This has been my face for the past hour, minimum.

Tim Lincecum put together yet another off kilter start, the defense was shaky, and I had already made the decision to recap this game with a sarcastic paint graphic by about the sixth inning.

And then Xavier Nady and Hunter Pence hit the first home runs that Huston Street has given up all year and suddenly the Giants won.

Baseball just wanted to remind us all that we shouldn’t get too comfy about our expectations of how games will go, apparently.

On the surface, today was your fairly run of the mill baseball game. The Giants won. Zito was acceptable. The outcome wasn’t really all that important in terms of the W-L record, but it was in a number of small ways.

Buster Posey thanks you for helping him protect America from hung breaking balls. (Image via the fine folks at McCovey Chronicles.)

• Bochy played a round of “how many places can I weaken the defense and still score more runs than the other team”, and he won. This time. Let’s all pray that the parade of less than ideal defensive alignment plus the ever present looming of Bad Zito today was enough to remind Bochy that this team was built around pitching, defense, and speed, and that weakening those, especially in MULTIPLE places, is not a good plan.
• Buster Posey is now your NL batting title leader*. Whether you think traditional stats are particularly useful or not, you can’t deny that hitting 100 RBI and winning the batting title goes a long way towards his MVP resume in the minds of a lot of voters. (*If you grant that Melky can take himself out of the running for a statistical title and not a voted award, of course.)
• Matt Cain said he wants another parade. The universe does not deny Matt Cain, so I’m feeling pretty good about the Giants’ chances as they prepare for the NLDS.

The Giants head to Southern California to wrap up their regular season, before (most likely) heading home next week to start their division series against (most likely) the Reds.

(via you’vejustbeenCAINED at SB Nation)

With the magic number down to one prior to the first pitch, Giants fans were waiting in anxiousness to see if their team would clinch the National League West tonight.

They did. They beat the San Diego Padres 8-4.

Go out and celebrate Gangnam Style, folks. They’re in for a big October.

The Giants won, the magic number is down to two. But the biggest thing about tonight’s game?

My new list of professional goals a) call another World Series b) work the Final 4 c) get Jon to sing “Heeeyyy sexy lady” on air

— Dave Flemming (@FlemmingDave) September 22, 2012

Make it happen, David Bee. Make it happen.

Update: Now with video, thanks to a YouTube user!

With the magic number down to three, the Giants will be trying their hardest to clinch the NL West this weekend — or at least, a playoff berth.

This weekend marks the last regular season weekend series the Giants will have at AT&T Park. They face the San Diego Padres, who have long since been eliminated from playoff contention.

Hey — at least there’s no Mat Latos to face this year. But also no Jonathan Sanchez around to hit triples off of Latos.

But the Giants have been running as strong as they can and are 10 games up on the Dodgers.

The only question left is whether or not they’ll be able to keep this up throughout the playoffs, should they make it far.

The focus this weekend, though, will be on aiming to clinch and keeping a good lead on the Dodgers.

Willie Mac Award winner Buster Posey has been making a case to be MVPosey this year, with good reason. Tonight, he’ll be honored in a ceremony and presented with the award.

Ryan Vogelsong, Madison Bumgarner, and Tim Lincecum will be starting for the Giants in this series.

The Padres have been the Good Padres as of late, which is rather similar to the Bad Padres of this past season.

You could say that the Giants have a chance to clinch this weekend. But it’s the Giants and anything is possible. Would be great to see the clinch happen as soon as possible, but they just need to keep winning.

As was announced by the MLB twitter today, the 2013 tentative schedule has been released to the public.

The interleague teams the Giants will face throughout the season include the Athletics at home and away, the Blue Jays away and at home, the Rays away, the Orioles at home, the Red Sox at home, and the Yankees away.

Opening Day at AT&T Park is on April 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The games against the Athletics uses an interesting format — two games at home from May 27-28 and then two games away from May 29-30. That’s one different way to create a series, I suppose.

You can find the rest of the schedule online here.

And now the Giants interrupt your regularly scheduled handegg contest with these important messages.

Kershaw scratched, Blanton starting.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) September 9, 2012

Kershaw has hip injury but expects to start Tuesday against the Diamondbacks.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) September 9, 2012

Zito-Blanton. Now THAT is how you steal the spotlight from the first NFL Sunday.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) September 9, 2012

Can you imagine that? Barry Zito versus Joe Blanton on ESPN? And a big rivalry game like this?

Giants and Dodgers best be trollin’ the nation here. They best be trollin’.

BEAT LA (Photo: Jill Clardy/Flickr)

So the Giants are on national TV once again. Awesome. Cool. Fire up the radio and try to get it to sync with the TV. Not a problem.

Oh, this time it’s the Giants vs. Dodgers game.

And what if the radio can’t sync with the TV?

Doom, doom, doom. Amirite?

But fear not, because it could be worse. I mean, a booth of Tim McCarver, Eric Karros, and Joe Morgan may exist and call the Giants game. (NO ONE MAKE THIS HAPPEN. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF PAC BELL PARK, PLEASE DON’T MAKE IT HAPPEN.) » Continue reading “How To Deal With A Rivalry Game On ESPN”

If I were to judge how last night’s game went according to Twitter, I would assume it would be something to this effect:

1. Okay, it’s Vogelsong, there’s a chance. WOO GO VOGELSTRONG.
2. WE’RE DOOMED. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.
3. OMG TIE GAME TIE GAME
4. WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE
5. OMG A CHANCE
6. WE’RE DOOMED
7. WE’RE DEAD
8. THE GIANTS ARE DEAD
9. THIS SEASON IS OVER
10. THEY WILL NEVER WIN AGAIN

Which, y’know, it sucks to lose, but there’s still about a month of regular season baseball left to be played. » Continue reading “That Giants Game Last Night Through The Eyes Of The Internet”