Giants Sweep Padres, Announce 2012 Will Be Horrible

This is how hard I don't care. (Courtesy of SabeanMetrics Suparblog)

The Giants had an exciting couple of games. Matt Cain pitched amazingly on Tuesday, the bullpen blew a lead, and the Giants won on a walk-off twelfth inning hit by Mark DeRosa while Carlos Beltran plugged his ears in the dugout and sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" at the top of his lungs. Tim Lincecum pitched amazingly on Wednesday while Carlos Beltran hit is 299th and 300th career home runs, the latter of which was a splash hit. I had a lot to say about these games and how I'm torn between really wanting Beltran to come back in 2012 but he clearly loathes every second in San Francisco.

But after today's win, the Giants announced they were cutting ties with their CEO Bill Neukom, AKA "That guy who oversaw the only World Series title ever for San Francisco." This was shocking, but was topped by the reason given for his dismissal: The owners were not happy with the way he ran the club, pointing out that he increased payroll this year and spent money too freely, when the ownership was hoping they would be building a "rainy day fund for leaner years." This is horrifying, and it basically telegraphs something the Giants fanbase never suspected. The ownership isn't concerned with continued excellence and competition and playoffs. They're concerned with grabbing as much cash as they can before the glow of the championship season wears off. It's not surprising at all when you realize the only reason that people buy and own professional sports teams is to make off with boatloads upon boatloads of cash. But it comes as a real blindside to San Francisco fans, who never suspected for one second that the ownership would turn into Peter Loria West.

Neukom didn't oversee the Zito or Rowand contracts. He was at the helm when that trophy came home to San Francisco. He did everything he reasonably could to keep the team competitive and attempt a repeat this year, and even with a team decimated by injury all season long, they've pretty much ensured every home game was a sellout for the entire season. I don't know what else he could have done. And the Giants brass wants a smaller payroll and a "rainy day fund." It's infuriating and in one fell stroke we can all see the writing on the wall. Next year will not be good. Not at all. Here are the people who are already on the 2012 payroll:

If they're wanting to cut payroll across the board for a rainy day, it doesn't look like long-term contracts for Cain and Lincecum will be a thing to look forward to. It doesn't look like the roster will be shored up in a thin free agent market during the offseason. It doesn't look like the people who own the Giants have any interest in a Giants team that competes and plays to win. It's hard to wrap my head around right now.

Tim Lincecum. Giants Win, 3-0

"You have wounded me, sir. You have cut me to the quick."

Tim Lincecum. Maybe the Giants will only win every fifth day from now on, but that's cool because Tim Motherfu*king Lincecum. Note to Giants pitching staff: if you really want to win ballgames, throw a three-hit shutout. Idiots. Tim Lincecum has given up one ER in his last three starts. Tim Lincecum.

The most tantalizing news stories of the day all happened outside of Joe Robbie Or Whatever It Is Stadium. Andres Torres, not Carlos "I Ain't Played in a Week" Beltran was placed on the DL, thus allowing the Giants to turn on the Bench Signal and shove Brandon Belt onto a 6AM cross-country flight. Bochy was quoted as basically saying "I'll give him five or six at-bats, and so help me, if he doesn't hit at least four home runs he's never playing again." Belt starts today against a decimated Marlins team, so pray for vengeance.

Did I say "decimated Marlins team"? I did! Immediately after the loss yesterday, the Marlins released Wes "Sugar Shane" Helms and optioned Logan "I Haz Twitter" Morrison to AAA. Morrison is one of the few baseball players who says exactly what he's thinking to reporters, so everyone hates him. He's second on the team in HR and third in RBI so why not ship him off to Louisiana? That'll teach him! /loses 40 of next 50 games

So the Marlins have a far weaker team for the series finale today, but Mike Stanton remains. That dude wins ballgames all by himself. My prediction: Stanton hits five walk-off homers in this one, Giants lose the series. Diamondbacks sweep a triple-header, Giants finish today 4.5 games out of first place.

The final tidbit of news is Barry Zito. Last week, Zito was asked to fake that he had re-injured his foot so they could hide him on the DL while they tried to figure out which disastrous fifth starter they were going to stick with for the rest of the year. In Zito's second "rehab start" last night in Fresno, he wrenched his leg or his knee or his likely-fake-but-now-really-injured foot and had to be helped off the field. If you believe in karma, this is what it looks like. I feel bad for Barry Zito, who with any other contract would be the lovable-goofball underperforming fifth starter, but instead is history's second-greatest monster, behind only the reprehensible Jimmy Carter.

Zito's injury reportedly came when he stumbled attempting to cover first base on a grounder, so the only thing that would make this justice more poetic would be if he slipped in a puddle of Brandon Belt's tears.

So You've Decided to Be in Second Place: Giants Lose, 9-2

"Nope, I don't see any hits over here, either."

I'm pretty sure the final score was 9-2. I stopped watching. Why would I do that to myself? This is some Absolute Zero of a team right now, and it's not getting better. The bad news is that the Giants head to Miami and Atlanta to get their clocks cleaned on the road for a while before wrapping things up by losing a series to the Houston Spoilers.

It is important that this is a team that has been ravaged -- and that is the appropriate word, ravaged -- by injuries to key players, and other key players having absolutely catastrophic seasons. Bochy and Sabean are not to blame for what is going on. Well, not entirely, anyway. This is what the universe decided was a fitting repayment for last year's improbable World Series victory. And that's cool. I more or less resigned myself to the Giants missing the playoffs a couple of weeks ago. It's a shame, but it's really pretty admirable they have been able to do so much with so little thus far. This is a team that is dangerously close to fielding a tee as their fifth starter. They can get 15 hits in a game and score less than two runs. They can get three hits in a row with RISP and score none.

The fact that the Astros are giving the Diamondbacks fits indicates that, perhaps, the Diamondbacks are not the unstoppable juggernaut I imagined they were. They hit lots of home runs, and have a Justin Upton, but they're only marginally better than the Giants at this point. They can be caught, and overtaken. There are nearly two months left. But if the Giants miss it, it won't be the end of the world. Posey and Freddy will be back next season. Zito and Rowand will be closer to the end of their deals, if they're still around. Beltran and Ross will likely be gone, which opens up a potential spot for Belt. There's a chance the Giants will acquire an actual shortstop. Given their track record, I'd bet on Jimmy Rollins. Things look a lot better in 2012.

My hope is that things start looking better in 2011. It's hard to imagine things looking worse.

All Hell Breaks Loose, Giants Lose 9-2

Yeah yeah, Shane. Grind bones, make bread...whatever.

When the season started, I genuinely liked the Phillies, with the exception of twin goblins Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez. I despised the vast majority of Philadelphia's insufferable fanbase, but I liked the Phillies just fine. I rankled a bit at their building The Most Infallible and Perfect Baseball Rotation in the History of Everything Ever, with nary a Barry Zito in their midst. But still I didn't really wish them any ill.

After the Giants went to Philadelphia, after the Phillies added Hunter Pence, and after the first two games of this series, I hate the Phillies' guts. I hate every last one of them. Their elevated sense of entitlement and self-importance is seldom seen outside of a Yankees uniform. They are bullies, crybabies, and smuglords all at once. They're going to steamroll their way to a pennant and they're going to smug themselves all the way to the bank.

And why not? Why shouldn't they? If the Phillies were the Giants, I'd be smugging it up right along with them. But I can still hate them, and hate them royally. I still hope they walk all over the Diamondbacks next week, but I also hope they burn in hell. In the absence of a good and non-bankrupt Dodgers team to throw ire behind, the Unbeatable Phillies will do just nicely for the heaping of scorn.

By the way, the Giants won't make the playoffs unless they can score more than two runs per game. Spoilers: they won't begin doing that any time soon. I am already beginning to entertain thoughts of "next year."

Giants Reportedly Visited Cincinnati

File game one under toughluck.xls, add game two to missedopportunities.ppt, and consider game three part of no_offense.exe (with a side of barryzito.doc). Three horrific first innings and we're moving on.

The Giants made great moves well before the trade deadline in acquiring Carlos Beltran and Jeff Keppinger, then panicked and made the most lateral of lateral moves in acquiring Orlando Cabrera, so is Miguel Tejada without the name value. Seriously, their slash lines are almost precisely identical.

Huge, huge, enormous, gigantic series against the Diamondbacks starting today. The Giants are totally capable of losing the NL West to them. It's very, very scary. Here we go.

World Series Champions Defeat Phillies 4-1

The Giants make the Phillies so queasy they get Andy Capp-style nausea bubbles

Today was pretty great. First, the Belt/Burrell rumors weren't true. Then the Padres came back -- twice -- to beat the Diamondbacks, taking some of the pressure off of the Giants. Then Carlos Beltran arrived and said all the right things and didn't look weird in the Giants uniform.

Heck, it almost didn't need a weakened Tim Lincecum to shut down the Phillies for six innings. Almost. Chase Utley can't hit Lincecum. Can't even see him. Jeremy Affeldt? No problem, bro. Utley can crank a double off him no probskis. Lincecum? Utley's standing up there like he's batting against a...g-g-g-ghost!

Beltran went 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts. No worries, pal, don't rush things, we'll take it from here. The Phillies lost their first back-to-back games at home since MAY. The Giants took the series. Feels good, man.

In less-than-awesome news, Brian Sabean today pretty much came out and said that Brandon Belt has no chance of winning the starting first baseman job. That stinks out loud, but now that it's out in the open, it's a little easier. Belt will be coming into games late and getting maybe one at-bat per. It's better than nothing. Huff is bound to have SOME positive regression. He certainly can't get much worse. There's also a tiny, tiny, minuscule chance that Sabes is working on a Zito trade. That would be...well, that would just be spiffy.

But for today, a series win. A four-game lead. A shiny new Beltran. I'll take it.

Phillies Win 7-2, Giants Still World Champions

wheeeee

Look, everyone and their mother knew that the Giants were losing the Barry Zito start. It just wasn't supposed to be game one. Tim Lincecum was scratched on account of the flu, and the Phillies ended up hitting five home runs last night, one of them an inside-the-park job by Chase "have you heard of this band Social Distortion? they're like my favorite punk band" Utley.

As I watched tater upon tater leave the yard last night, and as I watched the Giants get three-hit by Vance "Clarence" Worley, I became numb, and greatly thankful that we were just getting the Zito game over with. He even had the good grace to go seven innings, saving the bullpen for the remainder of the road trip.

So maybe the Giants can still win a game this series. Maybe they'll stop sucking. Because the Padres shat the bed last night against the Diamondbacks, and the NL West could find itself in a tie for first in short order the way things are going.

Guessing that both Aaron Rowand and Aubrey Huff start today. Rowand had a pinch-hit homer and Huff drew a walk. Gotta play the hot hand, Bochy.

P.S.: Hey Giants. START HITTING.

- Bill

Barry Zito Returns to Form, Giants Lose 11-3

Well, at least it's always fun to see a live baseball game, regardless of the outcome. Let's try it again today.

GAME TWO: Giants 6, Cubs 3: what is this i don't even

Show a little decorum Cody, geez.

Thankfully, the "expecting the worst" approach worked pretty well. Barry Zito only gave up two runs on an unfortunate homer, which is better than most were expecting. The Giants scored 19 runs in two games today, which not only brought them back to a positive run differential, but also took them from dead last in the majors in terms of offense, to fifth-worst. A momentous day, to be certain.

So the Giants have won seven in a row now. Somehow. Literally everyone got a hit today (except Barry Zito, but let's not be silly dudes). Manny Burriss got his first extra-base hit since 2007. Cody Ross and Pablo Sandoval barely -- BARELY -- missed home runs. The Giants are still kind of lousy at getting hits with runners in scoring position, but on the other hand, Nate Schierholtz is a two-strike clutch-hit machine.

Something else that's come out of the past week: Chris Stewart. He got called up to be Eli Whiteside's backup catcher when that whole...you know... thing went down. The line on him was that he was a good defensive catcher who was slightly worse than Eli Whiteside with the bat. (Which is kind of like saying that a dude with his upper body on fire is slightly less on fire than a guy with his whole body on fire.) But Whiteside kept letting every ball get past him, couldn't throw out a single base runner, and hit Eli Whiteside-level bad. He caught like four games in a row a couple weeks ago and then went "Oh, my body," and sat in a tub of ice for a bunch of days. While old greyhead was trying to keep his kneecaps from sliding down into his feet, Stewart started a mess of games, blocked tons of pitches, hosed all kinds of fools (seriously, he has a major cannon), called spectacular games, and his fist pumps got the fans and his pitchers fired up, all while hitting well above the Eli Whiteside line. As a bonus, his face is way less punchable than Eli's, which is nice. The Giants still have their eye on Yorvit Torrealba or whoever because they clearly need a real, actual catcher, but I am a huge fan of Stewart now. I'll take him over Whiteside, even though Whitey once hit a grand slam, and that was pretty neat. Also, his nickname is "Whitey."

RYAN. VOGELSONG. Giants Win, 2-1

Pat found those "rad stilts" at a church rummage sale and it tickles him so.

Ryan Vogelsong, man. Dude is...amazing. McCovey Chronicles puts it succinctly:

"Juan Marichal never had a run of six straight starts allowing one earned run or fewer. Neither has Tim Lincecum. Gaylord Perry or Carl Hubbell never did it.

Ryan Vogelsong."

Why this dude isn't in every conversation about best pitcher in the NL is completely beyond me. Dude is an enormous upgrade over Zito and the one and only good-news Giants injury story this season.

As the Giants were being no-hit through six innings, I found myself thinking that Pablo Sandoval's imminent return in the next week is the longest wait for offense ever. Today's come-from-behind win alleviates that a little. Tejada had two hits, Huff had none. Belt is on the disabled list along with basically everyone.

The Giants are still winning ballgames and it is pretty awesome when they do, and unbelievably frustrating when they don't. So it goes. I'll take a series win over the loathsome Rockies any day. The stupid Diamondbacks won't stop winning ballgames, and even though the Nationals -- maybe the second-worst team in baseball right now -- are coming to town tomorrow, the Giants will probably be lucky to take two of three given the state of this friggin' team.

Giants vs. Nationals tomorrow. Lincecum on the hill. PRAY FOR JUSTICE

Buckle Up

The Giants managed to avoid sweeping the Diamondbacks yesterday, thanks to Michael Tejada and others. Thankfully, they looked real good taking two of three in the desert. Aubrey Huff got his first home run of the year out of the way, and Posey and Kung Fu Panda are looking amazing. Sandoval is, at-bat by at-bat, erasing the horrid memory of his performance last season. The defense is looking less clanktastic with every outing, with the exception of the aforementioned Tejada. The hottest hitter on the Giants is -- you guessed it -- Aaron "Frank Stallone" Rowand.

The bad news is that this afternoon, the Giants open a series in Colorado. Historically, whenever the Giants visit Bland Humidor Stadium, the Rockies take turns eating the Giants' lunch and cleaning the Giants' clocks in a brisk, workmanlike fashion. Troy Tulowitzki will hit a minimum six home runs over the next three games. That's carved in stone.

The other bad news is the Giants 6-7-8 hitters. Burrell is hitting .190 with 8 hits, 4 HR and 4 RBI (yep). Brandon Belt has entrenched himself at the Mendoza line, and unless he explodes out of it in the next few days, he's the only player it makes sense to send down when Cody Ross returns. And then there's the six million dollar man, Mike Tejader.

Meanwhile, back at the "the Giants don't have a backup starter if one of their rotation gets injured," Barry Zito injured himself. After throwing two innings of exceedingly Barry Zito pitching, Zito dove ("collapsed" would be a better descriptor) for a bunted pop-up and his foot exploded. The upside is that the Giants bullpen has been playing out-of-their-minds good lately, notably Guillermo Mota, Sergio Romo, and Ramon Ramirez. (Not Jeremy Affeldt.) The Giants bought the contract of prodigal son Ryan Vogelsong, who had been overachieving in Fresno thus far this season. Best-case scenario: Dr. Sam Beckett has leaped into Vogelsong's body and can't leap again until the Giants release Zito and/or win the World Series again. Worst-case scenario: it can't possibly be worse than last year's Wellemeyer experiment.

Tim Lincecum is pitching today. Cause for hope and joy in the most fearful and jaded of men. Please also note that last year in Colorado, he suggested the Rockies were trying to slip him a juiced ball. Will there be a fight? Who knows! Let's play some home run derby!

- Bill

Two notable Joe West gifs, and oh yeah also a triple play if you are into those

First, Joe West ejects Barry Zito's mustache:

Next, we have Melky Cabrera high-fiving Joe West, who was really just signalling that time had been called, but Melky was like "even so, I can't leave him hanging":

Finally, I searched -- both high and low -- for an animated .gif of the Indians 3-4-6 triple play from Sunday's game, but, alas, all I have for you is video. Go here, click "video," and scroll down. If you are like, "fuck you, I know how to use the internet," then we have nothing more to say to each other.


Anyway, that must have been really nice for all eight Indians fans that have been showing up so far.


KS

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