Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Giants Win Because Sometimes You Have To Walk Tyler Pastornicky

By
Baseball
Mike Minor had a perfect game through 4 innings. Remember that? Mike Minor, who has the worst ERA in baseball, worse than Lincecum, had a perfect game through 4. It was like the universe was giving us signs of what was to come. Then Juan Francisco hit a mammoth homerun. There was another sign. Suddenly, you look up, and Eli Whiteside is behind the dish standing up and extending his right arm out as a target like a pitch out signal, except he was doing it before the pitch. Tyler Pastornicky is getting walked intentionally. Go to bed, wake up, drink a nice cup of Coffee, come back to this page and look at the evidence:



That screen shot is everything this game was and still is. Tyler Pastornicky will probably never be walked intentionally for the rest of his career. It’s not like he’s all that intimidating. Tyler Pastornicky rents out one of Dan Uggla’s biceps for a nice island get away. He is, quite literally, the worst Braves hitter available. And yet, he was given first base for free. The Giants looked at Tyler Pastornicky’s sad sorry face and said “hey there, Tyler. Come here lil man. We’re going to walk you OK? Do you know where to go? Well then, off ya go there lil guy. Go on, don’t be shy.” Twitter-verse was rioting in the streets. And how many times have we said it this year, Bruce Bochy’s behind was covered up by a 3 run moonshot by Brandon Crawford. What.

*****
It’s easy to get caught up in the weirdness of this game, as you can see by the first two paragraphs. But Ryan Vogelsong pitched another gem tonight. No, seriously, he was an active member of this baseball competition. He now has 16 quality starts, which ties him for the major league lead. One mistake to Juan Francisco was all the Braves got off Vogelsong, and between him and Zito, Giants starters have allowed 1 run to one of the most talented offensive teams in baseball. Turns out the Giants have a pretty good staff.

*****
You’re going to want to go all Benitez on Santiago Casilla tonight, and you’re probably right to, but we’ve talked enough about Casilla’s struggles on this site. Again, you can pre-order your Jonathan Broxton jerseys at sfgiants.com. The rest of the bullpen pitched an absolute masterpiece. Jeremy Affeldt’s performance was a 2010 NLCS duplicate, and it was the best he’s looked all season. Then there was the ninth inning. Ohhh the ninth inning. It’s not going to look pretty in the box score, but Romo and Lopez did their jobs exceptionally well, sans a Dan Uggla hit by pitch. The trouble was Ryan Theriot fumbling a hot potato, an Eli Whiteside passed ball and a Tyler Pastornicky intentional walk, who went to first base and cuddled with his .288 OBP. If anything, this inning gave me more confidence in the pen. Romo sent Paul Janish back to the stone age and Lopez had one of the gutsiest strike outs of the year against Michael Bourn.
*****
It’s time the fan base just accepts that if Posey or any slow runner reaches late in the game as the possible tying or winning run, he’s going to be pinch run for. Bochy is going to play for that one run no matter what. Which is silly, because the possibility of Posey scoring is low compared to the possible gains you could get from his bat later on in the game. Just one of those things fans are just going to have to live with it. Still, it all worked out and Posey didn’t have to go into camping poop position for 3 extra innings. Although you’d rather see him in there, it also makes sense to treat his ankle with kid gloves. Of course, if he weren’t getting days off at first base, rest might not be as much of an issue, but I digress.

*****
Melky Cabrera is a baseball troll, and Chipper Jones is angry:


Between fake tossing a ball into the stands, mocking and emploring Jason Heyward to test Melky’s arm, and gesturing towards his comfy region at the fans, it’s easy to see why Chipper is pissed. That, and the same guy was fat and terrible in Atlanta 2 years ago. It will be interesting to see if there’s any retaliation by the Braves tomorrow. Also of note: Melky Cabrera is good at baseball.

*****
Brandon Crawford’s home run went 409 feet. Emmanuel Burris can’t do that even when he plays MLB the Show. If Crawford can develop his pop, which he clearly has, is it unreasonable for him to somewhere down the road hit .250/.300/.400? Probably. Sorry my adrenaline’s still a little wacky right now. What are we talking about again? JUST SIT DOWN AND TELL BELT HE’S THE FIRST BASEMAN!

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