Giants-Nationals Series Recap

We see Michael Morse in his natural habitat. Here, he appears to be trying to cup the buttocks of young Bryce Harper. Also Ryan Zimmerman is ugly.

           I spent the past weekend in Atlanta to visit some family for vacation. As you probably know, this particular city received the moniker “Hotlanta” because it is hot and the city is named Atlanta. Last weekend it was hot. Hot however, is a vague and relative word. I mean, hot in the Bay Area is about 60 degrees. It is very hot in the Bay Area this week. Polar Bears think air conditioning warms up a room and Lava Monsters wear their thermal jackets in Death Valley. Hot is all relative. However, in Atlanta, hot doesn’t begin to describe the temperature for a human being. During last weekend, if you were for some reason standing outside licking a popsicle while dipping your fist in a jar of ice cream, you would still be pouring sweat. It was consistently in the 100-105 degree range, and I couldn’t tell if that was Fahrenheit or Celsius. I couldn’t stand outside for more than 10 seconds without a creating a small pond of sweat that ducks mistaken for home. Being outside was absolutely miserable and for even a couple minutes became unbearable.

            This same heat wave that swallowed up the greater Atlanta area, reached Washington D.C. just in time for the Giants on Tuesday.




            Before the Nats returned home for the series, they were in Atlanta last weekend for a series against the Braves. What lucky ducks! I couldn’t stand a millisecond in the heat, but the Nats and Braves got to play 3 hours of a baseball game! For a pitcher especially, I can only imagine what it feels like to being swinging your arms and legs 75-100 times a game while trying to throw a baseball as hard as you can without shade. There are no trees on a pitchers mound. Stephen Strasburg pitched last Friday in Atlanta, and he made it through 3 innings before having to exit the game because of “heat fatigue.”

            I’m not saying all this heat stuff to make an excuse for Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner and the 15 ER combined they gave up combined in the first two starts. I’m not saying it’s what made Matt Cain wear down in the later innings of game 3. It’s not as if the Nationals were playing with ice packs underneath their uniform, while the Giants were left to suffer. And it’s hard to say they are more used to it than the Giants because Strasburg pitches in the dang city and he couldn’t bear to pitch in similar weather in Georgia.  Sure, some Nationals pitchers could deal with the heat better than Strasburg, and are more adapted to it. But that probably holds true for most teams, that some pitchers are better throwing in heat than others. But the reason I bring up all this heat, is that Bumgarner, Lincecum and Cain could be those pitchers. It’s entirely possible that these three have been pitching in ideal temps in San Francisco and other cities for the majority of the season and are now struggling since they had to switch to a sweltering sauna disguised as a ballpark.

            It wasn’t the heat that gave up 5 homeruns combined by the two pitchers. Lincecum tossed up a Marie Calenders ice cream cake curveball to Jordan Zimmerman, and there’s no excuse for doing that especially when it’s the pitcher slapping a double to right. Bumgarner is a strike thrower and there are times when that’s going to come back to bite him. Yet it’s hard to think that the heat is not affecting a guy like Lincecum when by the 2^nd inning it looks like he went to Water World wearing his baseball uniform. I don’t know enough about Bumgarner’s physical ability to deal with heat, but it’s a possibility that the heat fatigued him fast and that was just enough for him to miss with his spots enough to where the Nationals could play pepper with the bleachers in right field. Matt Cain was cruising until the 7^th inning, and the heat could have worn him down faster than the cool air. Again it’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact. Pitchers should be able to pitch through heat and climate is part of the game. It would be foolish however, to say that it might not have been part of the reason all three pitchers pitched below par.

            The ball also seemed to carrying a ton in the series. Emmanuel Burris hit a ball to the warning track! That’s a 5-run homer in my book! Some of those homeruns given up to right field may not have been homeruns on a cooler day. Of course, the Giants could have hit them there also, but that’s a minor detail.

            I’m definitely not working up a fuss about Bumgarner’s performance. For all I know he loves the heat and this is just one of those games that’s going to happen. He group in North Carolina for crying out loud, and it is not cool there. Cain will be fine as well, he’s also a southern boy, growing up in humid heat.

But Lincecum I have no clue. His FIP is still just .05 points lower than Vogelsong’s. As Jeff Sullivan writes, Lincecum is vintage out of the windup but an atrocity out of the stretch. I’m still certain he’s going to pull through, and I do think heat played a factor in this one. Of course, his success last week might have been because he was facing Junior Varsity lineups. I’ve written too much about this guy tryin’g to figure him out. Remember when he just struck out everyone? That makes writing about him easy. I could just write

Today, Lincecum struck people out and won. 

That is so easy! Now, I’m trying to diagnose him without knowing anything about his psyche. So pretty much I have no idea. Perhaps the All Star break will help. Do we still have to talk about this?

*****

            Remember last week when I wrote about the high point of the season thus far against the Dodgers! Lolololol. We were all so happy! We swept away Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera! We dominated Dee Gordon! Clayton Kershaw? More like Clayton Fart-Shaw! Nate Eovaldi More like Nate not-evolving! Haha! I wrote this!

I've never felt better about a Giants team in my life.

             C’mon am I right? Who’s with me? … Anybody?....... Hello?……….Is this thing on?.... Yeah, not funny. If that series was the best of the year this is by far the worst. Losing on the road is terrible. Getting crushed on the road is awful. Getting swept and crushed on the road is heartwrenching. But losing the way the Giants did in the third game is flat out demoralizing. The play at the end in case you missed it.

            Oops crappy link or something. Except not crappy. Anyways it was bad and by now you can go to sfgiants.com to watch it. 

            Crawford should have made a better throw and Belt probably will tell you he should have dug that throw out. But it’s not like the two of them need to work on that play. Crawford is a good defender and Belt is a good defender. It was a freak play, that probably would get completed 9 out of 10 times.

However, the bullpen is becoming a very real issue. Affeldt looked bad and I don’t have to explain Casilla. The man looked like he was trying to pick up a booby trapped baseball at one point. Who else do you trust in the bullpen now besides Romo? I know you want to choose Shane Loux, but he’s on the DL so try again. Lopez has not been the same this year either. The loss of Brian Wilson hurts more than anticipated, because there isn’t as much depth, and the pitchers we thought could perform are pitching worse than they did last season.

I’m done thinking about this series. Sweeps stink. But it’s just three games. Who do the Pirates have again? Neil Walker? Yeah, I like that. I feel better.