Giants Are Embarrassed By Mets, Which Should Never Be Uttered Again

The baseball is cock blocking

I’ve written a lot about overreactions during this latest stretch of Giants baseball. That’s mainly because I’m uncreative. But more than that, it’s because during a losing streak everything is worst case scenario. The Giants offense went into a time machine back to Hack-Fest 2008, and met up with Jose Castillo for drinks. The pitching hasn’t been bad at all, but hasn’t been the dominant pitching staff that has become ironed into every Giants fans mind for the past 2 or 3 seasons. Sergio Romo has looked like a mortal being. These are disturbing times.

The Giants have lost 7 of 8 games. After a sizzling start out of the All Star break, the Giants have hit a wall in the form of the Dodgers and the Mets. The first team you expect to give the Giants fits because they control the Death Star and you can do all sorts of things with that. The Mets though. They are the Mets. We explore the heroes of today’s baseball game for the Mets:

1. Ronny Cedeno: 3 for 5, 1 2B, 5 RBI

Ronny Cedeno’s career slash line is .246/.289/.355. There have been 4 times in his career he’s posted a negative WAR, twice more than -1. Ronny Cedeno has been in the majors since 2005. Since that time, he has the 3^rd lowest wOBA and wRC+ of any hitter with at least 2000 PA. All of this is a long way of saying that Ronny Cedeno has quite possibly been one of if not the worst baseball player in the Majors since 2005.

Here is a true sentence that is stupid: The Mets would not have won today’s baseball game, if not for the brilliant hitting of Ronny Cedeno.

2. Chris Young: 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 0 BB, 4 K

Chris Young came into this game with a 4.58 ERA this year. His ERA+, which is ballpark adjusted ERA, is 83. Barry Zito’s ERA+ is 90. The higher the ERA+, the better the pitcher. Make conclusions accordingly.

Chris Young is also very tall, and throws the ball while his arm is in outer space, causing the ball to be lost in zero gravity. The Giants still hacked. The Giants scored once.

3. Barry Zito: 4.1 IP, 7 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 1 HBP, 1 K

There are many things a pitcher can’t control. There are dink and dunks and seeing eye ground balls that are going to happen over the course of a ball game, especially for pitchers like Zito that pitch to contact. But one thing a pitcher can control is his control. Yes, a pitcher controls his control so he stays in control of a baseball game. That is one thing he controls. Barry Zito did not have control today. Another thing is that you’ll notice is if you say a word over and over again it sounds silly. Control control control control control. Who are we trolling? Ronny Cedeno? Notice that I have successfully confused myself. 

None of the Mets hits were hit all that hard, but because Zito was putting guys on base, it was compounding the effects of the bloop doubles down the line that the Mets hit. As a result, Barry Zito is a Mets hero, because without Barry Zito, Barry Zito would not have pitched, and 4 Mets baserunners would not have existed, and possibly 4 Mets runs. Therfore, the Mets should thank Barry Zito for being a pitcher. 

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Going back to my orginial point from the beginning, this is all going to cause a colossal fuss. And some of it rightly so. The team is struggling, and their weaknesses have ballooned right in front of us. The Giants should come out of this though. This is not 2011. This was the lineup on this date last season:

Batting	OPS
Cody Ross CF	.739
Jeff Keppinger 2B	.731
Carlos Beltran RF	.879
Pablo Sandoval 3B	.855
Aubrey Huff 1B	.662
Nate Schierholtz LF	.733
Orlando Cabrera SS	.590
Chris Stewart C	.568
Tim Lincecum P	.263

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

It's not the worst thing you've ever seen, but other than Beltran and Sandoval it's pretty grim. And remember, that was the lineup the rest of the season. The 2012 Giants have Sandoval coming back. A middle of the order of Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey, and Hunter Pence should be enough to generate at least 3 or 4 runs a game. Pence and Melky are struggling right now, and should snap out of there slumps. In addition, this lineup does not have Orlando Cabrera in it. It's not going to go down the drain like last year's did I can tell you that.

Related: Mariners blog Lookout Landing made the point that Mariners fans have to remind themselves Cliff Lee was once a Mariner. That is where we are going to be with Carlos Beltran. Actually we're probably already there. I don't believe it ever happened. Now I'm sad :(

Also Related: None of the starting position players from a year ago today are currently on the roster. Ima tweet that!

*****

Brandon Belt is coming out of his slump. It's happening. Remember back when I spent 5,000 words chronicling Brandon Belt's walk here, and how I mentioned that could be a slump buster. Since then, he's been on base at least once in all but one game since (one where he was double switched for in the 6th). Steadily, he's been making more loud contact, walking and today he annihilated a ball for a triple that in 29 other ballparks would have been far up the seats. He crushed a foul into McCovey cove and on Monday just missed a walk off home run deep to center. It seems like I'm grasping at any thin thread of hope that Belt is relaying, but I don't think I'm imagining it. During his slump, Belt's inability to make contact became so poor, that I bought cakes with the writing "Brandon Belt Foul Tipped A Baseball!" and I called everyone over to celebrate. He actually became a giraffe playing baseball. He looks much better now and is showing signs of possibly catching fire before the turn of the millennium, which is all anyone ask for. 

*****

Today was a terrible baseball game that should never be spoken about ever again. I've been concluding with something like that a lot recently. But tomorrow, the Giants face Jonathan Sanchez in Coors Field.  They will be shutout.