I spent much of Tuesday afternoon fretting about the general
brainlessness that passes for sportswriting (I'm looking at you, Buzz). In the
end, I decided I had wasted enough time just thinking about it. Then I watched
the Giants-Dodgers game. Specifically, the postgame show on Comcast, with Greg
Papa, F.P. Santangelo and Amy Gutierrez. My brain still has not recovered.
This squad would not shut up about the ball Fred Lewis
managed to fling into the seats and could not understand how the umpires could
rule the way they did. Lewis fielded the ball in short left, brought the glove
up to exchange the ball to his throwing hand and in the process flung it toward
the stands. It hit the top of the little wall there, Lewis grabbed it and
tossed it in. Umps say: out of play, two bases for the runners.
The structure of the show went something like this: Loss,
Cain, Papa on ruling, F.P. on ruling, Papa, F.P. making stuff up about Joe
Torre's ground rules, Papa ruling, F.P. ruling, Papa ruling, Amy, Hi Matt!,
what about that ruling, Cain on ruling, back to Papa on ruling, F.P. making
things up about ground rules, but the same as a few minutes ago, Papa on
ruling.
No one cracked a rule book. No one seemed to have a clue. Here's
some help.
From the rule book, definitions:
FOUL TERRITORY is that part of
the playing field outside the first and third base lines extended to the fence
and perpendicularly upwards.
So as soon as the ball crossed the front plane of that
fence, it was out of play.
7.05 Each runner including the batter-runner may, without
liability to be put out, advance --
(f) Two bases, if a fair ball bounces or is deflected into
the stands outside the first or third base foul lines; (snip)
This seems clear cut enough. In fact, that's what the
Dodgers PR people told the broadcasters, apparently relaying what the umps
said. As for F.P.'s weird ground rule theory, there are exactly two ground
rules at Dodger Stadium. You can look them up, but here they are:
BACKSTOP AREA Batted ball striking camera on top of backstop: Dead Ball.
OUTFIELD AREA Batted ball hitting bullpen gate in either left or right
field and bouncing into the seats: Home Run.
The Chronicle's Henry Schulman, with what I hope is a
generous dose of understatement: "But with Vizquel hitting .166, he might
be difficult to trade."
You think?
Fans don't like to think about it, but team executives don't
gain a whole lot by telling the truth. Would you like to be Brian Sabean right
now? Most anyone with a pulse can see that Vizquel adds little value on the
field, but Sabean's stuck for at least a few more days. He's got to hope
there's someone stupid enough to take Omar off his hands, and until then Vizquel
has to get in the lineup. You can't bench him, because then how do you sell a
shortstop who can't crack the lineup of one of the worst teams in the game?
Same goes for the clucking you heard a few weeks back about
the Giants being "contenders." (Favorite recent paragraph on MLB.com:
"A few weeks ago, the Giants were considered possible contenders in the
moribund National League West, but they appear to be in "sell" mode
after losing nine of their past 10 games and remaining eight games behind first
in the division." To make this completely accurate, you should insert
"by a desperate general manager and gullible reporters" after
"considered.") It's better to have fictional leverage in trade talks
than no leverage at all.
After Tuesday's punchless performance against the Mets, the Giants are 39-51. That's third place, six games out, good enough for some to call the Giants "contenders." Clearly, my quotation marks indicate that I disagree.
Since the institution of the three-division league in 1995, the worst record for a division winner was 82-80, by the 2005 Padres. I think it's fair to assume that a team will need at least a winning record to lead the division, and 82-80 is the absolute minimum for that. Do a little math and that means the Giants must finish the season with a 43-29 run, which is .597 baseball. They've played at .433 so far.
Sabean sees his situation as more closely related to
2005, when the Giants were 13 games under .500 - yet just 5 1/2 games
out of first place - on July 31. They acquired outfielder Randy Winn
from Seattle for pitcher Jesse Foppert and catcher Yorvit Torrealba.
Just so we're clear ... the Giants ended that season at 75-87, good for third place, 7 games behind the Padres and 14 -- 14! -- behind the wild card Astros.
And Randy Winn had the best two months of his baseball life.
I was at the game Friday, which is probably best forgotten. But if you want to remember, there's oh so much to choose from. Let's see ... how about Bochy keeping the rookie pitcher in there long enough to let the game get out of hand? How about Lewis doing his best imitation of Glenallen Hill in left? No? Perhaps Omar Vizquel taking a hack at a 3-1 pitch with the Giants down by 2 with 2 on? I don't think you have to guess the result of that.
On June 30, Bochy said Burriss would get more playing time at short. Result: 16 AB for Vizquel (3 hits, which -- ha -- increased his BA), 4 AB for Burriss (3 hits). I won't be surprised to see Vizquel starting Tuesday night, but the why is eluding me.
Stall long enough and someone will do your work for you ...
All year long I've meant to dig into Brian Sabean's track record. I wanted to create something that detailed how the current team came to be. I still haven't done it, but MLB Trade Rumors has done something close, with a spreadsheet of all his deals. They've done similar for a few other GMs, with the stated goal of creating these for all of them.
I rarely read SI these days, but I still get a kick when one of "my" guys is on the cover. This time it's Tim Lincecum, and the story is pretty good. It moves from Lincecum to the problem teams have figuring out what a good pitching motion is. It's also a good object lesson in the dangers of groupthink and trusting "conventional wisdom," but that's not explicit. I just tend to read that into everything.
Some things to consider about maple bats before screaming for a ban:
Are there enough non-maple bats available to get through the major-league season? (The answer seems to be no, but given that information, five seconds later ESPN's Steve Phillips said he'd ban them right now.)
Maple bats have been in the bigs for several years. Why the panic this year? What has changed?
The sport's goriest bat incident was more than 30 years ago, well before maple arrived on the scene.
Baseball leaders and the media like to lay this at the feet of the players union, but what about the minors, where baseball has total control? Where is the ban there?
Banning is not the only solution. Can there not be some sort of engineering done on bats to keep them in one piece? Are we married to wood? I'm not suggesting aluminum, heavens no, but there are all sorts of materials out there. Carbon fiber?
Consider the business aspects, namely the manufacturers, though one hasn't exactly helped his cause by suggesting that price fixing would clear up things.
Is safety the No. 1 concern? How many pitchers have been hit in the head with batted balls this season?
The story goes on to say how Giese's being in the majors illustrates the Giants' commitment to developing talent. Problems:
1) The Giants outrighted him to Fresno in October and he subsequently opted for free agency (or was let go -- I can't find a specific transaction) 2) He signed as a free agent with the New York Yankees in January 3) He's 31 4) He's pitched 16.7 innings in the bigs
Wait ... I guess this actually is a great illustration of the Giants farm system.
Channel 3 is running a promo for the upcoming Giants-Royals series. At the tail end of it you see a Giant taking a swing at the plate. It's noted slugger Tim Lincecum.
I really don't know what to do with this. Was that the best swing they had on file? Was a baseball-ignorant intern asked to include some Lincecum footage?
All right, Marlins pitchers. What story are you going to tell your grandchildren? That with the greatest home run hitter of all time on the verge of history you went the way of all mediocre pitchers and simply walked him? Or you manned up to the challenge and got him out? Sorry to break the news to you all, but 99 percent of you middle relievers will be out of the league in a few years with precious few stories to tell anyone. So here's your test. You a big leaguer or not? He doesn't homer every time, you know.
Hoorah, the Giants offense went nuts, but watching the team is an exercise in frustration. How do you get picked off not once but twice when down by three runs? That's not big-league baseball, Dave Roberts and Ray Durham. (Really, does anyone on the bench or on the field ask these guys "What the hell are you thinking out there?")
Just another day at the office for Omar Vizquel. Ah, yeah, bad toss to second, guess I'll barehand it and relay to first for the double play. Yawn. Grounder up the middle, barely get the glove on it -- ah, what the hell, I'll play the carom and roll, then throw the guy out while sitting on my ass. Ho hum. This guy is from another planet.
I was curious about the Giants VORP, so I looked a few things up at Baseball Prospectus. Here are where the Giants stand at each position in the National League (actual figure in parentheses, followed by the positional leader, except for Bonds, who has the second-place guy):
c Bengie Molina, 8th (5.7; Russell Martin, 36.8)
1b Ryan Klesko, 12th (10.2; Prince Fielder 35.4)
2b Ray Durham, 14th (3.6; Chase Utley 48.5)
3b Pedro Feliz, 26th (-3.5; Miguel Cabrera 45.0)
ss Omar Vizquel, 25th (-9.1; Hanley Ramirez 45.8)
lf Barry Bonds 1st (38.7; Matt Holliday 37.4)
cf Dave Roberts 16th (1.1; Aaron Rowand 33.2)
rf Randy Winn 10th (7.5; Ken Griffey Jr. 31.9)
Add up those Giants and you get 54.2, which in Phillies terms equals Aaron Rowand plus Ryan Howard. And Howard's been having an off year.
The Giants offense looked bad Monday night -- again -- but there was the saving grace of having the Cubs offense looke equally bad, thanks to Tim Lincecum. Plus both looked marvelous compared to Aramis Ramirez's stylin' admiration of his, uh, double.
The Giants haven't won since the All-Star break, which is good is some ways. After Monday's loss in Chicago, the team is 38-52, seven games out ... of fourth place.
Yeah, it's a bad team, and it seems that there will be no deceptive winning streak to let the front office try to con fans into believing that there's a chance for the postseason, opening the door to trading a young pitcher for yet another out-making machine.
Making outs is something the Giants are good at. On the rubber, yay. At the plate, it's painful. Here are the OBAs of the batters with the most plate appearances for the Giants, at least those not named Bonds:
Winn .332, Feliz .276, Vizquel .287, Durham .321, Molina .294, Aurilia .286, Klesko .374, Roberts .310.
Those are on-base percentages, not batting averages. Just for comparison, the OBA for the entire NL is .329. That includes pitchers. Congratulations, Ryan Klesko.
It's not entirely bleak. We still have Lincecum, Cain and Lowry to watch. (Lincecum makes me giggle at times, when he makes big leaguers look plain overmatched.) Omar Vizquel in the field is flat-out amazing, still. (Sunday he made a bare-handed grab to start a 6-4-3 double play. At the park, my section was agog, but we were never treated to a replay on the giant screen in center. I know they have the technology to replay these things, since later in the game we got to watch a gigantic Dave Roberts settle under a routine fly ball again, in case we missed it the first time.)
And there's Barry. He's struggling, to be sure, and I wonder how much of it is a mind trick. Take Sunday's game against the Dodgers. He looked bad all game, then came up with two outs in the ninth with the Giants down by two. The Dodgers swung the infield around and pulled the left fielder near Alameda, basically gifting Bonds a free single, just hit it somewhere to the left of the pitching mound. Barry declined. At that point, only one thing mattered -- don't make an out, extend the game. Well, unless you're up there just playing for yourself, that is.
While I was writing an e-mail about Barry Bonds to a Phillies fan, Jon tipped me off to the hottest news yet in the PED universe. Yes, Neifi Perez tested positive. My world has been torn asunder.
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