Giants Recap: Duel of the Fates

Madison Bumgarner: nice to children, but not the Dodger children. (Photo: imovermyhead/Flickr)

I’m going to start you off with a mind-blowing piece of trivia from the always-excellent Giants Nirvana:

This was the first occurrence in baseball history in which both starters have gone 8+ innings with 10+ strikeouts and zero walks.

— Giants Nirvana (@GiantsNirvana) August 21, 2012

Holy crap, people. Holy crap. We are living in an age of baseball wonders, and two of those wonders are Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner. Kershaw, of course, is an unspeakable creature of Mordor, with nothing but spite and bile in his heart, as with all Dodgers. But the man can pitch, and pitch he did, contributing his half of the twenty strikeouts and making Buster Posey in particular look pretty silly. It was going to take a miraculous effort to scratch anything across, and while we’ll come back to that in a second, the corollary was that the inexplicably functional Dodgers offense was going to have to be shut down.

And right on cue, Madison Bumgarner. 23-years-old, walking less than two batters a game this season, and spending the dawn of his career casually working the inside corner against right-handed hitters like it ain’t no thang. Tonight, if there was a thang, it was nowhere within Bumgarner’s vicinity. He pounded the corners with his fastball, jammed hitters into feeble groundouts, and relied mostly on an absolutely murderous slider (with even more movement than usual, it seemed) to get nine swinging strikeouts. There was also a strikeout looking, too. It was Hanley Ramirez (on a slider that didn’t dive into the dirt!). That’s never not funny.

Series Preview: Giants vs. Nationals

It doesn’t seem that it was long ago when the Nationals were known for being the Natinals thanking you for your patients, but they’ve certainly come a long way since those days.

Currently, they’re the best team in baseball — who’da thunk that when the season began? They’re currently leading the NL East by 4.5 games.

Not too shabby for a team that was always in the bottom of the NL East for the past few years.

Series Preview: Giants vs. Rockies

So, the last time the Giants faced the Rockies, it was in Colorado. And a boatload of runs were scored by the Giants. It could’ve been a combination of it being Coors and the Rockies being horrible this season, but who knows? And no Giants fan would be complaining, I would think.

Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Barry Zito will be starting in this series. They will not face Jonathan Sanchez, who is on the disabled list for suckitis left bicep tendinitis. Man, that brings back memories of 2011.

The last homestand was awful, but their road trip was not: they went 5-2 and managed to collect 84 hits and score 57 runs. I did not even know it was possible for the Giants to do that, but there you have it. Whether or not they manage to do the same thing at home remains the question.

I’ve heard that it’s possible Pablo Sandoval will be activated from the disabled list this Sunday, with his rehab in San Jose starting tonight. So, all shall see what happens there.

Oh, and it’s #PerfectCain tribute night. Because everyone needs more Matt Cain in their lives.

That was totally serious. Matt Cain should rule all and everything.

Giants Recap: Double the Play, Double the Brandon

Brandon Belt. (Photo: SD Dirk/flickr)

Today, the Giants managed to win a game that seemed destined to go to extras in nine innings. I don’t know how, but it happened.

It was boring for the most part, I’ll have to admit. Edinson Volquez was not particularly great, but for the Padres, it helped that the Giants’ offense was on his side.

Madison Bumgarner, well, this wasn’t his best outing but he hung in there and only gave up two runs in seven innings, walking two, and striking out nine.

Then, the double plays.

Giants Recap: Nothin’ Brings ‘Em Out Like a Three-Run Dong Every Once In Awhile!

Anywhere in the vicinity of the plate is where we want this guy. (photo: Adam Jackson/flickr)

You know, easy wins give me relatively little in the way of copy. So you get bullet points! It was either that or I babble about my love affair with Buster Posey’s swing and his pitch framing while drinking three more beers and eating a box of Ding Dongs, and I respect you all and myself too much for that.

•  #SFGiants’ @BusterPosey’s HR to RF was just the 14th time a right-handed Giant has hit an opposite field HR at AT&T Park. It was Posey’s 2nd.
  – @SFG_Stats
  
  Let that sink in for a minute. In almost twelve seasons, a right-handed Giant has only hit a shot like that fourteen times, and in barely more than a full season played, two of them were Buster Posey. There is never enough gratitude to heap on the universe for the fact that we have him back, whole and healthy and productive.
• Ryan Vogelsong, speaking of things we should be thanking whatever deity you deem appropriate for, had another solid outing. Even when he doesn’t seem like he has his best stuff to start out, he guts through it in a way that you just don’t always see. Long may the Vogeltron reign.
• The second stage act for the actual baseball game tonight was the umpiring. First a catch/trap call gets over turned, resulting in one more run and an RBI for Brandon Crawford, and then Crawford has a double overturned because he “didn’t touch” first base. The resulting ejection was pretty classic, if only because it’s nice to see that fire.
• George Kontos’ no-dot slider is on its way to Romo status if he keeps it up. This is a thing I like.
• Pablo Sandoval played first base tonight. Messages are mixed on how often that might happen. Welp.

 

Giants Recap: WHAT IN THE SITHSPAWN

There are two options I can pick from for this recap.

1. I can re-write Top 40 hits to be like, “TONIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT / THERE ARE HIIIIIIITS / SO LET’S MAKE THEM ALL LEAVE THE YAAAAAARD / LEAVE THE YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~RD.”
2. I can post the following image five times and then drink copious amounts of soda and then set the following image as a gif and make it run around a ballpark with its eyes acting like googly eyes.

But really, I just don’t have any words for this game. I can’t even begin to go through the box score and try to pick the highlights from it to snark about because I still can’t even comprehend what just happened.

I think it started with a rain delay. Maybe about six hours ago. Then it was this pitchers duel and the Giants couldn’t even get a friggin’ hit but there you go. The Giants got hits. Lots of ’em. Or, enough to win the game.

No Charges For Sandoval, Says Santa Cruz DA

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

San Francisco Giants’ third baseman Pablo Sandoval will not be charged with sex assault, Santa Cruz District Attorney Bob Lee said Monday.

Sandoval, a 25-year-old Venezuela native nicknamed “Kung Fu Panda,” was accused last month of sexually assaulting a woman he met a bar in downtown Santa Cruz.

The Sheriff’s Office investigated the allegations, speaking with Sandoval and his attorney, conducting numerous interviews and examining physical and biological evidence that was sent to a state laboratory for testing. Sheriff’s investigators concluded last week that there was insufficient evidence to arrest Sandoval in the case.

Those findings were then turned over to Lee’s office for review, who said Monday that no charges will be filed.

“The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Investigation Bureau did an extensive investigation including interviewing witnesses, serving search warrants, reviewing security camera video tapes, text messages, toxicology reports and analyzing physical evidence. Based on review of this thorough investigation, the District Attorney’s Office has reached this same conclusion,” Lee said.

So is it now possible that everyone can stop making unnecessary remarks toward and about the woman and Sandoval? Especially with all the victim blaming? That’d be swell.

Giants Recap: Oh Hai First Place

Dueling narratives. (Photo: Inha Leex Hale/flickr)

Man, I can’t keep the narratives straight anymore.

I do know that

1. There may or may not be a personal catcher rule in effect, but Hector Sanchez is totally catching Tim Lincecum every start, whether you like it or not.
2. Tim Lincecum may or may not be back, but the media is totes going to say he is.
3. Tim Lincecum was pretty awesome tonight.
4. And with an 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 11 K line, why wouldn’t he be?
5. Hector Sanchez may or may not be the reason why Tim was awesome again tonight, but let’s all just say he is because that’s how it works.

I think that’s all the narratives that happened until the 9th inning. I think.

Anyway, Hector Sanchez is … a backup catcher for a reason. He’s not particularly the best defensively and unfortunately, tonight was the night it really showed.

The game should’ve been over in the top of the 9th with a strikeout, except there was the throwing error and the wild pitch and then, oh, look, the game’s tied. Herpity derp.

Giants Recap: Giants Take LA Out Behind Woodshed

Barry Zito rides into AT&T Park on his beloved unicorn, Powder, who is eating a Dodgers hat. (Illustration by Mac)

I had to take a look at the Dodgers’ stats on Baseball Reference, because when in doubt, there’s always fun things on Baseball Reference. And then I had to take another look, because this team is in first place! I mean, look at this:

Leadoff hitter!

Slugging first baseman!

Fourth on the team in PAs!

I’m cherry-picking a little, of course. There’s Ethier and eventually Kemp and for some reason the withered corpse of Bobby Abreu, and the pitching has been pretty good. But still, for how dominant they’ve been…let’s take a look at their Pythagorean winning percentage (i.e., how many games they ought to have won & lost based on their actual run scoring & prevention.)

Huh. Baseball-Reference has them at 41-32, with an actual record before  tonight of 43-30. That’s not that far off. Hey, how about the Giants?

Oh. Apparently we ought to be 37-36. Moving right along, then.

Giants Recap: Giants Don’t Score. At All.

The San Francisco Giants returned home tonight for the first of six games in a seven day homestand, taking on the Texas Rangers. Yup, those guys. The two teams came into the game tied with the 3rd-highest winning percentage in MLB, at 33-25 each. Who could have predicted that?

Let’s just rip the band-aid off of this one. Here’s the starting lineup for tonight:

Tonight’s #SFGiants lineup: Blanco lf, Theriot 2b, Pagan cf, Sanchez c, Pill 1b, Arias 3b, Schierholtz rf, Crawford ss, Zito p

— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) June 8, 2012

Yuck. Just yuck.