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| Pablo Sandoval slides, causing the ground to move under Ben Sheets |
Way back in the olden days, on August 2, 2012, the Giants
lost 9-1 to the New York Mets. People wandered the streets wearing hats with the sticker still on them. Twas a strange
strange period in our history. The Giants had lost 7 of 8 games, including a
sweep by the Dodgers and 3 of 4 losses to the Mets. The problem with losing to
the Mets, is it means you lost to the Mets.
Mike Francesca is not impressed. This was an actual headline from the
series:
Ronny Cedeno, Mets pound Barry Zito, Giants in series finale
You might think, maybe the writer misspelled “David Wright”,
with “Ronny Cedeno”. An egregious error, but perhaps the writer was on cocaine
while writing the headline. I like to stay open minded. It's a good habit to get in! But nay, I’m here to report
the writer did in fact intend to write Ronny Cedeno because Ronny Cedeno was in
fact successful at baseball related activites against the Giants. You can see
why the phrase “rock bottom” was tossed around more than a few times during that stretch.
Since those tragic 8 days, the Giants are 15-6. They returned the favor by sweeping the Dodgers in Los
Angeles and are a season high 16 games over .500 (71-55). Tonight was their 5th
straight win, their 7th in their last 8 games, and the Giants are 3
games up on the trailing Dodgers in the division. For the first time in years
the Giants offense has discovered “scoring runs” is the ingredient to
a successful offense. Such a relevation has coincided with all 5 Giants starters
throwing 5 consecutive gems and leaving fans to wonder if this rotation is
about to peak at just the right time.
And those Dodgers, hah! They picked up goggles man and the
annoying 5 hour energy human like being, and they’re still trailing! That is
funny!
I’m assuming all those blockbuster trade tweets were just
sarcasm. Beat writers are so funny!
*****
We’ll get to the Adrian Gonzalez stuff a little later on.
Right now the Giants are playing good baseball, and we shant be distracted by
silliness down south. That’d be a shame.
The idea however that the Giants are once again out of it
ludicrous, given how much season there is left and how talented the Giants
roster still is. Enter Ryan Vogelsong.
After the first two innings, the narrative for tonight’s
game was completely different. Instead of praising the Giants, it would be the
inevitable “is Ryan Vogelsong’s story over?” In innings 2-6 Ryan Vogelsong
lously responded with the answer “no.”
It’s true this wasn’t vintage Vogelsong, like what he was
for the first 22 or so starts or so. 3 home runs in But considering how much
he’s struggled and had to battle in his past few outings, this was certainly a
welcome sign. The good news is that he gave up just 5 baserunners in 6.1
innings. The bad news is that 3 of those were home runs. That doesn’t bother me
though. Vogelsong has the lowest HR% on the Giants staff and the lowest HR/FB
ratio. Homeruns were never the problem for Vogelsong, I’m not going to freak
out about a few mistakes by a pitcher with pin point command.
Other than that, Vogelsong was brilliant. And while it is
concerning that his xFIP was 4.32 before this start, it’s not unreasonable to
say that he’s one of those Matt Cain like fellas that will always pitch better than their peripherals suggest. That is what I am saying because it's convenient since I am Giants fan.
*****
Sorry for the relatively short write up. Here's a video of a farting Hippo to make up for it:
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