Giants Sweep the Astros. Buster Posey is Still Uninjured

Athleticism

            All Star breaks can be deceiving. People tend to make a big deal out of splits between pre and post All Star break because it’s a convenient arbitrary end point. In reality, the split are often meaningless. Yet there’s something to be said for the 4 day rest it gives players. Baseball players are not robots, and playing baseball almost everyday will wear on you. Right around the All Star break is when many players start to get Prince Fielder like legs. Tack on 6 straight days of blistering, unforgivable heat, and you get dead baseball players. The Giants were a dead baseball team at the All Star break. 4 days aren’t a miracle, but they certainly can’t hurt. It’s just as much a mental break as it is a physical break. Mix in an opening series against the Astros at home coming out of the break and voila! You have a 3 game sweep!

                               

            The Giants certainly didn’t look like world beaters during this series.  They won the last 2 games by only a run and stranded 93 base runners. Santiago Casilla is starting to get the Armando Benitez treatment, which isn’t deserved but you can’t blame fans for being frustrated. But in a sport where plenty of stupid, weird things happen, like giving up the lead on a strike out wild pitch, a sweep is a sweep, and there are plenty of awful teams that the Giants aren’t going to sweep.

            There were plenty of encouraging signs in the series, yet it’s hard not put the inevitable “except it was against the Astros”, at the end of every good sentence. The Giants bullpen looked good sans Casilla except it was against the Astros. Tim Lincecum was a freak except it was against the Astros. Matt Cain looked great except it was against the Astros. I’m still not buying him. Besides Jose Altuve, the Astros did not have a hitter in today’s lineup with an OBP over .314. .314! It was like facing a bunch of Juan Riveras! Yes, the Astros lineup is 2008 Giants-esque.

            I’m not telling you to ignore the sweep. Wins are fun! But the winning covered up some holes in the Giants, so I’m going to temper the excitement.

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            Buster Posey is still uninjured.

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            Mindless paragraph about the bullpen looking good, hopefully they keep it up.

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            Yeah, there wasn’t a lot to note from this game or even this series. The Astros are terrible. But doing what your supposed to do a lot of the time never happens, so kudos to the Giants for doing that. This road trip will be much more telling. It’s important not to put too much emphasis on a short amount of time because there are 900 baseball games on the Giants schedule, but the Braves and the Phillies are going to be a test. The Braves are riding a 7 game win streak, and Atlanta is hot, so I’m already writing my excuse post for the recaps of those games.

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            :( The Astros are gone.