Sweep LA! Sweep LA!

I thought about going with the headline "Giants Castrate Dodgers in 3-game Sweep," but I thought that might be a bit too jarring. That being said, the Giants castrated the Dodgers in a 3-game sweep, knotting up the NL West as we near the half-way point of the season.

Maybe I'm just forever scarred from that late 1993 series against the Braves, where the Giants' lead was reduced from 7.5 to 4.5 games in what felt like 5 minutes, but it seems to me that whenever the Giants go into a big series against a division rival like this, they come out on the losing end. Of course you have to omit 1997 from this train of thought, but not every team can have Rod Beck and Brian Johnson (and Barry Bonds) on it. 5 minutes ago, the Giants were 3 games out. Now they're tied. Are things actually going well for the Giants?

When Zito and Lincecum combine for 14 shutout innings, sandwiched around 7 innings of Voglesong castrating the Dodgers, I'd say that's a pretty resounding "yes". Plus the bullpen totally castrated the Dodgers. All series, only one Dodger reached so far as third base. And when that runner (Dodgers' pitcher Chad Billingsly) tried to score on a wild pitch, Lincecum castrated him. (Loved this quote from Timmy: "I'm not much to go through, but he was going to have to go through me to get to the plate").

So, this all begs the question: Is Timmy back? My gut feeling is no, not quite. I'm not going to get my hopes up over 1 really nice start. I wasn't able to watch the game, but I did see see his Got 'em Reel. And he sure did look impressive. But my prediction is that his next start will consist of 3 or 4 solid innings, Mike Krukow will emphatically declare that "Tim Lincecum is back, folks", and then he'll have another one of his patented disaster innings. But then he'll calm down again, and by his next start, he will be back. Just a gut feeling. "Don't hate", as they say.

With the historic 3-game shutout sweep behind them, the Giants now welcome in another first place team in the Cincinnati Reds. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles EunuchsImeanDodgers head to Who-cares-ville. Adding injury to insult, Andre Eithier left the game today with some sort of groin issue and he could be joining Matt Kemp on the DL! In the month of June, the Dodgers are slugging (SLUGGING!) .295! It sure is a shitty day to be a Dodger fan! Which, by definition, makes it a great day to be a Giants fan. Keep it up, boys.

P.S. Read Andrew Baggarly to learn about about all the franchise history the Giants made in their castration of the Dodgers.

One down, Seven to go

"Not one, not two, not three, not four, NOT FIVE, not six NOT SEVEN." Those were the words uttered by Lebron Raymone James on July 8, 2010 when he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. Allow me to start by saying, congrats Lebron. The first ring is said to be the hardest one to obtain and countless hall of famers played their entire career and made tons of money, enjoyed the fame and lifestyle of a professional athlete and would trade it all today for one ring. This is a great win for the Miami Heat franchise and for their fans, but is it a great win for Bron Bron?? 

It's no secret that I can't stand the sight of Lebron James, the sound of his voice, the cut of his jib and the simple idea that so many declared him the greatest basketball player of all time before he stepped foot on the hardwood of The Association. All of those things were starting to dissipate when he took the Cleveland Cavs on his back and nearly won a championship ring for his hometown. I felt like he was doing it the right way, building something special in Cleveland and the idea of hating a guy for doing that started to seem a bit ridiculous. Had he chosen to stay in Cleveland, forced owner Dan Gilbert to spend some serious money to get top flight players to join him, I would probably have stopped hating him so much and settled for disliking him. Hell, if he would have left Cleveland respectfully instead of in the middle of the night with a bunch of Mayflower moving trucks like Art Model, maybe I would respect that. But he didn't and he felt the need to make a spectacle unlike any other athlete in the history of professional sports. I don't need to rehash The Decision and go into great detail about how pathetic that was, but I do need to address the insanity of predicting eight championship victories. If Rafa Nadal predicted 8 grand slams, nobody would care. Not only because he plays tennis and few people care about that sport, but he plays an individual sport. It doesn't take an MIT Graduate to recognize that the odds of winning 8 championships in a team sport is highly unlikely. That being said, I will answer the question I posed earlier. Is this a great win for Bron Bron? No, it's not. Had he kept his mouth shut and predicted that he would bust his ass for this franchise, leave everything on the court and make sure he got a ring, I'd say it was an incredible victory, but he didn't do any of that. He flat predicted 8 championships and for that, I have to point out that he's only an 1/8th of the way to the promise land. 

To make matters worse Lebron is delusional enough to believe his own bullshit after he won his first ringwhen he said and I quote "I'm really glad I did this the right way, no shortcuts and because of that it makes it that much more special." I disagree with all of that and feel like this is one of the reasons why I can't be onboard the Bron Bron train and never will. You did this the right way? You joined forces with 2 of the best ballers in the league and ditched your hometown team to buy a ring. You didn't take any shortcuts? You are the same guy who deflected blame after you tanked the 2011 NBA Finals and said "At the end of the day, all of the people that were rooting for me to fail, tomorrow they'll have to wake up and have the same life that [they had] before they woke up today. They got the same personal problems they had today and I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do." That's a shortcut. That's taking out frustrations on the fans and attempting to blame anyone and everyone but yourself for choking away a chance at your first ring. I'm confident that Lebron James handles success better than most professional athletes do and I also know he handles adversity with very little class and respect. Now that you won the first ring I gotta ask you Bron Bron, can you do it again?

Is the no-hitter becoming so common that it's losing its luster?

The title of this blog post is stolen from a professional sports writer named Tom (Todd) Verducci. More often than not I prefer to think up a creative (or not so creative) title that's original and fresh. However, the article featured below was not posted today or even over the weekend. It was posted Thursday June 14, just hours after Matt Cain turned in the performance of his lifetime, tossed only the 22nd perfect game in the history of major league baseball and his feet hadn't even hit the ground, but ole Tom was already puking all over this amazing accomplishment.

I'm a young guy with an old heart and old soul. I have learned that I was likely born in the wrong generation because for all of my life I've wanted my baseball served up the way it was generations ago. Simple, clean, by the "book" and stats are for fans to enjoy while sipping coffee. Currently, statistics in baseball have become completely out of touch with the game that's played on the field and I refuse to indulge any further than that. What I will say is that I don't care that of the twenty-two perfect games in major league baseball history, five of them have been thrown in the last three years. That's none of my business and I refuse to play ball here. In my book, a perfect game is an amazing accomplishment and each and every time a guy gets one, it should be given the respect and credit it deserves. Reading this article the day after Matt Cain pitched the best game of his life, the first perfect game in the history of one of the proudest franchises in baseball history, made me sick and I am not even a Giants fan. If you have enjoyed any of my work over the years, you know a few things. I don't toe the line and I refuse to take marching orders. I am not the guy who forms an opinion based on what the majority feels or thinks; I think for myself and I know my thoughts are in the minority, but I do know this. Diminishing a perfect game is something I will never engage in and I can't help but think that because Matt Cain plays on the West Coast, this article hit the internet before the fans at AT&T Park made their way home. I know for a fact that if Josh Beckett or CC Sabathia threw a perfect game last week, Tom Verducci would be sucking knee caps not pointing a fire arm at them.



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/tom_verducci/06/14/no.hitter.craze/index.html

Here Comes the Story of the HurriCain

Prior to Wednesday night, no pitcher in Giants baseball history had thrown a perfect game. It took nearly 130 years, and yet it's not surprising that it was Matthew Thomas Cain who got it done. His whole career he's been flirting with Destiny. Buying her drinks, charming her friends, and she laughed at all of his jokes. He'd put his hand on her lower back to gauge the interest level, and she'd never even flinch. But every time he'd lean in to close the deal, she'd back away, claiming she couldn't for reasons like "I'm meeting my parents early tomorrow for breakfast" and "I'm out with my friends; I can't just leave them." Still, as she was leaving the bar each time, Destiny would glance back at Matt and smile lovingly. Even lustily. So you got the idea that there was something special going on between these two, and it was only a matter of time before they finally gave into each other. And special it was. This was not your ho-hum 8-walk no-hitter, where Destiny is just stumbling drunk because all her friends are getting married and she's looking for the nearest Edwin Jackson to make out with. Last night, Destiny didn't even have a chance, and she knew it. It was Perfect.

But this was even more than that. We're talking about one of the greatest games ever pitched. Repeat: EVER. In the history of baseball. Cain's "game score" was 101, tying him for second highest ever for a 9-inning game*. That's the part that's hard to wrap your head around. Out of all the games that have EVER been pitched in the Major Leagues, Cain's performance is very near the top of the list. 

Big Game Matt Cain now has to be considered the leading candidate to start the All-Star game. He leads the league in Innings Pitched and in WHIP. That means not only has he pitched the most innings, but they've been, like, the best innings, with the fewest base runners per.

It's amazing how good he his, and at the same time how take-for-grantedable he is. It's a shame that it took a perfecto for me to realize this, but he needs to be considered amongst the great pitchers in Giants history. Maybe even the great players in Giants history. Ever since he entered the big leagues in 2005, he's been good. Has he ever even had a bad stretch? Not a single earned run in the 2010 post-season. This is stuff of Giants legends. He's the longest-tenured Giant, and he will be for years to come. He's never shown a sign of slowing down, nor of disgust with his team when they certainly deserved it due to offensive impotence. The contract extension he signed a couple of months ago is still in its fetal stages, but right now, it looks like a steal for the Giants. He's ours.

It won't take long for the Giants to honor this achievement with one of those walk-of-fame plaques on the boardwalk that runs along McCovey Cove. When it's all said and done, he may just have a statue.

 

*He's tied with Sandy Koufax's 14-strike-out perfect game in 1965 and Nolan Ryan's 16-strike-out no-hitter in 1991. Kerry Wood holds the Game Score record for a 9-inning game at 105 with his 20-strike-out 1-hitter back in 1998. There have been other old-timey, extra-inning masterpieces that have game scores significantly over 100. 

Giants One-Third-of-the-Way-Through-the-Season Report

And so we've finally arrived at the one-third (plus 1 game) mark of the season. The all-important (read: arbitrary) marker where we can make judgements about who teams "actually are" and what they are "made of". Some of these judgements may even hold true at the end of the season. So what can we say about the Giants at this point? They are, pretty much, who we thought they were. They're capable but flawed. A high ceiling but with a low margin for error.

The pitching covers up the offensive ineptitudes, while the defense has probably cost them a few wins on its own. Perhaps I should have written "low margin for errors" -- a league-leading 51 in 55 games has been good for 30 unearned runs* (also leading the league*). League average is 20 unearned runs*, but if the Giants were the excellent defensive team they were supposed to be, they might even be in first place, given their style of playing in a lot of close games. That's a stretch, but it's possible.

As it is, they're 31-24 (a 91-win pace) and 3 games out of first behind the Dodgers, who have fallen back to Earth a bit. If, before the season, I told you that Lincecum would be pitching like Zito usually does, Brian Wilson would miss the whole season, Sandoval would miss significant time, and Belt + Huff are no better than they were last year, you probably would be happy to see the standings where they are right now. Then again, if I told you that Zito would have an ERA under 3.00, Gregor Blanco is a real-life Major League lead-off hitter, and Melky Cabrera is running away with the Team MVP award, you probably wouldn't be thrilled. All of those anomalies, except for the Wilson injury, are likely to regress towards where we expected them to be by the season's end. So if all that cancels itself out, where will the Giants make up those 3 games? Well, for one, I think the Dodgers will continue to fall off, especially since I told the baseball god who is responsible for Matt Kemp's hamstring that it was Kemp who ate its leftover half-sandwich in the office fridge. I think 91 wins can take this division. Secondly, those errors have already started to level off. Just one in the 6-1 homestand that just ended. Other than that, they'll have to keep applying the formula, and if they continue to win, the "chemistry" argument will start to snowball and everything will take care of itself and they might was well just bring the trophy to SF right now. Right?

More specifically, the strengths and weaknesses of 2012:

I'm still not going to let the front office off the hook for letting Carlos Beltran walk away, but credit Sabean and Co. for putting together a very productive and pretty darned fun-to-watch outfield. Safe to say the Melky-for-Sanchez trade was a win. Same for the Pagan-for-Torres-and-Ramirez. And Blanco is the leading candidate to get this year's "Andres Torres/Ryan Vogelsong Award for Being Awesome When No One Thought You Would Be Awesome". For position players, those three lead the team in Wins Above Replacement.

The infield, on the other hand, is nothing short of a disaster. Getting Pablo back will help significantly, but as it is now, I have a hard time believing opposing managers don't chuckle when they see the line-up card. Until Brandon Belt can start substituting home runs for strike-outs, first base is a massive disappointment. Huff looks completely finished, even after that gritty bases-loaded walk he worked last Saturday. Theriot's picked it up a bit, but they still miss Freddy Sanchez (they'll probably continue to miss him all year). Joaquin Arias has been a nice surprise defensively, but he's sub-replacement level at the plate. And if Crawford makes errors at the pace he's at (he has been improving, for the record), he might be the least valuable everyday player in the league. Come back, Pablo. And stay away from those 21-year-olds while you're at it.

Starting pitching continues to carry the team, as per the usual. Cain is Cain. Vogelsong is Cain. Bumgarner is Cain. Barry Zito's non-evil twin captured actual Barry Zito and is holding him tied up in a basement somewhere. Real Barry Zito is crafty and resilient though. Probably only a matter of time before he gnaws through the duct tape and returns to the mound. And Lincecum...ugh. Not even worth talking about. Either he'll figure it out and the Giants will be good to go, or he won't, and they probably won't win. Here's the interesting question though: say he turns it around and Zito continues to be good. Who get's bumped from the post-season rotation?

The only problem with the bullpen has been its lack of depth due to injury. Wilson (elbow), and Mota (cough syrup) are long-term losses, while Casilla, Romo, and Affeldt have all been unavailable at times. And that's when Edlefsen has to come in in the 8th inning and promptly give up 2 runs to put the game out of reach. But for the most part, Bochy should be able to order the Affeldt/Romo/Lopez/Casilla combo platter for the late innings, and it's delish.

All in all, this baseball season has been a pretty weird one. Puljos is bad, the Mets are good, etc. I'm still sticking with the Giants finding their way to the top of the NL West by the end.



*That's primary research right there, folks. It's only a matter of time before you'll be required to pay to become a Left Coast Lean "insider" for gems like that.