Baseball is a cruel, cruel, game

At the beginning of this week the San Francisco Giants were on top of the world.

Hell, even tonight they looked like they were going to win one of their patented late-inning-come-from-behind-walk-off games.

What a difference a couple of innings makes.

A sacrifice fly, an on target laser beam of a throw from Nate Scheirholtz, and a collision at the plate later, the Giants clubhouse, to quote Andrew Baggerly, was "a funeral".  

That's baseball for you.  That's what happens when your best offensive player is a catcher.  You think that nothing can go wrong and then all of the sudden it does.

Not much else to write about.  I was all excited that finals are over and then I could devote more time to this blog, which I will by the way, things looked great and then BOOM.  Giants lose, Posey's hurt.

Day game tomorrow.  Let's win one for Buster!

Whew that was close!

GIANTS 10 - MARLINS 9

Wow where to begin?

I think I'll get the streak out of the way early like Posey seems to!  If you didn'already know, Buster Posey has extended his hitting streak to 21 games by hitting a single in the third inning.  he is now one game away from tying Willie McCovey for the Giants rookie record of 22 games.  I was looking at the list of 20 plus game hitting streaks by rookies and the list showed that baseball is a funny game.  The list is topped by Benito Santiago at 34 games Benito, like Buster, was a catcher.  He had an OK career but never really lived up to the promise that a 34 game hitting streak seemed to point to.  He did go on to play 20 seasons and he even had a sort of late career renaissance with the Giants from 2001 to 2003. 

The list does have a lot of great players and hall of famers. Guys like Richie Ashburn, Johnny Mize, Ichiro Suzuki, Jackie Robinson, and Fred Lynn.  But it is also populated by guys who you would be hard pressed to even name what teams they played for: Goldie Rapp, Joe McEwing, Chico Carrasquel, Taft Wright, and Danny Litwhiler.

So what does it all mean?  Well not much other than you can never tell what a guy is going to amount to from their rookie season.  Just ask Joe McEwing.

I have largely avoided writing about last night's game because it was so frustrating.  Sure it was a win but it was an ugly win.  After an early 9-2 lead, the Giants pitching staff wound up letting this game go to extra innings.  now the Giants did win the game so it's not all bad but it sure is hard to watch a 7 run lead evaporate.

As hard to take from a pitching standpoint, it was equally satisfying from an offensive standpoint.  Torres, Huff, Uribe, Rowand, and Renteria all had multi-hit games.

Uribe and Torres were the big heroes.  Uribe lead the team with 4 RBIs while Torres, with three RBIs of his own, was the big hero.  In addition to a 2 run splash hit homerun in the 6th to put the Giants up 9-2, Torres also drove in the winning run in the 10th inning. 

Torres is starting to become a folk hero in San Francisco.  From his improbable road to the majors, to his stellar defense, to his late game heroics.  He is winning the hearts of the Giants fans and he is beginning to get past those comparisons to Marvin Benard.

Link of the day:

The LA Dodgers got Scott Podsednik from from the KC Royals for 2 minor leaguers.  I'm not sure what hole he fills for the Dodgers but it's not pitching.  We are just going to have to settle for Jose Guillen it seems. 

Ace Killers

GIANTS 6 - MARLINS 4

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

OK so they didn't beat Josh Johnson or Ubaldo Jimenez.  They did put 7 runs on the board against Jimenez earlier this season before the the Rocks tied the game.  The Giants did eventually win that game.  Against Johnson, they put three runs on the board which might as well be seven runs since JJ had not allowed more than 2 runs in a start in 13 straight starts.

Now 3 runs in 7 innings is still a quality start and Matt Cain matched Johnson run for run only allowing only 3 runs in 7 innings.  He actually pitched a little better than JJ did allowing only 4 hits to Johnson's 8.  Cain's only 2 mistakes turned into all 3 of the Marlin's runs on the day.

The fact that Cain allowed 3 runs and wasn't tagged with the loss marks a change in the Giants, and Cain's fortunes.  In the past, Cain would have taken the hard luck loss after giving up 3 runs.  Last night the Giants scored 3 runs for him while he was in the game and even went on to win the game after he left.

The other big news of the night is obviously Buster Posey extending his hitting streak to 20 games.  He has now moved in to the position of favorite for rookie of the year.  Posey's numbers rival Jason Heyward's with about 150 less ABs.  The other favorite, Washington's Stephen Strasburg was scratched from his start Tuesday night  and the clock is ticking until the Nats shut him down for the season.  I can't really come up with any other NL rookies who can compare to Posey.

Trade Rumblings:

I'm not too thrilled with the rumors of the Giants interest in the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista.  The guy has hit 28 homers so far to be sure but he is hitting in a Blue Jays lineup that has considerable more pop than the Giants do, his home games aren't currently being played in AT&T park, and he is only hitting .245 on the season.  Is he going to be an automatic out when he isn't hitting homers?

Jose Guillen is a head case, All through his career he has been up and down performance-wise.  Last season he only hit 9 homers to go along with 40 RBIs.  He does have 59 RBIs and 16 HRs this season and he could be the Giants' target seeing as he will probably come cheap since KC will be looking to dump salary.  A package deal that brings Scott Podsednik along would be a great move for Sabean provided A) the price is right and B) Guillen doesn't have an attitude like he did with the Angels

Adam Dunn is the guy I would most like to see the Giants get.  The guy bats around .280, he hits bombs, and has seven  30+ homer seasons in his career.  He is 7 away from his 8th and the best part about Dunn is that he will only be 31 this offseason.  He hits bombs that will easily get out of AT&T and he is OK defensively.  Although the asking price is reportedly Madison Bumgarner and if that's the case I'll pass.

At this point Guillen and a left handed middle reliever seem to be the most likely moves the Giants will make.  If they can somehow come up with Podsednik too, then the moves look good.

From Clark to Posey

MARLINS 4 - GIANTS 3

I'm running out of words to describe Buster Posey.

The most impressive Giants rookie in the last 23 years is playing that good.  His rookie campaign has exceeded the level of most rookies in Giants history and is in the same air as Will Clark, Willie McCovey, and Orlando Cepeda.

Will Clark is my favorite Giant of all-time.  My earliest baseball memories are of Clark and the Giants in the playoffs vs. the Cardinals in 1987.  In 1989, I sat out in the upper deck in right field and saw a towering homerun almost make it out to my seat!  I watched Will lead the Giants to the world series in 1989 and watched in sadness when he went to the Rangers after the 1993 season.

Buster Posey is making Clark's impressive Rookie season look mediocre by comparison. 

In Will's rookie year of 1986 he hit .287, with 11 HRs, 41 RBIs an on base % of .343, and an OPS of .787.  He accomplished all this in 408 ABs.  In 1986 these were great numbers for a rookie.  Good enough to earn him 5th place in the Rookie of The Year voting.  Todd Worrell of the St. Louis Cardinals was first.  (1986 was a good year for Giants rookies both present and future.  The top 10 vote getters for rookie of the year included: Robby Thompson in 2nd, Kevin Mitchell in 3rd,  Will Clark in 5th, and Barry Bonds in 6th)

Fast forward to 2010.  In 182 ABs Posey is hitting .368, has 8 HRs, 33 RBIs, with a .404 OBP, and an OPS of  .975!  It's going to be a stretch for Buster to get another 220+ ABs since he's a catcher but if he gets close to 400 ABs this season he just may obliterate Clark's rookie numbers.  One thing that Posey is doing that Clark, hell any Giants rookie other than Willie McCovey, is hit in 19 straight games

Both players had excellent college careers too.  Clark won the Golden Spikes Award, which is given to the best college player in the country, in 1985 while playing for Mississippi State.  Posey won the award in 2006 while playing for Florida state.

Clark finished his career with a respectable 284 HRs,a .303 average, an OBP of .384, and an OPS of .880 in 15 seasons.  In 2006 Clark only received 4.4% of the Hall of Fame vote thus failing to receive the required 5% of the votes to stay on future ballots.  He likely would have increased his HOF chances had he played a little longer but retired early to help care for his son Trey who is autistic.

There is no way that you can ever replace your childhood hero as an adult.  Even if Buster goes on to make Clark's career numbers look tiny by comparison, wins a world series, and gets voted into the hall of fame.  Hopefully, he can be my son's favorite player of all-time!

Last night Buster got the drama of extending his hitting streak to 19 games early with a hit in the second inning.  That and a pinch hit two run replay upheld homer in the 7th were pretty much the only Giants highlights of the night.  Although they did make it interesting in the 9th when had runners on second and third and only one out.  But all they were able to muster was 1 run on an RBI groundout from Andres Torres. 

Aubrey Huff's hitting streak came to an end at 12 games.

Posey looks to extend his streak to 20 games tonight and it's going to be tough with Josh Johnson on the mound for the fish.  The Giants will counter with Matt Cain.  Expect to see little offense on both sides tonight.

Link of the day:

Thrill22.com.  Your home for all things Will Clark.

Huffman and Robin

GIANTS 3 - DBACKS 2

Batman had 3 different Robins.  Just like Bruce Wayne had Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake.  Aubrey Huff has now had multiple sidekicks to his Batman performance.

First it was Juan Uribe.  At one point Aubrey and Juan were trading homeruns left and right, knocking in runs all over the place, and taking turns being the heroes each night.

Then Juan got cold.  Until last night's grand slam he had been hitting .213 with one homerun and 7 RBIs over his last 20 games.

In the meantime, Aubrey's sidekick has been Buster Posey.  Over the last 20 games all he has done is hit .438, 7 homeruns, and driven in 22.  He also is in the midst of an 18 game hitting streak and seems to be winning games on a nightly basis.

Huff has been nearly as hot as Posey.  Over his last 20 games he is hitting .363 with 7 homeruns and 17 RBIs.  he is also the proud owner of a 12 game hitting streak that has been somewhat overshadowed by a certain rookie's streak.

If it wasn't for Aubrey Huff, I'm not sure where the Giants would be.  Sure Posey has transformed the Giants since his arrival but it was Huff who carried the team to the place it was before he got there.  One could argue that the Giants could have been nowhere near contending this season if Huff wasn't here.  Posey didn't have nearly as much pressure on him as he would have if there wasn't at least one guy providing some offense. 

Huff has also made it easier for the Giants to absorb Pablo Sandoval's season long slump.  Hopefully once the Panda comes back from handling his personal issues in Venezuela he will be the third Robin to Huff's Batman.

So Buster and Aubrey led the Giants to a four game sweep of the lowly Diamondbacks.  I know a lot of people like to point out that the Dbacks aren't a very good team but good teams are supposd to dominate the bad teams.  Besides, four game sweeps on the road just don't happen that often.  Even against bad teams.

Link of the day:

SF Chronicle writer Henry Schulman points out in his recap of the game that the Giants play only 19 of their final 63 games against teams that have a record below .500 at this point.  Which means that they will have to prove that they can beat winning teams.  Which is something that the detractors love to point out that the Giants have trouble doing.  Now a lot of this poor record against teams above .500 can be attributed to the fact that the Giants have lost 7 out of 8 to the Padres and 6 out of 9 to the Dodgers.

The Giants will be tested starting tomorrow since the Marlins come to town.  The fish are almost as hot as the Giants having won 7  of their last 10.