Durham: hot, then not, then hot, then not, with some nagging-injury-related bench time sprinkled in here and there. Though he’s capable of the occasional glaring misplay, he’s looked pretty solid afield, especially if you don’t count the two errors he made the other day (and I don’t, because I didn’t see them, so they didn’t happen). I’d probably be fairly pleased with the guy if he hadn’t started out the year as the cleanup hitter before spending the rest of his time in the five-hole. I’m not sure where he should bat, though. He’s not a leadoff hitter anymore; maybe second or sixth would be best.
  
  Frandsen surprises me with his hitting every so often, which is bad because he doesn’t do it often enough not to surprise me. Sometimes I get him confused with Brian Dallimore, which is unfair because Dallimore almost always looked overmatched. Maybe it’s the way Frandsen sometimes looks overmatched, plus the occasional bonehead maneuver—more prevalent last year than now, admittedly. This time around he’s played second, short, third, and left, which is okay with me because current-day 12-man pitching staffs (and God knows the Giants can easily go to 13 every so often) make it necessary for bench players (and even some regulars) to be versatile. You know who I liked in Frandsen-ish roles? Guys like Greg Litton and Steve Scarsone. Sure, if you look those guys up, you’ll note that either of them could’ve broken loads of strikeout records if given the chance, and you’ll also note that neither of them was exactly Brooks Robinson out there, but they were fun. Especially Litton, with his cannon of an arm. Scarsone was more like Litton Lite. I’m hoping Frandsen won’t wind up being Scarsone Lite, or the Giants fans’ whipping-boy.
  
  
• Shortstop—Omar Vizquel, Rich Aurilia, Kevin Frandsen: I really don’t care what the numbers say, because they show Vizquel to be a pretty average shortstop. I just don’t believe that. He gets to balls nobody else can, and he improvises like nobody else can. He’s simply too good out there. The appellation “The Out-Maker” isn’t entirely ironic. Would that he could still hit, though. It’s taken a long time, but the Giants have finally started batting him eighth. I’m sure he hates it, but it seems to be a better spot for him than second or, heaven help us, leadoff. The guy’s 40, an age at which most ballplayers, even good ones, are spending more time at home with their kids. Vizquel’s got probably another year or two after this, but not as a Giant—not if he keeps hitting like this. But he sure is fun to watch in the field. He’s the anti-Batiste: I expect him to make a successful play on every ball hit near him.
  
  
• Third base—Pedro Feliz, Rich Aurilia, Kevin Frandsen: Feliz just isn’t very good. Indeed, if you said that to Giants fan/baseball writer/blogger Steven Rubio, he’d provide plenty of evidence that Feliz is not only not very good, he’s the worst regular third baseman in the world, rating at or near the bottom of every important offensive category. Dave Flemming is the only Giants broadcaster I’ve heard speak my thoughts on the matter, namely that Feliz just doesn’t seem to have a plan when he goes to the plate. (Flemming, however, recently modified that view to “Whatever plan Feliz has, he doesn’t stick with it during an at-bat.) Maybe it had never struck me before, but until Feliz came along, I’d never seen anybody make so many outs with so few of them being productive. Get that runner to third with a ground ball? Forget it—time to smack a two-hopper to the third baseman. Get the guy home with a fly ball? Sorry—gotta whiff. It’s hard to take, over and over and over and over, and while Feliz seems like a nice enough guy and all, I would be thrilled to see him dealt, assuming we don’t send along, say, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain in the process. If the Giants can somehow jettison Feliz (and somehow wind up with a good bat), I’d be okay with Aurilia playing third most of the time. (Then again, even if they keep Feliz, I’m not sure I’d mind seeing Aurilia playing third most of the time.)
  
  
• Left field—Barry Bonds, Dan Ortmeier, Todd Linden, Mark Sweeney, Pedro Feliz, Ryan Klesko (hee!), Fred Lewis: Supposedly it’s Bonds’ left knee, the one that didn’t endure three rapid-fire surgeries, that’s giving him trouble now. And today I heard something about shinsplints and swollen ankles. Whatever hurts, it hurts a lot, because Bonds isn’t Bonds right now. He had an astounding April and a puzzling May, and his June, thus far, is nothing to write home about. He’s got 12 dingers at this writing and is nine behind Aaron, and he’s generating a lot more hate messages than offense right now. He’d been hitting home runs like a house afire (see
  http://www.houseafire.com/stats/hr.html for specifics), and now he’s hitting them like Sweeney. Good thing he’s still drawing walks. Oh, he’ll have the occasional two-for-three game with a line-drive single and a double to the base of the center-field wall, but mostly he’s popping up and hitting ground balls into the shift. And striking out. Does that mean the league has figured him out? I don’t know. He sure doesn’t look right, though.
  
  Ortmeier has hardly been a revelation, but he’s gotten some timely hits, including his first two major league home runs. He’s a switch-hitter who throws lefthanded—not often you see that—and he seems to play a decent outfield with a decent arm and decent speed. I’d like to believe he’s a significant upgrade over Linden. How can he not be?
  
  At bat, Linden looked like he didn’t even know what planet he was on. Talk about not having any evident plan at the plate. He seemed to have it backward, routinely taking strikes, swinging at balls, and, well, reeking. Once it reached the point where he even looked stupid on defense, finally the Giants made a decision and cut him loose. I think they thought he’d clear waivers, like Niekro—and so did I—but for some reason the Marlins, either desperately needing a body or believing they could reclaim him, picked him up, perhaps to serve as the welcoming committee for Armando Benitez. Whatever progress Linden may have made last year, he lost that and more this year. Maybe he’ll be a decent player some day—just not with the Giants. But don’t worry, Giants fans: he’ll haunt the hell out of us, probably by OPSing 3.000 against the Giants and dropping the fly ball that put the Dodgers into the postseason.
  
  
• Center field—Dave Roberts, Randy Winn, Todd Linden, Fred Lewis: I don’t know if the team’s really feeling Roberts’ absence. He sure didn’t hit at all—except for a booming home run the day before he went on the DL—and he didn’t reach base often enough for steals to really be a factor. He seemed to do just fine in center field, and I like the kind of player he’s supposed to be: pesky, base-reachy, disruptive-speedy. It feels as though he’s been out since about April 10—or maybe he just hasn’t done enough to remember all that well. I sure hope he heals up and does whatever the Giants hope he’ll do. As a Giant, I mean.
  
  In Roberts’ absence, Winn has been manning the post. I guess the Giants really don’t like him much as a center fielder, and indeed he gets mixed reviews. I’ve never had a problem with him out there, and I thought his fairly rotten 2006 season might have had something to do with him never knowing where he was going to play from inning to inning. I’m not sure he’s really a right fielder, though—he’s probably best suited for left field, but that’s where Bonds hangs out. Winn had a brutal start to the year and has picked up tremendously, helped in no small part by a 20-game hitting streak. I’d like to believe he’ll keep hitting. I mean, while he’s not the same guy the Giants picked up for the last couple months of 2005, I do think he’s capable of putting up pretty good numbers, and when he’s hot, nobody’s hotter, even Bonds.
  
  
• Right field—Randy Winn, Fred Lewis, Todd Linden, Dan Ortmeier: I’m not really sure what’s going on with Lewis and Ortmeier. Lewis seemed to be the guy they brought up to replace Linden, and Ortmeier appeared to come up mostly because Roberts hit the DL, but they’re both getting a fair amount of playing time, especially Lewis, who’s exceptionally fleet afoot. I think he might be a worse outfielder than Linden, however, and that’s problematic. He also has a long, looping swing that concerns me—I don’t see how he can hit a fastball. But he’s managed a couple of off-field home runs and some slashy hits. He’s even been stealing bases—something he’s supposedly not all that good at. In fact, I think his first two steals involved third base. He seems to be an exciting player, but he might be hitting too high in the order. Even so, he seems to have an idea at the plate. Still, he’s 26—older than Linden—and unlikely to improve a lot. I’d love it if he did, though. Shortening that swing might be a good start.
  
  
• Catcher—Bengie Molina, Eliezer Alfonzo: They’ve hyped Molina’s superhuman lack of footspeed. They’ve hyped his hitting with two outs and runners in scoring position. So far he’s lived up to the hype. Not to focus on the negative, but indeed this dude might not be able to win a footrace against Smoky Burgess at his fattest. Indeed, even J.T. Snow—dubbed “D.P. Slow” by some in the Giants newsgroup—could lap this guy. You’re not even sure Molina will score from second on a double—maybe not even from third. He looks like he’s jogging, but maybe that’s his top output. It’s really something. Meanwhile, they say he handles the staff very well, and he does seem to fight for his pitchers. He’s let more pitches get by him than one might like to see, however. Still, as skeptical as I was when the Giants signed him, I’m more or less a believer now.
  
  Alfonzo hasn’t shown the absurd inability to catch pitched baseballs that we all got to know and loathe last year. He’s thrown a few balls into center field, though—in attempts to catch base stealers, I mean; not just as random acts. At the plate… well, what he does is, he gets big hits in two, three games in a row, then drives me bats by utterly, utterly failing to produce for weeks thereafter. He’s got that sort of Felizesque strike-zone judgment, and you know what happens a lot? When he swings and misses at strike one, you know his at-bat will only last two more pitches, both to be swung on and missed. So I usually cringe a lot when I see him come up as a pinch-hitter. Especially in the middle innings, given that the Giants have only two catchers. I mean, what’s up with that?
  
  
• Starting pitchers—Barry Zito, Matt Cain, Matt Morris, Noah Lowry, Tim Lincecum, Russ Ortiz: This is the closest the Giants have come to having an actual strength, and it’s got to be their best rotation, one through five, in years. Zito’s having trouble reeling off more than one or two good starts in a row, which I suppose is what most people have expected of him. We all know he signed a ludicrously fat contract, and his signing has been hailed by Baseball Prospectus, among other folks, as the worst, dumbest free-agent signing of all time, including other sports and even non-sports. I don’t see it that way. The Giants knew they were going to lose Schmidt, and they felt they needed an ace, or reasonable facsimile thereof. They know they overpaid for Zito: Brian Sabean has said as much—It’s as though he was trying to say that the market required overpayment. All that said, though, I don’t care how much they’re paying Zito. All that matters is that he perform. I think he’s doing reasonably well, considering that he’s going up against number-one starters a whole lot. His control is not what I’d like it to be, though, and it’s hard to feel very confident when your team’s starting pitcher rarely breaks 85 on the gun. In three years he has a good chance of becoming Kirk Rueter—but will it be the 2002 model or the 2005 model? There’s a big difference. On the other hand, before becoming Kirk Rueter himself, Rueter never won a Cy Young. I don’t think Zito’s Cy was any fluke—he just hasn’t been nearly as good since. Either way, I have no reason to think he won’t end up being a solid Giant. Granted, for the money they’re paying, fans tend to want him to be a spectacular Giant, but, again, I don’t care about the money.
  
  Cain started off looking like a Cy Young candidate, but lately he looks more like Sean Young. True, Sean, even now, is still a visual treat, but I’d be very surprised if she gave up less than a hit per inning. Cain, early on, was giving up roughly a hit every three innings, but from the day the Phillies roughed him up for the first time all season, he hasn’t been the same guy. His control is terrible—how the Diamondbacks scored only three runs off him last night is beyond me, since he seemed determined to just get it over with and shatter the season record now for walks allowed. I also don’t understand how he doesn’t strike more hitters out. He sure gets a lot of two-strike counts, but unlike his immediate elder, Lincecum, he doesn’t finish off the hitters nearly enough, especially for a guy who seems to be trying to strike out everyone. He throws an awful lot of pitches, and maybe this has contributed to his fastball dropping from about 96 to about 92 lately.
  
  Morris has had some terrific starts, which comes as a surprise to me. He’s way up there among the ERA leaders, which leads me, as a Giants fan, to wait for the other shoe to drop. If you told me last year that he would be the team’s ERA leader on June 6, 2007, I might well have wept, picturing a team ERA well in excess of a million. Had you told me, however, that his ERA would be 2.66 after his last start, I might well have plotzed. It’s as though… it’s as though… I don’t know if I can say it… it’s as though he’s… the team’s… ace. Indeed, if no Giant is elected as an All-Star starter—and maybe Bonds will be, maybe he won’t—Morris should receive plenty of thought as a managerial selection, as should Molina.
  
  Lowry’s had some hard-luck losses, but then again, this team doesn’t hit. You shouldn’t be a 5-5 starter with a 3.28 ERA, should you? (Nor should you be a 2-5 starter with a 3.54 ERA, if you’re Matt Cain.) It bugs me that while he doesn’t walk that many, he doesn’t strike anybody out, either. If we wanted that, wouldn’t we bring back Rueter?
  
  The guy on the staff getting the most press these days is Lincecum, and with good reason, even though his ERA is half a run higher than any of his rotation mates. He strikes out about a batter per inning, doesn’t walk many, doesn’t give up a lot of hits… indeed, he surrenders just over a baserunner an inning—so why’s his ERA over four? Probably because he gives up home runs at an alarming rate. If everything else pretty much remains status quo and if he, I dunno, keeps the ball down more or something, nobody’s gonna touch him. Of course, I’m afraid of saying stuff like that because of the dangers of Earnest Praising, so maybe I should stop now.
  
  Lincecum came up when Ortiz went on the DL, and it was pretty obvious that the former would not only have to stay but would also require a place in the rotation. It would be fair to consider Ortiz the odd man out, and indeed he is, at least as a starter. He was a great story in the spring, a reclamation project coming back after an absurdly bad 2006 season. Indeed, his first few starts weren’t bad—even when he was busy giving up five runs against the Dodgers, he still struck out seven and nearly completed the game. However, he gave up more than one hit per inning in all his starts, and that’s trouble, despite the fact that he didn’t walk many. So now he’s had four relief appearances and hasn’t been scored upon yet. However, he faced two Phillies the other day, retired them both, then left with a forearm injury, so who knows?
  
  
• Closer—Armando Benitez, Brad Hennessey: There are yak herders in Buna-Tufi, New Guinea (assuming they have yaks there) who know how I feel about Benitez and how delighted I am that he’s gone gone gone. The guy left here with a reputation for being a choke artist and a whiner, and he did nothing to dispel either notion.
  
  On Grant Brisbee’s McCovey Chronicles blog I said, “Don’t sweat the Benitez deal. We already know he’ll haunt us as often as possible, though because the Giants will only play the Marlins roughly six times a year (until the Marlins decide they can’t stand him anymore either, and he goes to the Dodgers), he won’t haunt us as a Marlin nearly as often as he haunted us as a Giant. If we accept it rather than dread it, we’ll be marginally less miserable. And since we’re Giants fans, what more can we hope for?” (Well, one thing we could hope for is… reports are that not only is Eric Gagne pitching very well for the Rangers, he’s also on the block because the Rangers suck. I shudder to think who we’d have to cough up in exchange, though.) (Note to Sabes: Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, not around my eyes, look into my eyes and… you’re under. Feliz Feliz Feliz Feliz Chulk. And… you’re back in the room.)
  
  Hennessey seems to be the closer pro tem. He could give up fewer hits without making me upset, but mostly he’s looked pretty good, and he’s striking out more guys lately. Is he “closer material”? Well, let’s forget everything I’ve ever said about “closer mentality” and “do we really need set roles?” and all that stuff, and pretend that every team definitely needs a guy they can turn to to slam the door in the ninth. Is Hennessey that guy? How the hell should I know? What, you people think I’m an expert now? How fair is that? You never did before! Either way, he’s the best candidate on the big-league roster (and was, even before the Benitez deal). I don’t detect the Atlee Look on his face—a look that was tattooed (painfully, no doubt) onto the countenance of Benitez and, before him, would-be closers such as Matt Herges (though not necessarily Tyler Walker). I’m willing—as if I have a choice in the matter—to wait Hennessey out.
  
  
• Other righty relievers—Kevin Correia, Vinnie Chulk, Scott Munter, Randy Messenger: Well, Munter only pitched an inning before getting sent back down, so he doesn’t count. Correia, though, is our latest walkoff loser, having surrendered a predictable game-ending home run last night. He strikes out lots of hitters, doesn’t walk that many, doesn’t even give up all that many hits—so why don’t I trust him? Maybe it’s the timing. Maybe it’s the home run, along with two others. Whatever it is, I don’t think he’s a closer in the making.
  
  Nor is Chulk, whose ERA—I still can’t believe this, because I would’ve guessed twice as high—is 3.24. He doesn’t walk anybody, doesn’t give up that many hits—so why does he stink? He’s pitched well since I seriously (and very Earnestly) ragged on him here a few weeks ago, but I can’t remember a lot of key appearances for him. In other words, maybe mopup relief is where he needs to stay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
  
  Messenger, meanwhile, is the guy we got for Benitez. He put up a 2.66 ERA for the Marlins, though he allowed a lot of baserunners. So far he’s walked two opponents in 2-1/3 innings as a Giant, and it’s hard to tell much from that. (Benitez, incidentally, has given up a run in four innings as a Marlin. Jerk.)
  
  
• Lefty relievers—Jack Taschner, Steve Kline, Jonathan Sanchez: All these guys have been really, really bad. With Taschner that’s more of a recent development: he got seriously roughed up in Philadelphia. And I don’t know whether to think of him as “consistent” or not. After he coughed up a home run to the lefthanded batter he was brought in to face in his first appearance this year, he had eight straight scoreless appearances, got blasted by the Diamondbacks, had five more scoreless appearances, then three scoreful appearances, then two scoreless, two scoreful, and last night’s two-batter, two-strikeout performance. Without his two games in Philly and his horrific time against Arizona, his ERA is 2.40. Unfortunately, you have to count all of his numbers, so it’s 5.74.
  
  Kline is… well, he might be through. Then again, his last two appearances were very good. Indeed, he’s only had a couple bad performances: early against the Padres, last month against the A’s. That one was world-beatingly bad, though—four runs, zero innings pitched—and without that one his ERA would only be 3.38, and I wouldn’t be complaining. But it’s 6.08, and I am. So maybe he’s not through, but he sure gives up a hell of a lot of baserunners and never strikes anybody out. True, he’s only pitched 13-1/3 innings all year, but how important is it to keep him over Sanchez, no matter how great a “teammate” he supposedly is?
  
  Then again, Sanchez was pretty awful before his demotion. He strikes out an awful lot of people—one and a half per inning this year—but he also walks nearly one and gives up one hit per inning, and he seems a tad susceptible to the home run ball. Why? Maybe he’s got lots of speed but not a lot of movement. Maybe he only throws one speed. I don’t know. Still, I hope to see him back soon. I like guys who rack up a buttload of strikeouts. I think he can be fixed.
  

I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about this team. Sometimes I think that at 27-30 they’re playing over their heads. Sometimes I think they could be so much better. Mostly they drive me nuts.

How good are they really? If I had to sum it up in one word, I think it’d have to be: Meh. Assuming “meh” ever really becomes a word.

Looky There: It Is Over

Unless it turns out to be even more of a disaster than Tuesday’s game, I’ve decided to take sole credit for last night’s trade of Armando Benitez, assuming that the decision was based on my previous blog entry. In his blog, Steven Rubio calls attention to Brian Sabean leaving “no doubt he was unhappy that he was forced by public opinion to consummate a trade that leaves the Giants with no experienced closer.” Sabean said, “Apparently the fans, the press and some people in the clubhouse felt he needed to go.”

Steven says, “Brian Sabean’s job is to make the Giants as good a team as he can. His job is not to act on the basis of public opinion… I may think that he'd be better off listening to me, I have in fact been quoted in public about my negative opinions of Sabean, but the idea is that Sabean use his noggin to reconsider his methods, not that he whines like a baby and says ‘ok, HAVE it your way!’”

Sabean has an interesting approach to laying blame, namely one of not looking in a mirror. That’s “interesting,” not “unique.” I mean, how many GMs do cop to making dingleberry moves? (And how many should?) Usually they don’t blame the fans, though. Or teammates of the problem children at hand. And the press… well, everybody blames them, but I don’t have a problem with that.

Still, I understand Sabean’s desire not to badmouth his departing bozo player, and that’s sort of noble, while at the same time sort of covering his butt. Also, I think that if it’s fair to say “Who knew?” about the results of Sabes’ acquisition of Jeff Kent eons ago (and it is), It’s just as fair to say the same thing about the signing of Benitez. I mean, as a Giant, the guy’s ERA was 4.10—bringing his lifetime ERA up to 2.99. The guy saved 35 in three years—as opposed to 47 in 2003 alone—and blew 15, astounding numbers that really weren’t indicated by past performance. Now, sure, he’s had some big-game meltdowns in the past, but hey, he was tied for 23rd in MVP voting in 2003, right? I mean, there were *signs* that as a Giant he might not be the pitcher he was in 2003, but still: who knew? I don’t really fault Sabean for signing the guy in the first place (actual dollar figures aside), because it was reasonable to believe that he’d have chalked up three times as many saves in these three years, and that his ERA would be, say, three-quarters of a run lower, at least.

“Armando Benitez is a better pitcher than the boo birds seem to realize,” Steven says, “but he plies his trade as a closer, the most overrated position on the roster (not the most worthless, but the most overrated, meaning the position where the player is likely to be overpaid relative to his contributions, meaning the position where an astute GM can make a difference, meaning a position where a more traditional GM will overpay). Benitez was signed for $21.5 million. He has now been traded when his trade value is [very] low, with the Giants having to pay $4.7 of the remaining $5 million on his contract. Looking for a whipping boy? Who signed Benitez to that contract?”

Sabean is no more immune than most other GMs to the Seductive Qualities of Closer Numbers (SQCN). As I’ve pointed out a number of times in EEEEEE! over the years, “saves” is a gaudy statistic that is too heavily emphasized. How so? Well, when do closers enter a game? Nine times out of ten, it’s when it’s a save situation. What’s a save situation? Here’s what Rule 10.19 in the baseball rulebook says:

The official scorer shall credit a pitcher with a save when such pitcher meets all four of the following conditions: (a) He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his team; (b) He is not the winning pitcher; (c) He is credited with at least a third of an inning pitched; and (d) He satisfies one of the following conditions: (1) He enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches for at least one inning; (2) He enters the game, regardless of the count, with the potential tying run either on base, or at bat or on deck (that is, the potential tying run is either already on base or is one of the first two batters he faces); or (3) He pitches for at least three innings.

Closers usually enter the game before an inning starts, when they’d have to get three outs with at least a one-run lead. Even when they enter during an inning, a save is still possible even with a five-run lead (i.e., with the bases loaded and the tying run on deck). In other words, success is pretty much built in. Even though the rule is defined better than the one for individual pitching victories, it’s a lot easier to get a save than a win. In fact, it might be fair to say that it’s as easy to get a save as it is for a starting pitcher to get a win when his team scores, say, four runs in the top of the first.

Also, because closers usually have to pitch just one inning in any given appearance, their ERAs, as a breed, are lower than those of other pitchers. So while an ERA below 4.00 is good for a starter (and lots of relievers) these days, it’s horrendous for a closer. In fact, anything over 3.00 is pretty unsatisfactory. Thus, often, when a GM sees a free-agent closer available, he sees those 40 saves, that 2.80 ERA, and licks his chops. Perhaps he doesn’t see those 10 blown saves—which doesn’t sound like much, I suppose, but it is—and those 12 decisions, many of which are the product of blown saves.

Not only that, but some closers—Robb Nen comes to mind—will come right out and say that they just don’t concentrate, at least not as well, when it’s not a save situation. Why? Because it’s the saves that get them the big money, not the scoreless innings with nothing on the line. Indeed, some of these guys aren’t nearly as intense when their team’s lead exceeds one run. This, I suppose, is what passes for mental toughness.

The “closer mentality”—that is, the tendency among major league managers and general managers to overvalue the role of the closer—has been discussed many times over the years in the Giants newsgroup. Mostly we bemoan the fact that the flashiness of the save statistic and the normal closer-type ERA causes teams to heavily emphasize the closer role itself, if not the pitcher in it. These factors also determine how well closers get paid, which in turn places even more emphasis on the role itself.

Instead of sticking someone in the closer pigeonhole and sticking with it all year, if a manager were to let other factors dictate which pitcher closes on a given day—factors such as game situation, who’s been pitching well, who’s rested, etc.—know what would happen? Anarchy. Why? Because ballplayers like having specific roles. Apparently. The other night, with the Giants ahead 3-0 in the ninth—the night after Benitez’s final implosion as a Giant—you know who closed? Brad Hennessey. Why? Purportedly because Benitez’s knee flared up during the previous night’s fiasco; not because Hennessey was the right man for the job at the time.

But what if Bruce Bochy had said before the game that in closing situations, he planned to use the pitcher he thought had the best chance of doing the job well, rather than using a designated closer? Well, maybe Hennessey gets his save that night, but then maybe we see Steve Kline or Kevin Correia or even Vinnie Chulk (or Benitez) in save situations over the next several days. And you know what we’d read in the papers? Grousing from unnamed relievers about how nobody knows what his role is. It’d just be too confusing. Pants would be wet. Skies would fall. Hence guys like Benitez keeping their jobs for years, and doing them poorly. Hence guys like Matt Herges and Tyler Walker, once ensconced in the closer role, racking enough saves to keep the closer role without necessarily pitching well.

As you know, if you read my previous entry, I completely lost patience with Benitez, right around the time Sabean did. Indeed, on KNBR yesterday, he said, in so many words, that we should expect to see the problem addressed within 24 to 48 hours—which I’m sure most people interpreted as “There’s a trade coming.” And indeed there was. The new guy is reliever Randy Messenger, a big dude with a sparkling ERA—which in this case is to say he’s been awfully lucky, given that he’s allowed something like 36 baserunners and only seven have scored.

Messenger’s probably not going to be the closer, so who is? My joke, and I hope it is a joke, is that it’ll be Hennessey until he goes cold, then Correia until he goes cold… and then maybe Tyler Walker (who’s back in the system, recovering from an injury). Then who? Brian Wilson, who was supposed to make the team this spring but stank too bad? Jonathan Sanchez, a recent departee to Fresno? I don’t suppose it matters too much with this team—as long as the new closer isn’t Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum, d’you hear?

Meanwhile, what you may well have missed yesterday was something that lots of on-air radio people might call “good radio,” but which I call uncomfortable, namely a shouting match between Sabean and KNBR’s Ralph Barbieri. Now, in such circumstances, the radio guy is always gonna win because his voice will be louder than that of the guy on the phone, but Barbieri almost always interrupts his guests anyway, and his approach was (not entirely without reason) very accusing. These two guys went at it a few years back over Sabean’s failure to pursue, let alone sign, Vladimir Guerrero, and Sabes hung up loudly. And yet, to their credit, they’re both professional enough, apparently, not to let these squabbles prevent subsequent amiability. We’ll see after yesterday’s, though.

The Benitez Experiment: Over—Please

Here’s a recipe for losing a ballgame that includes one nutbag umpire and one emotionally fragile pitcher:

• Take a one-run lead into the twelfth inning.
  
• Dispense one base on balls to the leadoff hitter.
  
• Add one balk call for no discernible reason.
  
• Broach one sacrifice bunt.
  
• Induce one ground-ball-hold-the-runner surprise.
  
• Infuse another balk.
  
• Lose composure entirely.
  
• Cough up game-winning dinger.

This was Armando Benitez’s night at Shea Stadium. The Giants are 24-26.

Tonight’s first-base umpire, Bob Davidson, sees a balk around every corner, hence Mike Krukow’s longtime nickname for him: Balkin’ Bob. (I think of Davidson as someone who was through at least 10 years ago, but that’s just my correct opinion.) Davidson just doesn’t feel comfortable in a game until his fist has shot into the air—still attached to his arm, I mean. The defense could still be in the dugout, waiting to take the field, and Davidson will still call a balk if he can. Then again, it could be not a balk call so much as an extremely weird, inconvenient nervous tic. There has to be some rational explanation for Davidson calling a balk on a stationary Benitez—I mean, the guy did not move. Not the first time, anyway. The second balk, in all fairness, was all Benitez.

As our closer prepared to enter his stretch, Carlos Beltran began scooting down the line at third… and Benitez bit. And balked. And blew. The save, I mean. Tie game. Then Armando turned his attention… Carlos Delgado, the batter? The game situation? Nah—Balkin’ Bob. So upset was Armando that he felt he had no choice but to lob what appeared to be a Pony-League-pitching-machine fastball. This Delgado crushed—I mean, I nearly turned off the TV before the pitch, but no, I had to stay tuned. Had to watch Delgado’s ball zoom over a distant fence. Must be my fault.

But no. I won’t cop to this one. What we have here is someone who’s lost whatever guts he’s ever had, despite whatever confidence he may unjustly retain. I wouldn’t be surprised if he yet again said, “Hey, I did my job”—his standard line when he blows a save despite, say, getting a ground ball. All I know is that I’m sick of this guy and want him out.

And yet, I’m not even angry. It’s not as though tonight’s result was a surprise or something, even though he’d saved nine of 10 this year (somehow). Indeed, I’d been pretty patient all season. Really. Benitez threw well in the spring, and he looked as though maybe he’d turned it around. But now, every appearance he makes ups the collective blood pressure of Giants fans everywhere—even, I daresay, the ones who say they’ve got faith in him.

I can’t imagine another team being willing to take Benitez (and his contract) off the Giants’ hands, but if there’s anybody in the world in worse need of a change of professional scenery (besides me, I mean), he must be one sorry bastard. He needs out. I need him out. I’d rather have Rod Beck and his 10-years-dead arm out there. He’s 38, three years removed from Major League Baseball, and all he has is guts. Maybe the only current Giant I’d hate to see closing games more than Benitez is Vinnie Chulk. Maybe.

Lincecum Shots

Posted today, mostly written yesterday:

Mike Krukow said before tonight’s game that he expected Tim Lincecum either to get rocked in the first inning of his major league debut or to strike out the side on nine pitches. Therefore, when Phillies leadoff hitter Jimmy Rollins took an 0-1 pitch for a ball, I knew that meant it was time to go “Uh-oh.” Rollins ended up nudging a slow ground ball up the middle into center field somehow, and Shane Victorino hit an 0-2 curve just into the crowd in the right-field arcade for a 2-0 Phillies lead. Lincecum then struck out two guys, walked one, and struck out another. The Giants managed an unearned run in the bottom of the inning against Cole Hamels, the Phils’ own phenom. If anything was particularly noteworthy about the inning, it’s that Lincecum, who gave up two runs through two batters, had surrendered only one run in 31 innings at Fresno before his recall. Then again, I suppose it’s not that noteworthy. “Giving up twice as many runs in one inning as he had at Fresno” would’ve been a lot more interesting if he’d given up, say, 15 at Fresno.

It took me longer to write that paragraph than it took Lincecum to get through the top of the second inning, however—and I type fast. I hope that means he’s settled down. Meanwhile, though, if he isn’t thinking, “Thanks piles, Boch,” he’s a stronger man than I, because today’s lineup features Pedro Feliz in left field, Todd Linden in center, and Kevin Frandsen at third, with Barry Bonds and Dave Roberts (who hasn’t hit much anyway) on the bench. Let’s see… Phils phenom… Linden and Frandsen in a lineup… you go ahead and do the math, ‘cause I refuse. (And well I did, because—Earnest Ragging being what it is—Linden took a four-pitch walk instead of a three-pitch whiff, and Frandsen poked a hustle double into right field. Lincecum struck out on three pitches, though, but Randy Winn tied the game on a 3-0 pitch, a run-scoring ground ball. Then Omar Vizquel doubled over Aaron Rowand’s head in center—his 2,500th career hit—so it’s 3-2. So yay. The still-homerless Rich Aurilia, though, has been stone cold, and despite Vizquel’s subsequent steal of third, Richie’s three-pitch strikeout ended the inning. So whee.)

Incidentally, Bonds has 10 home runs this year, 744 total, so there’s been plenty of talk about Hank Aaron’s plans for Bonds’ record-tying and record-breaking home runs (which, frankly, I wish he’d hit tomorrow—which would set a few more records, but still). At present, Aaron reportedly does not plan to be in attendance. Now, on the surface, that’s not so bad, right? It’s not like planning for Cal Ripken’s record-breaking 2,131st straight game: you’d have a darned good idea of the date for such an event. But with Bonds… well, geez, if he gets hot and gets pitched to, he could easily break the thing by the end of May. If one or the other condition isn’t met, who knows? And all that is true as long as it’s a given that Bonds is gonna break the record anyway. I mean, he might not—the world could end, or worse. So if Aaron were expected to chase Bonds around the country until he hits 755 and/or 756, well, you could see how that might annoy the man. (Not as much as the two-out, two-run home run crushed by Ryan Howard—who’d been hitting kind of like Lincecum all season—that puts Philly in front 4-3. E! Lincecum has now walked three, along with five strikeouts, and I don’t see him getting much past the fourth. Too many pitches.) (Addendum: Well, how prophetic of me! He left with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth, having thrown 100 pitches. But you know what? I don't think he pitched badly. He made a couple of mistakes, but unless this all somehow gets inside his head, I think he’ll be okay—possibly even great, once we trade him for the not-yet-awful Shane Victorino. Don’t worry, though—I won’t even mention the fact that Lincecum’s short stint was somewhat mitigated by possibly the worst call I’ve ever seen: Lincecum picked off Victorino, who got himself in a rundown; he’d initially been running on the outfield side of the baseline, then went several feet onto the infield grass, then collided with Omar Vizquel—upon whom the appalling Gary Cederstrom called obstruction. The man blew the call horrendously. He knew he did. He still knows he did. His three partners know he did—but they chose to uphold the call. So I won’t bring it up. Nor will I mention Peter Gammons saying something about how one or more of the umps have since pointed out that “every time the runner changes direction, he's defining his own baseline, so the call is correct because Vizquel was in his way.” Or words to that effect. If that’s true, couldn’t the runner could just zip one way or the other and take out infielders at will? Or was it no more than a classic umpire bluff? And doesn’t the runner have to actually be running toward a base, rather than the mound?)

However, Aaron has pretty much said he has no intention of being present at the big event. It doesn’t really matter to me, but… why not? For the aforementioned travel-related reason? For reasons related to his stated disdain for records that are not achieved “honestly”? Or because he’d rather not see the record broken to begin with?

I’m sure the travel thing is a small factor, but I suspect it’s that last thing that matters most to Aaron, and I don’t think I blame him. Ruth’s 714 stood for nearly 40 years, and Aaron’s 755 for around 33. Long time either way, but at least Ruth didn’t get to (or have to) live to watch his mark fall. Aaron probably won’t feel so great about watching his fall.

If, however, Aaron’s reluctance is about the “honesty” thing, I pity him not. First, we don’t know about Bonds, we only suspect, and no matter how reasonable those suspicions are, that’s all they are. No proof. No proof about Aaron, either: lots of folks think he used amphetamines. (Well, Bonds has copped to using those….)

And during tonight’s game, shortly after Lincecum coughed up the lead, ESPN showed the results of a poll of (maybe a few hundred) black and white fans regarding Bonds and the record, and black fans are overwhelmingly more “forgiving” of Bonds. In short, the white people polled believe Bonds is knowingly dirty, his records shouldn’t stand, and he shouldn’t go into the Hall of Fame. This white fan considers those white fans to be pretty stupid and transparent. I mean, I have no doubt that fans exist who used to admire Bonds but don’t anymore because of steroid allegations, and believe he should be punished, etc., but for the most part, the anti-Bonds faction will have to go a very, very long way to convince me that the anti-Bonds sentiment is about steroids and cheating rather than simple dislike for a player who, admittedly, isn’t easy to like. When I hear nonsense about cherished records and the integrity of the game, it’s hard not to laugh. First… what integrity? Baseball has a history that is as far from unblemished as Pluto is from the sun. An entirely different sun, in an entirely different galaxy. (Next guy who screams about baseball’s integrity, I want him to have a sit-down with Gary Cederstrom and his umpiring crew.) Second… if records are cherished, it’s solely because Babe Ruth was cherished, and well he should be, sort of. What other records are cherished? Cy Young’s 511 wins? Well, they’re safe, so why cherish (or not)? Ryan’s five zillion strikeouts? Ty Cobb’s historically adjusted batting average? DiMaggio’s hitting streak? Gehrig’s playing streak? Well, those two are cherished—but for any reason other than them being career Yankees? I kinda doubt it. Even Aaron—as I’ve said in EEEEEE!—isn’t “the all-time home run champion”: He’s the guy who took down Ruth. Cherishing records is mostly about Ruth and the Yankees—the team the whole country is told to love. This doesn’t exactly smack of integrity and “purity,” or whatever, either. It smacks mildly of vomit.

Meanwhile, ESPN has shown a quote from Bud Selig pointing out that he wasn’t present for Roger Clemens’ 300th win—apparently as a justification for possibly (if not probably) missing Bonds’ 756th. As if those 300 wins are somehow a Cherished Record rather than a very impressive milestone (and less than 60 percent of the record figure). Translation: Selig doesn’t want to be there to see The Cheater break the record of a man who hit many of his home runs in Milwaukee—Selig’s town—and a man whom Selig brought “home” at the end of his career. It’s the same mentality that led Ford Frick, as commissioner, to declare that Roger Maris’ 61 home runs would only count as a record if he’d achieved them within 154 games. Frick was a buddy of Ruth’s, and you could safely bet that such a condition wouldn’t be decreed by a commissioner who wasn’t.

I love baseball. True, I’m not fond of the history of cheating, lying, drug use, and other crazy crap that has permeated the game in its professional incarnation, but I accept it, though not all that happily. However, it’s happened; it does happen—and, outside of baseball, far worse happens. So how ‘bout we just accept what we cannot change, and move on?

Besides: Soon enough that Cherished Record will be set by Alex Rodriguez or Ryan Howard or somebody.

The Expression ‘EEEEEE!’ Didn’t Come About by Accident

Earnest Ragging at least affords a chuckle most of the time. If you don’t know what that means, and feel compelled to learn in depth, visit “EEEEEE!”—I mention it in nearly 40 articles on the site. In short, Earnest Ragging is the thing that happens when a ballplayer does something positive (for his club, that is) right after you’ve finished ripping him. The purpose of Earnest Ragging is for real or imagined companions to point at you and laugh at your foolishness.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Tonight the Baseball Gods decided to stick Earnest Ragging up my bippy. In relief of Matt Cain—who had yet another one-hit outing, albeit in six innings (and thus lowering the league’s batting average against him: an average that started the night at .120)—Jack Taschner struggled in the seventh, and the camera showed Vinnie Chulk warming up in the bullpen. “Oh, great,” I thought. “El Chulko. I’m just brimming with confidence.”

Thus, of course, I pulled that much harder for Taschner. I mean, even Armando Benitez, though he frightens me a lot, doesn’t frighten me nearly as much as Chulk. So when Taschner gave up a one-out hit to cut the Giants’ lead to 4-2, out came Bruce Bochy. Out went Taschner. In came El Chulko with two aboard.

“I do not trust this guy,” I said. To no one there. And no one heard at all, not even the chair. Because I was in the bedroom, and we don’t have any chairs in there. (Stop thinking what you’re thinking, sicko. And definitely stop picturing it.) I said that, and I was being perfectly sincere. Not a thought crossed my mind involving “Earnest” or “Ragging” or “Baseball Gods.”

So obviously Chulk got the double play to end the inning, and the Giants went on to win, right? Wrong. First pitch to pinch-hitter Scott Hairston: Doont! Three-run bomb. Lead gone. Deficit acquired. First pitch. It wasn’t even funny.

So unfair—I mean, I was totally earnestly ragging. No forethought or self-consciousness about it whatsoever. And this is how I’m repaid? Bleah.

The top of the ninth was no more encouraging, of course. Bengie Molina—and it’s not hype, kids: he really is the slowest-afoot major league baseball player I’ve ever seen—squeezed out a single somehow. Randy Winn grounded into a force play, but went to second on a wild pitch. Ray Durham, pinch-hitting for Chulkie-Lou (which means that Rich Aurilia played second base tonight), cranked one way way way deep to center field, where Chris Young ran it down near the wall. Winn had to go back to second, which I don’t quite understand, but it certainly did not seem like a good omen. Dave Roberts popped up to end the game. Cain’s one-hit effort: wasted. Barry Bonds’ eighth (and 742nd) home run: wasted. Yeccchhh.

It’s not Chulk’s fault that the tying runs were on base in the seventh, with a run already having scored. It’s not his fault that Cain couldn’t hold the Diamondbacks to less than one run. And it’s not his fault that aside from Bonds’ (two-run) blast, a solo shot by Feliz, and a two-out bases-loaded walk to Vizquel in the second, the Giants’ offense was worthless. (Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Ryan Klesko!) But you’re not supposed to throw a first-pitch fastball the size of a beach ball to a guy who’s just come into the game cold.

Earnest Ragging always defeats the ragger. But there’s a good way and a bad way. This was not the good way. Gnarrh.

Bummer—Not!

I suppose it’s wrong for me not to have commented on the Giants’ current eight-game winning streak, during which they’ve swept the Cardinals and Diamondbacks at home, then the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Ask me if this upsets me any.

Some of this has to do with the fact that people haven’t been getting hits against Matt Cain, and Barry Zito has looked good lately. Almost every Giants batter has delivered one or more big hits. Omar Vizquel has been amazing in the field. And then there’s Barry Bonds, whose seven home runs trail only Jimmy Rollins (who, inexplicably, has eight) in the National League and who’s been hitting around .500 lately. (I should mention that this all started when Bonds was moved back to the cleanup spot. I have no idea why.)

The last two games each felt like “character” wins. On Wednesday the Giants scored four in the first—base hits by Dave Roberts, Todd Linden, and Rich Aurilia, then a three-run bomb by Bonds—but Noah Lowry looked like he wanted to give them all back early. The Dodgers eventually tied it up, but Pedro Feliz hit a late home run, and Armando Benitez shut the door in the ninth. Then last night the Dodgers took an early lead against Russ Ortiz, who just didn’t look at all comfortable (or good), eventually stretching it out to 3-0, before the Giants tied the game on a bunch of singles and doubles. Big hits by Ray Durham and Bengie Molina gave them a two-run lead. The Dodgers scored another run—who cares how?—but Benitez did his job again. He’s seven for seven in save opportunities, though most of them have been nail-biters.
So the Giants are 12-8 now and sitting atop the NL West, no doubt keeping the seat warm for someone else. Still, they started out 2-7, you know? It’s hard not to enjoy their recent good fortune.

It’s really hard not to enjoy a sweep of the Dodgers, which happens more frequently than visits from Halley’s Comet, but not that much more frequently.

Sorry for the somewhat vanilla tone of this entry; it's just that a really cool winning streak speaks for itself.

It Hardly Hurts At All!

I’ve just injected several cubic centimeters of performance-enhancing substances into my tummy. Here we go. Let’s see what happens:

• 0:05:00: nothing much.
  
• 0:10:00: nothing much.
  
• 0:15:00: nothing much.
  
• 0:20:00: nothing much, but I’m going to baseball-reference.com and looking up “Gregg Pearlman” just in case.
  
• 0:30:00: would’ve checked at the 25-minute mark, but had to go to the bathroom, then somebody phoned. And I find myself becoming easily angered for some reason.
  
• 0:30:15: oh, yeah, almost forgot: still no “Gregg Pearlman” entry on baseball-reference.com; will start checking every half an hour.
  
• 1:00:00 (well, every half hour—minus 15 seconds in this case): ah, here we go! I now have 100 home runs in my major league career!
  

Yes! It’s true! Just one injection of Cheat Juice and I’m 99 up on Duane Kuiper and Noah Lowry! Really! I didn’t even have to go out there and hit ’em! Merely the act of taking performance-enhancing substances adds dozens and dozens of home runs to my lifetime major league totals! You could look it up! You’ll see this:

Well, the text is real small, but lookit them hundred dingers! This is so cool! I’ve always wanted to get into the record book somehow! Man, wait till I inject myself a few more times! Then nobody will be worrying about Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s record, because I’ll be so far past it that it won’t matter anymore! I’ll be the all-time home run champ! Because all it takes is a few injections! Just ask the Bonds-bashers!