Giants Lose Game to Luck Made Flesh, 6-1

The last time I was ever happy.

Yet again, the Giants had absolutely nothing go their way and absolutely everything go the Diamondbacks' way. Tim Lincecum gave up a massive home run to a rookie and there's your ballgame. Aubrey Huff, in a situation where a ground ball to second base would score a run, grounds out to the pitcher instead, and there's your ballgame. Carlos Beltran absolutely demolishes a line drive to the wall that would score a run, but Justin Upton catches it, and there's your ballgame. The Giants get ball four called on what was strike three, and Justin Upton follows the walk with a home run, and there's your ballgame. Javier Lopez -- lefty killer, lefty murderer, lefty annihilator -- is inexplicably brought in to face six right-handed batters in a row, and there's your ballgame.

The Giants only need to win one of these three games to leave this series in first place, and they're not going to do it. They get swept tomorrow and my despair reaches a new low.

Honestly, the only thing I have to go on right now is that the Giants have had SUCH rotten luck, that it HAS to turn around sometime. But there's no offense here, there's no help on the horizon, there's no help forthcoming, Bochy has lost faith in Andres Torres, he won't start Belt over the abysmal Huff, he won't play Burrell when Burrell returns, and the pitching staff is falling apart.

I don't believe the Giants can turn this around enough to take the division. The Diamondbacks aren't slowing down. They're only getting better. Maybe once the Giants snap this losing streak, my outlook will be slightly better, but the Phillies are coming to town next and it's just going to be an absolute mauling.

Giants Beat Padres 6-1, Move 4 Games into First Place

Andres Torres -- FROZEN IN CARBONITE

Well, Pablo's hitting streak comes to an end, but it's fun winning baseball games by a comfortable margin for a change. I'm sure that will dry up, just like I'm sure Aubrey Huff will continue to roll grounders over to the second baseman and swing at balls in the dirt for strike three. When you're hitting worse than Miguel Tejada, Aaron Rowand, Chris Stewart, Eli Whiteside, and Tim Lincecum, YOU SHOULDN'T BE THE STARTING FIRST BASEMAN. At one point when I was scoring last Saturday's game in San Francisco, Huff was at bat, and I decided to just go ahead and write in "4-3." A pitch later, he came through for me. It's a good thing, since I was keeping score in pen.

In conclusion, FREE BELT.

Giants Win Game of the Year 6-5 in 14 Innings

Nailed it.

This started off as a terrible game. Really, just abysmal. Stranded leadoff runners by the bucketful. Giants swinging and missing at balls bowled slowly underhand across home plate. Everyone not named "Andres Torres" or "Pablo Sandoval" looking like they were swinging a rolled-up wet carpet. Madison Bumgarner giving up five runs. I noted on Twitter that this was a real stinky butthole of a game and a pretty lousy-looking team (in so many words).

These days, it seems like if you want to have your team look like just the best team around, you should play the Giants. The Padres, for seven or nine innings there, looked like they were the Bronx Bombers crossed with the Big Red Machine and huffing Swingin' A's fumes. Driving balls to the gaps, stealing a million bases, striking out the side on one pitch. Nate Schierholtz launched a mammoth home run off of the right field foul pole in the middle innings to bring the Giants within one run, but then the Padres scored again. Two runs? Insurmountable.

But in the eighth inning, Pablo Sandoval crushed a bomb to Triples Alley that he thought was gone. He only ended up with a game-tying double, but it was enough at the time. The Giants bullpen nodded and said, "We got this." Sandoval made just the best possible play to end the top of the ninth inning with a man on third, and the bullpen was off to the races, retiring the last 17 batters they faced. Giants pitchers ended the night with 19 strikeouts and one walk. Think about that for a second. I'll wait.

The Padres and Giants spent the last five innings trying to out-not-score one another, but only the Giants were getting men on base. The bottom of the fourteenth opened with the Padres inserting a pitcher named Pat Neshek, whose delivery can best be described as "oh my god what am i looking at." He hurked and jerked and threw a ball to Nate Schierholtz, then got a swinging strike, then a foul. Just as I was thinking, "Man, wouldn't it be awesome if..." Neshek spasmed and frothed and threw a ball out over the middle of the plate, and Nate Schierholtz hit just the highest fly ball I've ever seen. The Padres right fielder drifted back slowly and settled under it against the wall and... PANGGGG... it bounced off the tin roof top of the wall and into the cove. Juggernate's first two-homer game, and the Giants had their tenth walk-off win of the season.

A lousy game that was a must-win for the Giants became one of the best games I've seen this season. The Giants had this game in the bag multiple times and couldn't put it away. The offense needs at least one bat. The return of Mike Fontenot will be a cause for celebration. Yeesh. But this was a big, big win. What a game.

Giants Hate America, Lose to Padres 5-3

Okay, so now we need TWO hitters.

It should have been closer. Wasted opportunities. It could have been the Giants' tenth walk-off win of the season. Wasted opportunities wrapped inside a thin layer of squandered chances and served atop a bed of regrets.

This was only the third game of the season against the San Diego Banes of my GD Existence. Thanks to the unbalanced schedule, fully 20% of the remaining games are against the Padres. That is not hyperbole. Look it up. One in every five games from here on out is the worst two offenses in the National League trying to out-not-hit one another. The second half of the season is not going to be fun.

No trades forthcoming. The only combo-breaker in the Giants lineup of guaranteed outs is Pablo Sandoval, who is having a historic baseball-mauling streak that is being squandered on the rest of these mandolin-hitting suckbats. 13-game hitting streak, but 9-game extra-base hit streak, which equals the San Francisco team record. He's really brutalizing the ball to all fields and being the bounceback thinner Panda we all hoped he'd be at the beginning of the year. Now he just needs to hope some of that magic pixie dust wears off on Huff, Torres, Ross, and everyone else in the lineup. Tejada and Schierholtz are probably the two hitters in the lineup who aren't swinging at pickoff throws to first. And that is TERRIFYING.

Giants Use Up All Their Runs for the Week, Beat Cardinals 7-3

KABLAMMO

So the Giants actually scored some runs against Genius Tony LaRussa and his Genius Band of St. LaRussas. Andres Torres mashed a grand slam and nearly lapped all the baserunners watching it go over the fence. Cody Ross clobbered a monster home run. Brandon Crawford got a key RBI. Madison Bumgarner was amazing, allowing only two runs, and those only came as the direct result of a horrifically blown call by an ump.

Even Tejada had a couple of singles, which of course came courtesy of the only way Michael Tejada can get a hit these days: a ground ball that manages to barely miss several gloves in succession. I would be worried about the fact that Tejada always seems to just get a couple singles right when his hitless streaks are about to become inexcusable, but beat writer extraordinaire Andrew Baggarly seems to get the impression dude's on the verge of either losing his starting job or getting straight DFA'd as soon as Pablo Sandoval can reasonably swing a bat again, which is a matter of weeks now. With recent call-ups Crawford and Burriss and the stalwart Mike Fontenot all contributing more to the team than Mikey T, it's hard not to agree. Even if you're Bruce "Gritty Veteran Fetish" Bochy.

Speaking of gritty veterans, Aaron Rowand took a pickoff throw directly to the dick yesterday, so he's questionable at the moment for today, but will be starting if his dick feels strong. Why will he be starting? His small sample size past success against today's Cardinals pitcher, of course. Bay City Ball today had a succinct post comparing the projected stats for Rowand against those of Belt. The results may not surprise anyone!

Good to see that the Giants just allowed the Marlins to sweep them in order to lull the Marlins into a false sense of confidence, allowing them to be repeatedly, utterly thrashed by the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. I'm just glad nothing bad happened during that Marlins series!

Anyway, these are the May 2011 Giants. Some days they can't score a single run against a mediocre pitching staff. Some days they hit grand slams. You know what doesn't happen on any days? Aubry Huff contributing. He was 0-for-4 yesterday with a walk, which I guess is good. He drew 83 walks and scored 100 runs in 2010. Baggs points out that in 2011, Huff's on pace for 49 walks and 43 runs. If you remixed all of Huff's at-bats this season into a YouTube video, it would sound like this:

popup popup popup
grounder, double-play
whiff whiff whiff whiff AARGH
popup double-play, weakly hit topper
whiff whiff swinging bunt
*REGGAETON HORN*

Well, That Sucked Part 2

FFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Madison Bumgarner moves to 0-6, Giants snap their winning streak, strike out 11 times against Ryan god damn Dempster, get BABIP'd on both offense and defense, bring in their only terrible bullpen guy to cough up a bunch of insurance runs for the Cubs, and generally look like a bunch of buffoons.

By the way, Madison Bumgarner drew a walk, immediately after Michael Tejada hit a first-pitch ground out. At least Andres Torres looked great.

(Full disclosure: I wrote and posted this in the bottom of the seventh inning.)

Ross the Boss Releases Kraken, Giants Win 3-0, Sweep Rockies

Cody Ross returned from wherever the hell he went, driving in all three Giants runs, included a pink-batted home run, his first of the year.

Ryan Vogelsong continues to be the best Barry Zito replacement ever, pitching five perfect innings. He ended up going six and a third, giving up two hits and a walk, and nothing else. The Giants bullpen continues their dominance, and the Giants captured their first sweep of the season and...get this...their first Sunday win of the season. Happy Mother's Day, Giants fans!

With the sweep, the Giants now sit only one game behind the Rockies in the National League West. Oh, Michael Tejada went 0-for-3. He's now hitting a blistering .195. Andres Torres and Mark DeRosa return from the DL this week. Tejada will probably be "getting some time off," since Operation: Bat Mike Fontenot Third is rolling steadily along.

Andres Has a Posse

The Giants have announced that they settled arbitration (or whatever) with outfielder Andres Torres. Torres, who had a career year and then some in 2010, was an enormous part of the Giants' world championship season, taking over as starting center fielder by mid-season after even Bruce Bochy could no longer ignore that he was knocking the cover off the ball, playing incredible defense, and was literally the only player on the Giants who was capable of stealing a base. By contrast, Aaron Rowand was too busy working on his MekaNeck impression and batting a cool .087, while insisting on playing every fly ball by crashing through the outfield wall, Kool-Aid Man style.

Rowand was paid $12 million last year, and this year he's going to be paid like 0.75 Barry Zitos worth of cash. Torres made $600,000 last year. This year, he'll make $2.1 million, which is more than he's made in his entire major league career combined. I'm happy for the dude, and I hope he continues being the glue that holds the Giants together, and their only bona fide leadoff man. He's no spring chicken, but he's a bargain and, even if his numbers dip, he's going to be worth more and see more playing time than Rowand, who will hopefully be jettisoned to the Diamondbacks mid-season, which is pretty much what he deserves.

- Hanstock