Presented Without Comment

““I didn’t think he’d be that dumb about cutting hamburgers apart. I guess he proved me wrong.””

- Madison Bumgarner on Jeremy Affeldt and “the stabbing”

Tim Lincecum Deserves So, So Much Better Than This

The Giants scored a run in the bottom of the first inning. They didn't score again. Tim Lincecum allowed one run through eight innings, but the Giants lost. That's how it goes. That's how it goes all the time. I'm wondering whether Tim just counts the days until free agency. I'm wondering whether he's so frustrated at this point at the complete ineptitude of this franchise ever being able to get him some run support that he refuses to sign any sort of long-term contract with the team.

The Giants looked real bad on offense tonight, which is probably the least surprising thing ever. Here's a list of players the Giants didn't use tonight: Sergio Romo, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Andres Torres, Mike Fontenot. Here's a list of players the Giants did use tonight: Orlando Cabrera, Justin Christian, Brett Pill, Mark De Rosa.

Oh, it would be remiss of me not to mention: Jeremy Affeldt is out for the season after cutting himself trying to pry apart frozen hamburger, and Chris Stewart hurt himself taking a lead off of first base.

Honestly: what the fuck is wrong with this team?

RIP Jeremy Affeldt, Death by Hamburger.

Braves Beat Brian Wilson, 5-4

/metaphor

The Giants played a good game, but Brian Wilson blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. For once, the blame rests solely on two people: Brian Wilson, for being an awful pitcher who relies almost entirely on luck and generous calls in pressure situations, and Bruce Bochy, for sending Wilson out to begin with, and not putting in Jeremy Affeldt to face the left-handed Freddie Freeman with two outs and the bases loaded, still up by one run. Affeldt was warmed up and ready. Wilson was not well enough to pitch yesterday. I called the blown save the second the ninth inning began. A Brian Wilson at 100% I have little to no confidence in. A less-than-100% Brian Wilson is just willfully driving your team's bus off a cliff. I get needing to stick with your players so they don't lose confidence, but you're in a pennant race.

Well, you were in a pennant race. This is the night the Giants lost a playoff berth. Mark it down. The players were visibly losing confidence by the day and they needed this win in the worst way. I say it again: in the worst way. I don't see them bouncing back from this, even though the Diamondbacks will almost certainly be humbled by the Phillies in the coming days.

This is terrible. This has ruined everything.

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.

what did i miss

Yep, that's sixteen strikeouts.

My vacation did not begin well for the Giants. Although they took two out of three in the desert and left the godless wasteland of Arizona 1.5 games in first place, little did they know that their offense was about to completely crater (I mean moreso), and they would be swept by the A's in Oakland before returning home, where Madison Bumgarner pitched an historically awful third of an inning and left the game in disgrace. They dropped that first game against the Twins, their fifth straight loss, and fell a game and a half behind the Diamondbacks.

But then, thanks to the Twins playing like their gloves were made of radioactive scorpions, the Giants took the next two games and the series. Then the Indians came to town, and played the first game of the series like their gloves were made of a Twins player who had a glove made of radioactive scorpions. The second game of the series was won on two errors and a clutch balk. Brian Wilson racked up four saves in four days.

If you caught the Giants' nationally-televised game last night, you might be fooled into thinking that the G-men have a thoroughly average offense. Do not be fooled. They have a pathetic offense worthy of all the ridicule they receive. But the pitching. Sweet sassy molassy, that beautiful bean pitching.

Tim Lincecum shook of his shaky-start streak and hurled a seven-inning, 12-strikeout classic. Madison Bumgarner went "LOL what Twins game" and struck out a career-high 11 batters through seven innings while giving up one earned run. Ryan Vogelsong keeps being Ryan Vogelsong v2.0, which is fantastic. The bullpen has played out-of-their-minds good since that awful, awful Bumgarner start. Jeremy Affeldt has pulled the craziest 180 of any previously-lousy bullpen guy I've ever seen. He pitched two innings yesterday and struck out five of the seven batters he faced on something like 20 pitches. The Indians had absolutely no idea what was going on. The drone of the ESPN announcers faded away and every time Affeldt threw, there was a massive explosion sound. It was...phenomenal.

So the Giants have a Major League-best five-game winning streak going on, have the second-best record in baseball since May 3, and are (thanks to Neil's Tigers) once again in first place, all while scoring -2 runs over the past ten games. Perhaps best of all, tomorrow brings that most special of gifts: a double-header at Chicago. This is a crazy season of baseball, everyone. I hope it never ends.

- Bill

WHAT IN THE: Giants Defeat Nationals 5-4 in 13 Innings

"Shpedoinkle!"

Unsustainable. Unbelievable. I don't know what the hell that game was. Time Lincecum struck out five batters through two innings, giving him exactly 1,000 career strikeouts (the fastest pitcher ever to 1K Ks), and then forgot what is a baseball game and coughed up four runs in the next two innings. I knew there was no way -- just no way -- that the Giants would score any runs in this game. Not with Tejada and Rowand taking up spots in the lineup. Not with Aubrey Huff being 0-for-13 since his three-homer game.

But the Giants scratched out four runs in the seventh and eighth innings. Even more importantly, the Giants bullpen was immaculate, combining for eight scoreless innings. Even Jeremy Affeldt -- who is basically just a left-handed can of kerosene -- had the best 1.2 innings I've ever seen him pitch.

It was an amazing, improbable game of the type that only the Giants have been able to crank out for the past two seasons. AT&T Park is filled with some insanely potent pixie dust (eight walk-off wins so far this season), but the Giants are in desperate need of offense, and soon.

Here's a rundown of the ways the Giants did NOT win last night's game.

- First Inning: Andres Torres gets a leadoff single. Freddy Sanchez walks with one out. The Giants do not score.

- Fourth Inning: Cody Ross gets a leadoff walk. The Giants do not score.

- Sixth Inning: Michael Tejada gets a leadoff bunt single. The Giants do not score.

(Now it gets silly)

- Ninth Inning: Andres Torres gets a leadoff walk. The Nationals pitcher couldn't locate the strike zone if he was Geordi LaForge bitten by a radioactive spider. Tejada delivers the hardest bunt I've ever seen on a 2-0 pitch, which should have been a double play, but first baseman Michael Morse goes for the force at first. Runner on second, one out. Pitcher is still effectively wild, and walks Freddy Sanchez as Torres steals third. Runners at the corners, one out. Cody Ross hits an easy double-play grounder, but the shortstop throws home and cuts down Torres. The Giants have runners on first and second. The Giants do not score.

- Tenth Inning: The Giants get a one-out single by Brandon Crawford, who takes second on a wild pitch. The pitcher is all over the zone this inning, but gets the .000-batting Chris Stewart to chase and strike out. Runner on second, two outs. Jeremy Affeldt comes to the plate and takes basically the ugliest swing in history at a ball a foot over his head. He looks at the next five pitches and takes his first walk since 2003. HIS FIRST WALK IN EIGHT YEARS. Runners on first and second, two outs, and Pudge Rodriguez is looking like the Canucks goalie behind home plate as every pitch is bouncing around like crazy. Still, Andres Torres swings at balls four, five, and six, and strikes out to end the inning. The Giants do not score.

So yeah, in terms of sheer ineptitude and feebleness with the bats, it's no wonder the Giants are constantly flirting with a negative run differential. It's no wonder that the vast majority of their games are one-run affairs. They invent whole new ways of not scoring on a daily basis. Luckily, Stewart was able to not swing at pitches in the 13th and get a leadoff walk, Tejada was able to run just fast enough to turn a double play into a fielder's choice, and Freddy Sanchez was able to flip a single into right field for the win.

Or maybe it's not lucky at all. Both teams were out of bench players and nearly out of pitchers. Bochy said after the game he was going to ask Tejada to pitch an inning when his bullpen ran out. That would have almost made TJ's contract worth it. Almost.

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.