SFGiantsGuy

Man, I am numb right now. The Giants have been eliminated from the playoffs and I feel yet another year has slipped away from the hometown nine. Another season watching good (but not great) Giants baseball only to fall short, as per usual. Another close but no cigar year. Ok, I'm saving the above sentence and posting it in about 3 weeks... when the Giants are officially eliminated from playoff contention. Because let's face the facts, the Giants are NOT making the playoffs. The Giants just blew a Jonathan Sanchez gem because newcomer Cody Ross got distracted by a broken bat and overcharged a ball that wound up sailing over his head. That was followed by a Freddy Sanchez throw into the dugout to allow the go ahead run to score and effectively put the final nail in the Giants playoff coffin. It was against the Rockies. In a statement game. When all the other teams the GIants needed to gain ground on lost. They went into the 9th with a 1-0 lead and feeling pretty good....

Oh boy. Is it the curse of #55? There was another young stud pitcher in the Giants organization who wore #55 once before. In his first full season he went 19-5 with a 3.18 ERA and was named to the All-Star team. He was a main cog in a Giants rebirth and he was supposed to be our ace for years to come. He was never the same after that sensational first season. Sure, he had a couple of seasons when he won 15 games but his ERA's never approached sub 4 ever again. That man? Shawn Estes. Now, I'm not completely lumping Shawn Estes and Tim Lincecum in the same boat. Estes is left-handed, Lincecum is right-handed. And even in his 19-5 season, Estes had control problems. His WHIP was a very average 1.30 that year and he walked 100! Lincecum is having his worst season as a pro and his WHIP is 1.34 which would still be Estes's 2nd best. However, these two pitchers share a lot more than just the number on the back of their jersey. Estes was always considered a cerebral p...

So the Giants are leading the wildcard as I post this. They're 2 games back of the pesky Padres. They're opening a 4 game series against the Piniella-less Zambranos and need to have a very good homestand to alleviate some concerns from a less than comforting road trip. Jonathan Sanchez needs to put up or shut up. Emmanuel Burriss is on the team again offering some much needed speed off the bench and we no longer have to sit through Todd Wellemeyer doing his best Brett Tomko impersonations. The Phillies are on the Giants backsides and they're not slowing down. The Cardinals and Reds are swapping first place every day but remain right behind the Giants in the wildcard race as well. And despite the Giants having one of the best July's ever, they're still quite in danger of missing the playoffs for the 7th consecutive season unless they start playing better against quality teams. But before they do that, they need to take care of the inferior ones. And the Chic...

Pat the Awesome inks himself into Giants/Dodgers lore! Great win against the dreck of southern California yesterday. Is it coincidence I write blogs during series with LA? Who knows? So the Giants get their first off day since the All-Star break tomorrow. Hopefully we can savor a home sweep of those deplorable Dodgers. And as we try for the sweep, it's going to take contributions from the guys we had on 7/30. That's because Sabean resisted the urge to trade Jonathan Sanchez and flat out refused to trade Madison Bumgarner. So because of that, the Giants are left with the team we had before the deadline. Well, except this equation: Joe Martinez - Denny Baustista + Javier Lopez + Ramon Ramirez. Sabean does what he always does at the deadline and that is get relief pitchers. Johnny Bowker and Joe Martinez got shipped off to Timbuktu (aka Pittsburgh) for Jason Christiansen, er, Javier Lopez. On the face of it, it looks like Sabean overpaid for a lefty specialist with a c...