Giants Squeeze Out Series Win, Beat Padres 4-3 in 11th

Cody Ross shows Brian Wilson how many walks he gave up in that half-inning

The suicide squeeze. Bochy almost never uses it, but he used it yesterday, and it was awesome. The Giants tied a San Francisco record with six stolen bases, which they hadn't done since a Mike Krukow start in 1987. The Giants won another extra-inning game against San Diego, but if Eli Whiteside hadn't spent ten second trying to lie to an umpire while a dude was running to first base, it never would have gone past regulation. So it goes with these schnooks. Thank god for Chris Stewart, who executed two perfect sacrifices, including the game-winning squeeze, and started a game-saving 2-5-4 double-play on a bunt in the bottom of the eleventh. Go to hell, Eli Whiteside.

I've been sort of dancing around this all season, but Brian Wilson really isn't that great of a pitcher, particularly in save situations. "More guts than stuff" is pretty friggin' apt, but I have a feeling that bubble is going to burst at any time. I honestly trust him less than literally any other person in the bullpen, including Santiago Casilla and Jeremy Affeldt. If Sergio Romo were the Giants closer, I would breathe a sigh of relief knowing he was coming in for the ninth. With Wilson, it's how many walks and hits he's going to give up before wrapping the thing up. To be fair, he blows (relatively) very few saves, and I really hope for him to do well. When his stuff is working, it's ridiculously nasty, but all too often he is counting on a notoriously wide strike zone, nibbles at corners and ends up walking dudes, and either doesn't trust his filthiest pitches or can't find them. I can't think of a time where Wilson has come in for a save and I've thought, "Oh, we've got this one." Doesn't happen. But I guess that's what makes being a Giants fan so stressful/exciting, and I guess that's more fun and entertaining in the long run than games where you just score a billion runs and don't have to worry about saves at all. Phillies and Yankees and Red Sox and Rangers fans must be just so bored.

I was actively rooting for the Dodgers all weekend, but the Diamondbacks proved too much for them. Now I'm expecting the Dodgers to roll into AT&T and take two of three while stealing all of the guest towels and busking for bus fare back home. The Diamondbacks are hosting the Brewers, who I'm hoping just maul and annihilate them for three straight, but the snakes gave them fits back in Milwaukee, so who even knows any more.

Pennant fever: catch it!

Giants are Completely Awful, Lose 3-0

The extent of the offense.

This was the first game that I nearly couldn't bear to watch. Madison Bumgarner allowed one run through seven innings. The Giants got leadoff walks and got caught stealing by five feet. The Giants got two leadoff hits and didn't score. The Giants had a man on third with less than two out and couldn't bring him in. The Reds scored all three of their runs after there were two out and no men on.

Madison Bumgarner has the third-least run support in the major leagues. He has one lifetime win at AT&T Park. He is the new Matt Cain.

Just absolutely, murderously pathetic. No offense. No offense anywhere. Not in the lineup, not on the bench, not tucked safely inside Brian Wilson's beard. The Giants deserved to lose tonight, and I hope they feel awful about themselves. Because they are awful.

This game made me catch feelings, ladies and gentlemen. Hateful, unchecked baseball feelings.

Two Walk-Off Wins Sandwich Amazing Lincecum Performance, Giants Sweep A's

THIS RULED

Well, that was a hell of a series. The Giants now have seven walk-off wins this season (it is May), and Tim Lincecum is on pace for one million instances of being completely righteous. The Giants have swept three straight series in San Francisco, and are three and a half games in first, thanks to a concurrent sweep of the Rockies by the Brewers. Everyone on the Dodgers is having body parts fall off of or out of them at an alarming rate, and the Padres and Diamondbacks.

Lincecum threw a complete-game three-hit shutout, striking out only six (unusual for him), and hitting 96 and 95 MPH on his last two strikeouts in the ninth, the latter on his 133rd pitch of the game. This dude is every bit as amazing as your typical Halladay or Lee or what have you, and it bears repeating.

Everyone seemed to have a key hit this series, but usually late in the games. It is starting to look like the Giants intentionally save their one or two hits with RISP for a dramatic walk-off. Even sub-Tejada-performing Aubrey Huff had a walk-off single this weekend, for crying out loud.

Pound it, bro. I'm gonna call you Buster Brosey. That cool? Shut up, rook.

The three best at-bats of the home stand were two insanely important singles by Manny Burriss and a monster splash hit by Nate Schierholtz. This is starting to be an exciting team to watch. The only thing that really rankles is Bruce Bochy's head-scratching bullpen management. Although, after YET ANOTHER Jeremy Affeldt meltdown/lead loss today, juxtaposed with two insanely key shutdown innings by Sergio Romo, perhaps the winds of change are blowing.

Giants Strike Out 16, Win 2-0

Ace.

Mercy me but don't these last two games feel wonderful. "Operation: Bat Mike Fontenot Third in the Order" continues to be a rousing success. The mighty little hobbit was 1 for 3 but had two walks, an RBI, a run scored and had by far the best Giants at-bats of the evening. Huff has officially snapped his streak, going 3 for4.

There was a whole section of Giants fans at Citi Field tonight, whooping and hollering the whole game and being generally awesome. If you were at a Mets game, you probably wouldn't cheer the Mets, either.

But of course, the real story tonight is the almighty Tim Lincecum, who had trouble locating early but went seven strong, 128 pitches, 12 Ks, no earned runs. He has now passed Christy Mathewson for the most-ever 10+ K games by a Giants pitcher. Mathewson pitched over 500 games with the Giants. Lincecum has pitched 129. Clearly, Lincecum is way better than Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived. I told you guys to watch, but you didn't listen, did you?

Brian Wilson also looked the best he's looked in a real, real long time, striking out the first two batters he faced on six pitches. He only needed 12 pitches to get the save, and man alive was this ever dominance by San Francisco pitching. The only member of the Mets starting lineup without a strikeout was Carlos Beltran. Even Jose Reyes went 0-for-4 after reaching base six times last night.

The bad news, part one: Giants were 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position. Not terrible news, since it's a lot better than they WERE.

The bad news, part two: Buster Posey has not broken out of his slump quite yet, going 0 for 5 again tonight.

The bad news, part three: obviously, I have to discuss Tejada. He always manages to scratch out one hit a night, it seems, just enough to stay above .200, but it always comes in a worthless situation (2 outs, no one on, pitcher coming up next), or produce the wrong effect (runner on third, infield in, hits a slow topper and legs it out, runner frozen at third). Honestly, whenever he manages to get on base, it seems to kill rallies dead. He's not hitting for power, he's not placing the ball, he's not making solid contact, he lacks the ability to hit a sacrifice fly, and his defense could best be compared to a bucket laying on its side with "Mike" written on the side in magic marker. You'd think I'd run out of things to say about how terrible he is, but here we are.

Giants go for the sweep bright and early tomorrow, then finally head home. Humm baby.

Hilarious Lineup Boosts Giants Over Mets, 7-6

That was a hell of a game, and a different type of game than the Giants have played on the road trip thus far. It's a win they sorely needed, though both the Giants and the Mets took turns trying to give the thing a way. There were a ton of storylines converging in this one, so I'll try to tackle them one at a time.

The Giants lineup was something...different today. Tejada was batting second, Mike Fontenot (of the Shire) was batting third, and the notoriously light-hitting Emmanuel Burriss and Nate Schierholz started the game as well. Given the way the Giants have been hitting -- or more accurately, not hitting -- for the past ten games or so, I honestly thought R.A. Dickey was going to pitch a perfect game against them. These Giants of late have two approaches: either hack at the first pitch and make an out, or hack at three pitches and miss them all. According to the tireless Andrew Baggarly, Bochy arranged the lineup according to past success against knuckleballers. Well, okay. We'll get to Tejada in a moment, but the lineup eventually produced key RsBI from Fontenot, Burriss, and pitcher Ryan Vogelsong. The first seven games of this road trip had the Giants going 3-for-42 with runners in scoring position. Last night, they were 5-for-16 with runners in scoring position. That is an uptick, if nothing else.

The Giants did squander an amazing opportunity last night. After Burriss and pinch-hitter Darren Ford reached base with consecutive infield singles, the Giants had runners at the corners with the score tied 6-6 with no one out. The big go-ahead run was ninety feet from scoring. A well-placed ground ball or medium-depth fly ball would score the speedy Burriss. First up was Aaron Rowand, the hot hand of late, who popped out in foul territory just behind first base. Next up was number-two hitter Mike Tejada, who has looked absolutely awful basically since the moment the season began. He made a nearly-sparkling and important defensive play early in the game, but had grounded out weakly in his first three trips to the plate last night. The first ground-out was a one-hopper that landed a few feet in front of the pitcher, who threw on to first for the put-out. Upon hitting that ball, Tejada lunged toward first in an attempt to leg it out, then grabbed at his foot and weakly protested that he had fouled the ball off his toe. No one bought it at all. So here he was, the goat of all Giants, who had not gotten the ball out of the infield all evening, attempting to launch a fly ball and give the Giants the lead.

He popped out to second base.

Next up was Mike Fontenot, who was intentionally walked after Ford stole second. The Mets chose to pitch to Posey instead, and their gambit paid off, as he popped out to shallow center. Bruce Bochy, for the first time I've seen since he's been skipper of the Giants, was FURIOUS at this insanely pathetic display, screaming cusses and kicking at the steps of the dugout. My respect for Bochy grew by about a million percent. I don't know how he kept his composure this long. I would have chased Tejada around the clubhouse with a bat a week ago. To compound Bochy's frustration, Rowand had to come out of the game in the bottom of the ninth with tightness in his back. The only defensive replacement left? Pat Burrell. I was certain the game was about to end after a pair of doubles down the left-field line, especially since LOOGY Javier Lopez was left in to pitch the entire ninth, but got out of trouble nicely.

Ryan Vogelsong did not pitch well, giving up a pair of lead-changing home runs in a back-and-forth game, and having a lot of trouble locating all night. He only lasted four innings, but he did pick up a vital base hit with RISP. He doesn't get that hit and the Giants don't win. He still probably pitched a better game than Zito would have.

The rampant rumors flying around this week are that the Giants and Mets are talking about a potential trade for Jose Reyes, since Fontenot is doing a fine job but is a natural second baseman, and their other "shortstop" is the flummoxed crybaby with "TEJADA" on the back of his road grays. Reports indicate the Mets may be willing to part with Reyes in exchange for pitching prospect Zach Wheeler and a little more. The Giants would probably jump at that if they were also able to get an exclusive negotiating period with Reyes, who becomes a free agent at the end of the year. Still, I'd give up Wheeler to get a worst-case-scenario Reyes rental for the rest of the year. But that's just me. AND EVERY OTHER GIANTS FAN. Reyes, for his part, had to be aware of the rumors, and just to taunt the Giants, he reached base in all six plate appearances last night, going 3-for-3 with 3 walks, a stolen base and some RsBI.

Aubrey Huff snapped a nifty 0-for-20 slump with a huge bomb to right field to lead off the top of the tenth. Thanks to a relatively stress-free bottom of the tenth for Brian Wilson (he went to a full count with only three of the four batters he faced), the Giants had this one in the bag. Simple!

Lincecum is on the hill today, so tune in. Always a potential for something special on Lincecum Day.

JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESUS

woof

That was one of the ugliest, craziest games I have EVER seen. Giants defense allowed 9 walks, 3 hit batsmen, and an error...and two hits. Giants offense got 8 hits, was 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, and got their runs on a solo homer by Eli Whiteside and a pinch-hit bases-loaded walk by Aubrey Huff.

The Giants were doubled off on second base on a 1-4 putout. Yeah, I don't know how to describe it. Brian Wilson recorded a save while giving up two walks and a HBP. Seriously, if you can find a way to watch this game, I recommend doing so. Especially if you're not invested in either the Giants or Nationals. Then you can be free to just laugh and laugh. Jonathan Sanchez and Brian Wilson were effectively wild, but check out that ump's strike zone above. Just ludicrous.

The Giants hottest hitters right now are Aaron Rowand, Eli Whiteside, and Mike Fontenot. Posey snapped his slump today and picked up two hits. You know who's not hitting well right now? Mike Tejada.

Oh, and Pablo Sandoval joins Andres Torres, Barry Zito, and Mark DeRosa on the DL with a broken bone in his right hand. Not...not good. Still, the Giants have managed to win three out of five games on this road trip thus far, so one can only imagine what this team is capable of when they have an offense.

I will require the thirteen following t-shirts

Is it wrong to wax a t-shirt?

When I woke up this morning, I didn't even know retro baseball t-shirts with facial-hair-emphatic silhouettes existed, if you can believe that.  But before I go to sleep tonight I'm going to need, like, pretty well all of them.  You can see them all here.  The Rollie Fingers (above) is pretty tight, but the Mike Schmidt, Randy Johnson, and Ozzie Smith are probably even better.  What I wouldn't give for a Dave Stieb . . . 


KS

Your 2011 San Francisco Giants: Television Stars

As we roll toward spring training, and the reality of my lifelong baseball team winning the World Series in my lifetime not having fully sunk in, the San Francisco Giants will take the field in 2011 looking nearly the same as they did at the end of 2010.

Pablo Sandoval has been spending the past two months wearing Hefty bags while riding a stationary bike in a sauna as Bobby Southworth insults his father. It's all part of "Operation Dumbo Drop 2" or some similarly-named thing. The Panda had a brutally awful 2010, so one of the largest questions about 2011 is whether the dropped weight will result in a return to form, or whether Pablo will eat fifty Buca di Beppo dessert rafts between now and opening day and keep swinging at pickoff tosses to first.

The playoffs and World Series showed that Bruce Bochy is, shockingly, aware of which of his teammates are his best players in any given situation, so hopefully that means Aaron Rowand sees significantly less playoff time. There's also the returning Mark De Rosa, whose wrist disintegrated early in the season, and the newly-signed Miguel Tejada, about whom the nicest thing that can be said is "he's not Eric Chavez."

There's exciting stuff happening in the minors. Brandon Belt is the first baseman of the future, and apparently his swing is like Will Clark's but with the addition of the Red Dead Redemption "Dead-Eye" feature.

The Giants have also signed a deal to have a "24/7"-style show filmed, which will begin airing on Showtime in the second half of the season. Expect it to feature Brian Wilson amping up his "Andy Kaufman-as-baseball player" routine, and plenty of Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell punching each other in their bare dicks.

It's Magic Inside.

- Hanstock