When I woke up on this fine Sunday morning, I was expecting to hear about baseball games and score updates. Maybe even something from Europe as the Premier League and La Liga start up this weekend.

What I didn’t expect, and probably never would have expected in — oh, I don’t know — fifty billion years, is the following post title from Hardball Talk:

Melky Cabrera bought a website and dreamed up a fake supplement in an attempt to beat his PED suspension

Uh. » Continue reading “The Tale Of Melky Cabrera And Fake Websites”

(Photo: cal_gecko/Flickr)

A couple years ago, the Giants had owned the neighborhood. Street corners, front stoops, the drive-in, the drug-store, the YMCA; wherever you went in the West Side, if you saw a fella coming in black and orange, you stepped lively out of his way. Buster had moved in then, in those glory days, and by the time he’d been there two months his girl was wearing a black leather jacket and his beat-up old jalopy had Giants spray-painted on the hood. He didn’t so much fit in as take over, and even if he wasn’t exactly the leader by name, everyone knew he was the guy. Someone had to be the guy, and Buster was it.

Even the rumble with the Fish didn’t really stop him. Sure, it was an ugly year on the West Side; Buster was in and out of the doc’s while one by one, the guys who’d welcomed him into the gang dropped off the face of the earth. It got too hot around the neighborhood for Cody’s old man or Andres’s girl, and Pat shocked them all by going off to college (though the word was he had a social disease and just wanted a new pool of girls). Aubrey hung around, but he was kind of a mess, too old to rumble and too young to really figure out his life. So when Buster finally got off his crutches and came back to the block, it was just him and the lifers – Timmy pushing tea on the corners, cool-headed Matt who was in charge if anyone was, Madison still daring people to ask him if he had a girl’s name, and the rest. » Continue reading “Giants Recap: Rumble”

What happens now in the days following Melky Cabrera’s suspension from baseball? (Photo: Keith Allison/flickr)

I’ve been sitting at my computer trying to find the right words to say about the news.

I’m shocked and angry and, obviously, this isn’t something anyone wanted to hear in the middle of August with less than 50 games left to play.

I found out through the multiple texts I received. It could’ve just been a couple of non-Giants fans wanting to play a joke on me and, hey, fine, whatever. I’ll get back at them with a joke on them. But it wasn’t. The texts were from Giants fans.

Flip the channel to MLB Network, hop on the computer to get on Twitter. There was nothing pleasant to see.

This was nothing like learning that Guillermo Mota was suspended for 100 games for taking a PED. That was Guillermo Mota, a player who’s easily replaceable in the bullpen and even more so because he wasn’t off to a great start. The PED in question was an ingredient in children’s cough syrup.

It read more like a joke than anything else. Mota? Suspended for children’s cough syrup? Second offense? Is this The Onion?

It’s not like that this time. » Continue reading “Making Sense Of The Melky Cabrera News”

It doesn’t seem that it was long ago when the Nationals were known for being the Natinals thanking you for your patients, but they’ve certainly come a long way since those days.

Currently, they’re the best team in baseball — who’da thunk that when the season began? They’re currently leading the NL East by 4.5 games.

Not too shabby for a team that was always in the bottom of the NL East for the past few years. » Continue reading “Series Preview: Giants vs. Nationals”

As I took in this sporting contest, I found myself confronting a slowly creeping sense of dread, similar to the mood built during the third act of a penny-dreadful or “thriller” moving picture. This is a sensation familiar to anyone who has experienced what the denizens of Denver mockingly refer to as Base-Ball, which looks deceptively like the game enjoyed by the rest of this great nation but contains explosions of run-scoring offensive to true Base-Ball Enthusiasts. At any time, otherwise innocent pitches can find their trajectory suddenly reversed and heightened, transformed into the abominable “Home Run.” Truly, what horrors hath science wrought? » Continue reading “Giants Recap: What Is This Dingerized Madness”

dat curveball (Photo by -nanio-/Flickr)

The Giants could’ve messed up somehow, but they didn’t.

When the bases were loaded in the top of the 7th with two out, Tim Lincecum threw a beautiful changeup — struck out David Wright looking. It kept the score at 3-1 Giants and, man. That pitch was beautiful.

Timmy went seven innings, gave up only one run, walked one, struck out seven. This is with Buster Posey behind the plate.

If this is supposed to be any indication that Timmy and Posey don’t get along, I sure as hell ain’t buying it.

There were some defensive snafus, but nothing that was of consequence in the end. Which was nice, after all the nerve-wracking pitches that came before it, of course. Gosh darn it, that was stressful.

There was also a bunt single from Melky Cabrera. Is there anything he can’t do? » Continue reading “Giants Recap: Giants Not Metsy Enough To Lose”

2008 Tim Lincecum (Photo: matt knoth/flickr)

Well, for the 735th time this season, the Giants took the first two games of a 3-game series and then gleefully punted the third off the side of the team bus. It tempts one to call into KNBR with a grand unified theory, linking the dropped third games, struggles with RISP, and Lincecum’s inability to put batters away into some Masonic-psychological conspiracy of clutch failure. I’ve got my big blackboard and my wall papered with scribbled sticky notes. Let’s do this. » Continue reading “Giants Recap: Tim Lincecum Is Exaggerrated Parody Of Self”

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

Read the title. That’s really all you need to know. Buster Posey is all that is good and right with the world. His average is hovering ever closer to .300, he’s Captain America Clutch, and we, as Giants fans, have nothing to do but feel bad for the twenty-nine Buster Posey-less teams toiling in anguish around this great country. Sympathy and kindness to those less fortunate is what Buster Posey would want, after all.

Other things we learned today:

• Barry Zito likes run support. He’s something like 11428974-7 when getting four runs of support or more. Roughly. It’s a number like that.
• Buster Posey can, in fact, catch Barry Zito. Not that I doubted that, but I’m sure someone did.
• Melky Cabrera just hits, nerds.
• In semi-related news to the above, Jonathan Sanchez was designated for assignment by the Kansas City Royals today. Huh. Sorry, let me close this Baseball Reference page so I can focus.
• Hector Sanchez can continually foul pitches off his leg and be mostly fine, but an awkward move back to first to avoid a pick-off is too much. The baseball gods are fickle. Luckily it’s apparently just a sprain to his left knee and they don’t think a roster move will be necessary, though a definite decision should be made after an MRI tomorrow. Feel better, Baby Panda.
• Absolute drubbings of a team that’s actually good are always fun, but they’re extra fun when it happens 1) on a Barry Zito start and 2) to snap that team’s seven game winning streak.
• Buster Posey is good at baseball. Did I mention that yet?

Ryan Vogelsong takes on Mike Minor tomorrow night in game two of the series.

Challenge accepted. (Photo: Jill Clardy/Flickr)

I almost don’t want to spoil how good that win feels by talking about the details too much, so I won’t.

The Dodgers lost. The Giants won. Clayton Kershaw pitched and gave up earned runs at AT&T Park for the first time since roughly the Reagan administration. Ryan Vogelsong was one bad mother. Melky Cabrera hit the snot out of the ball. Buster Posey continued to have his Havin’ It Meter set to “ain’t”. It was good. It was real good.

Fingers crossed for another Happy Lincecum Day tomorrow and a move into first place.

*The last time the Dodgers were shut out in back to back games in San Francisco was August 15-16, 1987. 

Did you know that if you do an image search for "adios pelota" under free to use licensing, you get this?

In the 8th inning, Ryan Vogelsong was taken out of the game after allowing back-to-back singles. Double plays could’ve been turned to get out of the inning, but alas, two inherited runners scored,despite Javier Lopez’s and Sergio Romo’s — and the infield’s — best efforts.

With the way the Giants’ offense can be terribly inept, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that they lost the game because two runners scored in the 8th. Except that wasn’t the case, because Vogelsong was pretty okay. Actually, more than okay. Prior to the back-to-back singles in the 8th, he only gave up two hits and three walks.

This marks Vogelsong’s ninth straight quality start and the eighth straight game where the Giants won a game that he started. That ain’t bad for a back of the rotation guy.

And even better? Vogey didn’t get Cained.

The Giants managed to score four runs — homers included!

Buster Posey hit a solo home run in the 2nd inning to give the Giants the early lead. Angel Pagan scored on a Joaquin Arias sac fly in the 4th. Melky Cabrera hit a two-run bomb in the 8th inning to make it 4-0.

Four straight games where the Giants hit home runs.

That’s quite awesome, if you ask me.

(Now, please, just continue to hit homers, Giants. You look more competent when you do so.)