Tag Archives: san francisco giants

August 29, 2011

If I Only Had A Tweet….

By mceezy

Sedale Thweet and the Designated Twitter

Clearly we’re all in full Summer swing each weekend as Doin Work seems to get laid off every Saturday and Sunday. But just because I spent my weekend bouncing between the pool, Hurricane Irene coverage, and beautiful Lake Clementine doesn’t mean I didn’t catch my share of sports this weekend. And what I didn’t catch over the weekend, I caught up on the radio during my morning and afternoon commute. Twice today, I started my thought with “If I had a Twitter, I’d tweet…..” Well I don’t have a twitter, but I do have a blog. So here are the tweets you would have seen if @The RealMCeezy existed…..

@Arian Foster: If it weren’t for Fantasy, no one would even KNOW you’re hurt. Be glad people know who you are!

@MichaelVick: Unless something CRAZY happened in the pen’, you just grabbed the biggest rebound in the history of human redemption.

@WilsonChandler: Bold move signing in China knowing you can’t come back if the lockout ends. But what does that say about the status of the lockout more importantly?

@JCrittendon: RUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN!!!

@JoshWillingham: Thank the baseball gods you hit a two-run double of Boston pitching outfielder Darnell McDonald on Friday night.

@SFGiantsFans: I hear you griping about the offense on KNBR 680 and KHTK 1140. You’re forgetting they overachieved last year. Vegas didn’t pick them to repeat, so you shouldn’t either.

@PepsiRoyaners: Congratulations to my fantasy baseball team for clinching a playoff spot. We survived serious injuries to Buster Posey, David Wright, and Jimmy Rollins, but we stuck with our guns, i.e. Matt Kemp. We pulled the league’s best ERA on the strength of Matt Cain, Ricky Romero, Ervin Santana, and Jeremy Hellickson (plus Price, Carpenter, Harrison, and Danks). But, just like real baseball, if we can JUST all get healthy and hot at the right time……

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

August 16, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

It’s been a little while since we did our A’s and Giants updates. As always, By is covering the World Champs and Chappy is covering the A’s.

San Francisco Giants (66-56, 2nd) Oakland A’s (53-68, 4th place)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – The A’s won back to back road series for the first time since April. Upon coming home, they were promptly swept by the Rangers. The A’s bats have come alive since the All-Star break scoring the 5th most runs post AS break. Josh Willingham is one home run shy of giving us a 20 home run hitter for the first time since Cust did it in 2009. Is it a positive that we are already calling up prospects like Brandon Allen to see what they got? I guess so, but that just means we are way out of it. At least yesterday he went 6 for 8 over his last two games. Since all of our outfield will be free agents this year I’m not sure why we haven’t seen more youngsters. The Willingham, Matsui, Dejesus, and Conor Jackson projects should come to an end soon, and maybe we’ll see how Choice, Carter, or Taylor does.

SF Giants – As bad as the offensive woes have been for the Giants, they’re still only 2.5 back from Arizona, when they could and should very well be out of the division race by now.  They’ve lost 12 of their last 17 all the while the D’Backs seem to never lose.  Our starting pitching has been superb and consistent, and all Giants fans know that our chances at repeating hinge on our staff.  That’s not, and never has been the problem.  The good news is, Sunday’s game against the Marlins, and Monday’s game at Atlanta showed a bit of inclination that our offense has started to turn a corner.  Unfortunately Brian Wilson blew the game against the Braves.  Easily the most painful loss of the season for the Giants.  If the bats can produce 3-4 runs a game going forward, I have much confidence that the Giants make the post season and do some serious damage towards claiming another title.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Where to start. Oh yeah, our defense. What was thought to be a strength coming into the season has been a glaring weakness. We continually shoot ourselves in the foot committing errors every game, and thankfully Melvin is pissed about it. There’s no way this team should be third in the league in errors backing up a great pitching staff. This also got me thinking, is our team ERA just good because they give up a lot of unearned runs? Even Trevor and Gio look pretty average as of late. CJ Wilson talked crap about how the A’s suck and so do their fans before Texas came to Oakland, and kinda backed it up after one of the most disappointing series of the year for the A’s.

SF Giants – Well, the fact that at one point last month we looked to be smooth sailing towards winning the division, then added perhaps the best free agent bat to help bolster our lineup, and now, we are slipping out of contention and that big bat we added can’t even suit up for us.  Yeah that’s pretty lame.  Losing the series to the Pirates hurt.  Losing 3-4 at home against the Phil’s stung.  Letting Arizona take the last series against us at home wasn’t helpful.  Getting swept by the Reds flat out sucked.  I can’t even write a reasonable “Three Down” segment for this post, I’m just a little upset, but by no means have I lost faith in the Giants.  But I won’t lie, I’m very nervous right now.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

July 20, 2011

For Real? MLB Contenders Or Pretenders…?

By mceezy

Let’s play a little game called, “Just the Tip.”  Just for a second, just to see how it feels. Now let’s see which MLB teams can hang over the course of an entire season. Every year, someone comes out of nowhere and contends longer than they were supposed to. It then becomes a game of “will they or won’t they.” This year there are two teams that have come out of nowhere to lead their respective divisions at the time of this post. There are also two honorable mention teams that just so happened to meet in the World Series last year, but still, they don’t necessarily look like the best teams in their divisions.

The Giants, defending World Champions, don’t look like a championship team, but their pitching has kept them atop the NL West. Not sure if that’s so much a credit to the Giants, when you consider the division just seems pretty bad top to bottom. The Rockies have underachieved, and the Dodgers and Padres are pretty much irrelevant. Arizona has been a surprise, but no one really believes they can hang around and contend for the NL West crown. For that we say, the Giants will.

The Rangers, on the other hand, came into this season more or less as favorites to win the AL West. But, a lot of people saw either the Angels reclaiming the division, or the A’s making the jump and riding their pitching to a postseason berth. Instead, the Rangers have played just well enough to hold a 5 game lead over the Angels in the division. Their offense was never in question, but they’ve had surprisingly strong pitching that has kept them perched atop the AL West.

On to the real surprise teams of the 2011 campaign. I’ll start with the Indians because I sort of saw this coming. To be honest though, I’m sort of waiting for the team to fall off, as part of me doesn’t really believe they are for real. I at least thought that Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner could manage to stay healthy, and combine that with two guys who I knew would be solid this year, Asdrubal Cabrea and Shin Soo Choo, and it seemed the Indians were poised for an improbable run at the trophy this year. Unfortunately, Sizemore and Hafner have been sidelined often, Choo’s blood-alcohol level has exceeded his batting average, and Asdrubal Cabrera is left with few RBI opportunies costing him much deserved MVP attention. I’m also questioning whether that starting rotation can hold their ground for the remainder of the season.

Finally we come to the Pirates. I don’t think anyone saw this coming, but if they did, post a link showing off your premonition like I am once again HERE. Like many good teams, they’ve ridden their pitching to a division lead in late July. I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw this. I believe the statistics say it was 1992. That’s a long time. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Pirates have the longest streak of futility in ALL of professional sports. Is that right? Either way, I’m a big time Pirates fan this summer and fall. I wonder how many players I can name on that team….? Let’s count. Andrew McCutchen, Garrett Jones, Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, Jeff Karstens, Ryan Doumit, Joel Hanrahan ….that’s all I’ve got. But I’m on board. Will they hang on? Not a chance. With Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cincinnati (my other World Series pick)  all chasing them, they’d be lucky to finish third this year.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

July 10, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always By will be covering the Giants and Chappy will be covering the A’s portion.

San Francisco Giants (1st place 50-40)

Oakland Athletics (4th place 39-51)

Three Up –

Oakland A’s -Mark Ellis is wrecking pitchers lately going 11-32 with four doubles, three homers, and 7 RBI’s in his last seven games. Too bad he’s now a member of the Rockies. Tough for me to find a lot of positives outside of Jemile Weeks and Scott Sizemore, but I guess our leading RBI man Josh Willingham is healthy and back in the lineup. Guillermo Moscoso pitched 24.2 innings only giving up one run, but was sent back to AAA today. I guess that shows you how good our pitching has been even with numerous injuries. I’d like to see us trade a couple of these pitchers for a bat. Is that asking too much? I guess so. I think it’s a good thing they are going to let our top prospect Chris Carter keep playing in Oakland. It’s not like he could do worse than Barton was doing at first base. I hope we sell off some players and get something worthwhile at the trade deadline. I’d love to see them unload Fuentes.

SF Giants – There’s so many positives to write about, but I’ll keep it short.  Let’s start with the obvious, the Giants remain in first place, and the only goal for the miSFits is to win their division and make the playoffs.  Another positive, the G-Men are sending four All-Stars to the desert, and if not for horrible run support for Mad Bum, perhaps five.  How about Barry Zito guys!?  While most Giants fans are raving about his “return” to prominence, I still remain skeptical.  Let’s just appreciate his last three starts for now before we go handing him the Cy Young shall we?  And lastly, it is good seeing Buster Posey in the dugout again.  We miss you buddy ~

Three Down – 

Oakland A’s – Where to start!?! We score no runs, and the only games we win are 1-0 or 2-0. Those wins are also few and far between. We are last in the worst division in the AL.  We’ve hit the fewest homers, and are in the bottom three in all of baseball for runs, RBI, and batting average.  When you see stats like Kurt Suzuki has 6 of our last 16 hits, and Derek Holland with a career 5.22 ERA holds you to a 4 hit CG shutout, you know you’re in trouble. I’m tired of writing how they can’t hit, so I’ll spare myself. If there wasn’t enough bad mojo going around this team, even fans are dying at the park when they hit foul balls…

SF Giants – I hate to sound redundant, but the one downer for these Giants is their hitting.  While they remain scrappy and stay true to form with their “A Different Hero Every Night” approach on offense, it’s hard to fathom them keeping it up the entire season.  Especially since it started last season.  Overall, not much to complain about with the Giants, especially while they’re in first.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

June 15, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always By will be covering the Giants and Chappy will be covering the A’s portions.

San Francisco Giants (38-29 1st place) Oakland A’s (28-40 4th place)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – They broke their 10 game losing streak against the White Sox in a comeback win. Unfortunately they went from second to fourth during that losing streak. We thankfully have a new manager (Bob Melvin) that I wrote about last week, so now I can’t work in any disses about the team overcoming Geren’s minimal coaching abilities. The new Bob has already started making the players do some infield practice before games, which is rare this day in age for any team to practice much infield work before games. The good part about this hire is he’s already proactive attacking one of our big weaknesses (A’s are ranked 27th in fielding with 51 errors). Now if he could only figure out some good drills to get them to hit! Bob Melvin seems to like keeping Matsui in the lineup everyday, which was something Geren couldn’t seem to do as he sat Matsui against lefties. Matsui even answered with a homer off a lefty last night. Hopefully this means Matsui will get comfortable at the plate knowing he’ll be in the lineup all the time. Andrew Bailey is finally closing games for us this season, too bad there aren’t any games for him to close. Scott Sizemore, who we got from Detroit, is already our best option at 3B even though he’d never played the position prior to coming to the A’s. Jemile Weeks was also called up when Ellis went on the DL, and has impressed me a lot more than Chris Carter did last year during his first MLB stint with three triples in his first seven games.

SF Giants – I just got home from a fantastic early dinner and as I type this, the G-Men hold a 5-0 lead against second place Arizona in the 5th.  I also see that Pablo “Panda” Sandoval has already left his mark on this game, bringing in the game’s first run.  Panda provides us with a much needed bat, at an absolutely desperate time.  It’s one thing that we lost Buster Posey for the entire season, but now Freddy Sanchez’s year is in jeopardy, and Freddy has been knocking in clutch runs all season.  I guess a positive we Giants fans can take out of all of this, is the fact that we’re still in first place, believe it or not!  And the reason why, is that the Giants epitomize the concept of team ball.  When someone goes down, the next person simply steps up and fills in.  I mean, we’ve had Nate Shierholtz hitting third at times, Nate Shierholtz people!  And now he has a few walk off base hits notched under his belt.  There’s a different hero every night with these guys, very similar to last season.  So if you’re an optimistic person, which I’m usually not, but if you are, you must be thinking we’re sitting pretty atop the division despite being dealt the worse possible hand you can be dealt.  Things can only get better from here, right?

Three Down

Oakland A’s – We have five starting pitchers on the DL, and Brett Anderson was that fifth starter to land on the DL. He’s avoiding Tommy John surgery, but it sounds like he might still have to have it down the road. I’m no doctor, but it doesn’t sound like these plasma injections do very much from other players accounts. We’ve called up some prospects mainly because of the numerous injuries. SP Graham Godfrey had an interesting way of getting called up the the big leagues, but we are really missing those starters that went down. Hopefully McCarthy comes back soon which seems likely. We’ve lost 13 of 14, and I might already be rooting for Seattle to take the division. (I’ll wait till the All-Star break, but it’s sad I’m already pondering picking who I want to win the division not named the A’s.) Daric Barton continues to digress this season. Not sure how much longer I can root for a guy that is in his third year, and having his worst season of those three years, he feels like Bobby Crosby all over again. Hopefully we are prepping Chris Carter or Michael Taylor in the minors to play first base. Maybe we should’ve hung onto Brett Wallace who is having a decent year in Houston…

Even Chriss Angel runs out of magic.

SF Giants – To the outsider looking in, you’d probably chuckle at the idea of being unhappy with a first place team.  But if you’ve been following the Giants closely like I have, especially these past two seasons, you know we win a lot, a lot of close games.  In unbelievable fashion at times.  How much magic do we still have at our disposal?  We’ve got to run out eventually right?  As long as we’re bottom dwellers in terms of offensive production, specifically scoring runs, and as long as our aces look like jokers on the mound (Tim Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez), we’ve got reason to be concerned.  Hopefully Brandon Belt can get healthy and show us some of that bat we’ve all been told is coming.  The only consistent thing I can count on with these Giants, is Ryan Vogelsong giving up two runs or less every game.  The sad part is, some of those games are losses.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

June 6, 2011

Hey Sabean, Don’t Forget You Have Whiteside!!

By chappy81

I think the Giants might have the most videos on youtube of any team since they won the WS. Some are entertaining and others are pretty lame. In the wake of the whole Buster Posey debacle as he got plowed at home, the Giants GM Brian Sabean pretty much said he hopes Cousins of the Marlins never plays again. It was an unpopular statement everywhere except in SF, and kind of reminded me of how Dan Gilbert reacted when Lebron left the Cavs. To say I disagree with his comments would be an understatement, and Larry Granillo brings up some solid points on why Sabean should’ve questioned some other plays at the plate in the Giants not so distant past. Anyways, enjoy this song someone made about the Giants backup catcher Eli Whiteside.

(Actually Whiteside is no longer hitting .200, it’s down to .170).

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

May 26, 2011

Let’s Change Baseball Because One Guy Got Hurt

By mceezy

I really don’t know why this is a debate right now. I thought it was just homerism as I listened to Giants play-by-play man Duane Kuiper whine about Buster Posey’s collision last night. Add to that, Posey’s agent sent a memo to MLB pleading to ban home plate collisions. But when I saw Buster Olney pleading his case for the change, I knew it wasn’t just local sentiment. Unless he’s just trying to protect a fellow Buster, I don’t know why he’s on this bandwagon. It’s classic American knee-jerk reaction to something that happened once out of a thousand times. What’s next, banning talking on cell phones while driving? Oh, wait a minute… Anyway, the last home plate collision I can remember that left a catcher significantly injured was Ray Fosse in 1970-i don’t even know because I wasn’t alive. It’s NOT that serious. What IS serious is Posey’s injury. Now, I’m no Giants fan, but I root for them about 150 games per year. I spent the greater part of a decade living in San Francisco, so I definitely want them to be good, but I never really forgave them for blowing the 2002 World Series. I certainly will never forgive them for winning the 2010 one. Now that they’re up to three-less championships than the A’s, I don’t want them to get any closer. On the other hand, Buster Posey is the catcher on my fantasy team, and more importantly, probably was going to be a major piece of my team’s future. Now I have to decide if he’s worth a roster spot just for the sake of keeper consideration. (I might have to let go of Strasburg, ha.)

What makes my perspective unique though is I never saw the collision before I heard all the hullabaloo. I first learned of it this morning reading the game recap on my phone while doing something that starts with an S, and isn’t showering or shaving. Like the baserunner, Scott Cousins said, it was the go-ahead run in the 12th inning. He had to do whatever he could to score. However, before saying my piece, I decided I had better watch this play finally. I was surprised to discover that it seems running into Posey WASN’T, after all, necessary. That collision had all the makings of your typical small guy complex. Cousins isn’t that small per se, but it looked like a kid who’s been bullied his whole life that was about to get back at everyone who ever picked on him by mowing down a defenseless super star. Apparently Cousins played at the University of San Francisco while I was there, and claims to be a Giants fan. Well, I never heard of Scott Cousins until yesterday, so that’s saying a lot. USF is a small school – everybody knows everybody. So to not know a guy who would go on to play major league baseball is saying something. I guess the only way he could get the City’s attention is by blindsiding the Giants star catcher. Well congratulations, kid. You got SF’s attention now. Just don’t plan on ever coming back.

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

May 20, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always, By is covering the Giants portion, and Chappy is covering the A’s portion for this post.

San Francisco Giants (1st, 24-19) Oakland Athletics (2nd, 22-22)

Three Up

Oakland Athletics – They swept the Angels in a quick two game series, and also swapped positions with them to be in a tie for first place in the AL West for the first time this season. That didn’t last long as they lost two straight to the struggling Twins and were promptly sent back to 2nd place. Their offense has gotten progressively better over the last week and a half. They’ve actually averaged nearly 5 runs a game over their last 10. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Coco Crisp has been getting on base, stealing bases, and scoring runs. When he does well, they seem to score a lot more runs. Their pitching has still been their crutch to lean on. They lead the majors in ERA at 2.68, which is the only sub-3.00 ERA in all of baseball besides the Braves 2.88 team ERA. Andrew Bailey is getting closer to returning, and will be a welcomed addition to an already great bullpen.

San Francisco Giants – Giants are sitting pretty at first place despite playing average ball.  So there’s not much to complain about here, furthermore, they just did a mini sweep of division, no everything rivals LA in LA.  So a major f**k yeah for that.  The Mark DeRosa injury could be looked at as a down, but I see the positive in it.  For one, he was hitting like s**t.  Second, we’re too deep not to circulate other players in and out of the lineup, giving tough-minded guys like Mike Fontenot a shot at some p.t.  Hopefully DeRosa takes this time to clear his mind, and find his swing.  Finally Madison Bumgarner finally got his first win of the season, the Giants are on the up and up from here on out.

Three Down

Oakland Athletics – Hideki Matsui hasn’t really shown much promise thus far in the season. Maybe the inconsistent playing time has something to do with it, but I feel like there’s a chance he might just be old. Dallas Braden had season ending shoulder surgery, which was a downer but not unexpected. I’m a huge Tyson Ross fan, and he’s done admirable filling in since Braden went down, but he got injured, and apparently Brandon McCarthy did too, so that’s a hole in the rotation. Maybe Harden will eventually not be hurt or maybe another round with Outman wouldn’t be terrible. Bob Geren is still making questionable lineup/bullpen changes and tinkering that seems to prevent the team from keeping their continuity, but the players seem to be overcoming the handicap of having him as a manager, which must be one tough obstacle.

San Francisco Giants – I can’t complain about much these days, perhaps the injury to Pablo Sandoval has put a damper on our inconsistent hitting.  I’m not satisfied with Tim Lincecum’s 3-4 start.  I was hoping for him to be blazing toward another Cy Young early on.  But those are all ‘whatevers’ in my book.  The Giants are in first in the NL West, and this should lead to an interesting series with the A’s.

Next Up – The battle of the bay. Inter league play starts and the battle for bay area bragging rights is on the line.

Win or lose Chaps, we’re still friends o.k. !?!?

Yeah, no hard feelings a quarter of the way through a season!

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

May 3, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

This is our second installment of Elephants and Seals. And just like last time Chappy will be covering the A’s, and By will be covering the Giants.

San Francisco Giants (13-15) Oakland Athletics (15-14)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – They lost two of three in LA, but came on strong over the weekend to take 3 of 4 from Texas to bring themselves over .500.  Their bats seemed to wake up against what we all kinda knew was some weak starting pitching out in Texas. Kurt Suzuki hit two bombs after having his newly born daughter. Willingham hit a game tying homer, and Matsui hit a walkoff in yesterdays series winning game, so there’s some reason for optimism for the offense. Andrew Bailey is throwing again, and should be back sooner than later as he’s set to face some live hitting this week. That is a big relief because Fuentes is about as scary a ninth inning as you’ll get. He doesn’t throw hard, and puts guys on base giving A’s fans a heart attack every time he’s on the mound. Bailey we need you back! Coco Crisp’s bat is as lively as his hair these days, and when he’s on, he scores lots of runs. Oakland pitchers still lead the league in ERA at 2.76. They are did pretty good in April for their standards, because April is a month they almost always have a losing record in. You don’t win a division in April, but you can be far enough behind to lose it if you aren’t careful. I mean, we could be the Twins with only 9 wins.

San Francisco Giants – 1.  We won the 2010 World Series.  I know that was last season, and that historic event is a thing of the past, but when your beloved team plays as inconsistent as they have been, despite the talent and experience they possess, well then you got to hang your hat on something.  We’re only about 7% into the season, and if they don’t clean up their act by the 20% mark, I’ll throw this trump card away.  Which brings me to my next ”up” ~

2.  We’re only 7% into the season!  It’s still very early and the Giants are much below .500 ball thanks to  taking two out of three in five of the past seven series’.  They’ve been in a lot worse situations, and for them to be even despite not finding themselves is a good sign.

3.  Aaron Rowand is hitting .300 (o.k. .296) and Pablo Sandoval is hitting .313 with five dingers.  These are two players who contributed very little last season.  Aaron Rowand was considered a free agent bust, and Panda was looked at as a fluke.  The Giants are currently 11th in hitting in the N.L. but it’s neither of these two’s fault.  If they keep playing this well offensively, it will almost be like we picked up two solid free agents this year.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Kevin Kouzmanoff is supposedly on the team more for his defense prowess, yet he’s already made 6 errors on the season. If his bat actually worked, I wouldn’t mind the errors as much, but this is getting ridiculous, and these errors are leading to runs almost every time he kicks an easy grounder. The team as a whole hasn’t been good defensively, but I doubt they will be tied for the lead the league in errors. The offense as a whole is offensive as they’re ranked 27th in the league in runs scored, don’t have a hitter over .300 in the lineup, and swing at way too many pitches early in the count. Pitchers that give up a few runs to us still are in the game in the 7th. Aside from Barton, I’m not sure anyone in the lineup knows how to work a count, unfortunately his working the count has resulted in a high amount of strikeouts. Pitchers are throwing 70 pitch complete games against us. Ok, not really, but you get the point. We have renamed the Oakland Coliseum to the Overstock.com Coliseum or O.co Coliseum. This is in the three down section, because it sounds lame.

1.  We won the 2010 World Series.  I know you’re asking, how can this be an ”up” and a ”down”?  It’s an ”up” from a fans’ perspective, especially someone like me who is grateful he witnessed a World Series championship during his lifetime.  It’s been a ”down” for the actual team.  I tried not to think it, but it’s becoming more and more apparent, the Giants have a World Series hangover.  They’re too busy making music videos with Keenan Cahill that they forgot there’s a season to play.  But then again, this is the reason why we fell in love with these guys, they’re a bunch of goofy clowns and miSFits.

2.  Missing Andres Torres has been a huge downer for the Giants.  He’s a great lead off man, and plays a fantastic center field.  The one thing that’s underrated about Torres is his defense.  Our outfield has been our week spot early on, especially when we threw Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff out there (wtf!) but with Ross back, and Torres on his way, I’ll stop holding my breath on every fly ball.

3.  Pitching and hitting.  If it’s not one, it’s the other.  This is reminiscent of years past with these Giants team.  They’re winning or losing games, 1-0 or 9-8.  Neither side can get it together consistently and act as a cohesive unit.  Like I mentioned earlier, we’re 11th in the N.L. in hitting.  I’m not concerned about average starts from Timmy, Jonathan Sanchez and Matty Cain, but Madison ”Mad Bum” Bumgarner has struggled big time.  Last season he was brilliant in the post season, we’ve only seen one glimpse of that pitcher since.  Could I actually be asking this, but are we missing Barry Zito?  If it’s come to this, then that’s a huge downer.

Next Up

Oakland A’s – Taking on the best team in baseball, Cleveland Indians at home. They found a little groove offensively against Texas, so hopefully that keeps up. I can’t wait for the day when I’m not shocked when they put up 4 runs in a game.

San Francisco Giants got to start doing their best Charlie Sheen impression, winning.  We got the Mets and Rockies next, very winnable series’.

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

April 8, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

We sometimes neglect our teams in writing posts since we follow them so closely that we feel like everyone probably already knows what’s going on with them, in reality, that’s probably not true. Now that we have a Giants fan in the mix in By, I figured it would be fun to do an overview of our two favorite bay area teams from our homer perspectives. I’ll be writing up the A’s portion and By will be doing the Giants portion for this season.

Oakland 2-5

San Francisco 3-4

Three Up

Oakland A’s – Our starting pitchers have picked up where they left off last season, and by that I mean dominating the first six innings of their games, and only giving up two earned runs or less in all but one appearance. The new offensive guys (Dejesus, Willingham, and Matsui) in the heart of the order aren’t producing much, and unfortunately the other guys in the lineup are doing what they did last year, which is leaving runners in scoring position. They have had the lead at one point in every game this year, but can’t seem to keep it for too long in most cases. We still seem to have a heavy handicap in the home run department, but we seem to be getting more guys on base than last year, so there’s a little hope on the horizon. They’ve been close in every game late, because of that great starting pitching. If it weren’t for them thinking they were playing soccer to the tune of kicking 9 fielding errors, they could easily be .500 on the year. Somewhat concerned about this start.

San Francisco Giants – This is simple.  One, Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain, Zito & Mad Bum.  A solid bull pen, and the game’s real life version of Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn to close it.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.  Perhaps I’m being a little generous when mentioning Zito in that list, but I can’t uninclude him when he’s rockin’ the new ‘stache.  Two, we have a group of loveable guys who all play hard together and get along with each other.  Yes, Aubrey Huff in the outfield scares me, but the young studs in Buster Posey and Brandon Belt in our every day lineup more than make up for it.  Do not sleep on Miguel Tejada, by the way.  And three, we are still the defending champs.  This season is (now) seven games in for the Giants.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Their bullpen is already injured like it’s mid-season. It was supposed to be a heavy strength for the team coming into the season, so far all we’ve been left with is blown leads. Balfour and Fuentes our big acquisitions in the pen this off-season both blew saves in their first tries as Athletics with Bailey on the DL. Their fielding was never a problem last year, but with 9 errors in only six games this year they are dead last in that category. Their last two games in Toronto that were errorless, and same with the day game in Minnesota today, so that has me feeling like it was just a little early season rust. Hopefully that’s the case. Maybe all the talk of needing to upgrade at third got to Kouz’s head as he’s tied for the team lead with three errors. Lastly the A’s have been terrible with runners in scoring position this season only logging three hits when that chance arises.

San Francisco Giants

1)  We got smoked by L.A.

2)  Duck the Fodgers.

3)  We haven’t produced runs consistently, spoiling some good outings by our starting pitchers.  Add to that, our bull pen hasn’t looked as crisp as they did during last season’s historic playoff run, so I guess there’s some cause for concern there.

3a)  It would be nice to have Cody Ross back.


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April 7, 2011

Slow Out Of The Box

By mceezy

There’s quite a few surprise teams here in the first week of the MLB season, like the Orioles and Royals, but let’s focus on the negatives here. There are four teams that are playing downright ugly baseball to start the season. It’s not hard for us A’s fans, since we’ve had the privilege of witnessing 10 errors in the team’s first 4 games. Fortunately they were able to scrape out a 2-1 victory today to pull back up to 2-4. The Giants were able to do the same by beating the Padres pretty handily, though Brian Wilson had a shaky debut. 2-4 ain’t pretty, but to me, it’s a whole lot better than 1-5, or even worse, 0-6…. No one expected the Rays to be contenders this year, but no one thought they’d be this bad. Even fewer people thought the Red Sox would be this bad. I’m loving it of course, but I’ll hold back from piling it on until the season’s over and they DIDN’T make an improbable run into the playoffs. Obviously they’re off to the most disappointing start, but which team here has the most reason to panic early on?….

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December 15, 2010

Doin Santa’s Naughty and Nice List

By chappy81

We decided to get into the holiday spirit, and help Santa with his list since he’s probably forgetful now that he’s 1,852 years old. Plus we know he checks Doin Work regularly, and if he isn’t listening to our advice, it’s probably the Santa at Macy’s that drank himself into blurry vision that is reading our regular visitor instead.

Naughty

Cali4Dre

Randy Moss – traded twice in one season, some say due to the bad mouth and worse attitude he has decided to display in the twilight of his career

What Randy wants for Xmas – A few more TDs to pad his career stats, another trip to the Pro Bowl to lock up a first ballot HOF vote, and I maybe a SB win, but that’s a team thing so maybe not.

What Randy gets from Santa – the first two 0 target games of his career, a suit case that doesn’t need unpacking, and apparently bad Mexican food in Minny.

Dustin Johnson – Led late in two different Majors this season, and came up short in each, with a major blunder in the PGA that cost him a spot in a playoff.

What DJ wants for Xmas – More  accuracy with that canon driver he has, or maybe the sense to use his 3 wood more often since he hits that 300 yards easy.

What DJ gets from Santa – Lessons learned the hard way for the talented 26 year old, a top 5 on the money list, a top 15 in world rankings, $4.5M in earnings and a RULE BOOK with the bunker section highlighted.

Chappy

Francisco Rodriguez – Assaulting your father-in-law in front of a crowd children and women.

What Frankie wants for Xmas– His pitching arm to heal and reach the 90 MPH range again after injuring the arm throwing heymakers at the father-in-law.

What Frankie gets from Santa – A trip back to the Domincan with no paycheck from the Mets.

Floyd Mayweather –   Continue reading

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November 2, 2010

Sweet November

By By

Thank You Giants

I was trying to put into words what I’ve been feeling for the greater part of the last twenty-four hours, but I can’t.  As cliché as it sounds, there aren’t any words to describe this feeling.

So as I wait to gather myself from this high, I simply just want to thank the boys.  I want to thank the loveable cast of misfits that is our San Francisco Giants.  After the curse of the game ball that was handed out to Russ Ortiz by Dusty Baker in 2002, I honestly felt that I wouldn’t live to see the day San Francisco wins its first World Series pennant.

Last night, the short-lived curse was put to rest.  But for the fans who’ve been waiting decades for this moment, it was more than that.  History was made.  Life is good.  Thank you boys.

 🙂

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November 1, 2010

San Francisco: World Champions

By mceezy

It was a bittersweet victory for me tonight. Although I rep Northern California like nobody’s business, I’m still an A’s fan, so it’s tough to see the other team win it all. The way I looked at it, there were four World Series trophies in Oakland, why do we need any on the other side of the Bay? But the fact remains, San Francisco is my home. I spent 7 of the greatest years of my life there, but I’ll admit I’m a little bitter they did it now, but couldn’t come through back in 2002 when I resided there. Nonetheless, I love this group of players they put together over there in the City. How can you not be happy they won?

Despite all the NorCal love on Doin Work, there’s only one true Giants fan on board here. Congrats to By on seeing his team win the hardware. And even though Chappy and I bleed Green and Gold, it’s GREAT to see Northern California bring home its first major pro sports championship since 1994.

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October 20, 2010

MLB Playoff Gloating, and Some Old Wounds

By chappy81

Rangers and Giants World Series

Did you seriously think I couldn't out coach Girardi!?! What planet are you on?

Is it really going to happen? The two teams I wanted to win could be squaring off in the World Series. I’m always a fan of the underdog, so usually my teams get knocked out just after I decide to root for them. Naturally, it makes me not care much who wins the championship when the teams I don’t care about are in the final series. This year has been different though, and the teams that I’m rooting for, for some reason, are actually winning. It’s like when I get excited seeing one of my bets at halftime correct, only to see said team fail to cover. Maybe, because neither series is over, especially the Giants and Phillies because it’s only a 2-1 series lead, and the Phillies have the pitching and hitting to come back. Plus the Giants seem to have a hard time closing out their opponent, (see the regular season against the Padres). The only reason I feel like that series is a done deal is because my 80 year old grandpa said to me over the phone last night that the Giants would win the WS. Sure, he’s been a big Giants fan his whole life, but MCeezy will vouch for him that if he says it, it will come true! It’s one heart attack win after another for the Giants all season long, so I hope grandpa didn’t jinx them. In the other league, my ALCS prediction was spot on. It’s been awhile since I was able to gloat about a prediction, so here it goes with the things I was right about! The Rangers made the Yankees look old, check. They scored every way imaginable while running all over Posada, check. Ron Washington out coached Joe Girardi by not over managing and getting his players motivated, check. The only thing I didn’t predict was how good the Rangers pitchers would be, and honestly aside from the bullpen meltdown in game 1, they dominated the best hitting lineup in the league. Now that the Rangers are up 3-1 I feel comfortable saying they will be in the World Series. Even if the Yankees somehow shake it off, and win the next two games they will have to face Cliff Lee in game 7. I’d say that means series over anyway you look at it.

Kirk Gibson Still Grinds My Gears

It’s been 22 years since Kirk broke my heart as a young baseball fan with his gimp pinch hit home run off the A’s unstoppable Eckersly. At seven years old, I didn’t think I’d hate his name still 22 years later, but reading about him selling off that historic pinch hit bat making me relive that experience yet again filled me with that same hatred. It’s bad enough they show his fist pumps around the bases every month or two during the season, but having to read about the intricacies of the bat and jersey made me throw up in my mouth a little. Here’s what Gibson said that made me relive one of my worst childhood sports moments,

If you look at the handle on the end of that bat, there’s an ‘x’ because it was a reject. I really only got it because it was so light, I was hurt, so I started to get that ready,” he said. “The cleat marks at the head of the bat where I hit my shoes, there’s indentations at the beginning of the bat. At the end of the bat, it was so deep, there’s really deep indentations, the red ink from the foul balls I hit is on it. You can actually see the spot where I made contact with the ball. It’s preserved very well.”

I can take a little solace in the fact that he is a dick, and many people don’t like him, but it just reminds me that some things you never really get over. I guess holding grudges is part of being a fan. Devastating moment #2 was probably the “Tuck Rule.”

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