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?