Super Scrappiness - Your 2008 San Francisco Giants

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:21 am

After a 3 game winning streak pretty much exhausted their allotment for wins on the year, the super scrappy team of gamers that is the Giants lost the last two games with a serious swagger.

First on Saturday, the Giants drew first blood, scoring two runs on bloop singles before the two worst hitters in baseball, Brian Bocock and Barry Zito came to the plate. Against all odds Bocock got a hit, and Rich Aurilia was grittily thrown out at home plate. Then with two outs, Zito somehow gets his first hit of the year, and wouldn't you know it Steve Holm, "the fast Giants catcher" gets himself thrown out at home on pure hustle. The very next inning, Ray Durham, who is a gamer, makes a heads-up error at second base to extend the inning and Barry Zito responds by giving up a well executed home run to Albert Pujols that became the margin of victory.

Then today Matt Cain, who must be the reincarnated Harry Frazee, Eddie Cicotte, and whoever the idiot was who managed to accidentally poison Christy Mathewson during WWI all rolled into one to have earned the treatment from the baseball gods he's gotten, was quite literally doing it by himself through 6 innings, tossing a no-hitter and hitting a solo home run that was for most of that time the working margin. The Giants scored some runs in the 7th and were 6 outs away up 5-2, when it was the bullpen's turn to prove their gamerness. First Tyler Walker swaggered out to pitch the 7th (I guess you could call it swaggering, it takes so much effort to move his gut these days that you can't really call it jogging), and gamely coughed up the lead, giving up a home run to Chris Duncan, a single to Albert Pujols, who advanced to second on a gutty wild pitch, and another home run to Rick Ankiel (which must just kill JP to have let him go) before recording an out. After the heart of the order (Winn, Molina, Castillo, I shit you not those were the 3-4-5 hitters today) gamely popped out, scrappy Brad Hennessey came out to throw the 9th. After Brian Barton grounded out, Hennesey walked Izturis and then gave up a home run to Pujols? Ankiel? NO! The great Ryan Ludwick gave St. Louis a 7-5 lead. The venerable Boch had seen enough and replaced him with Brian Wilson, the closer to finish the inning. This is important. The Giants old and new came back off of Jason Isringhausen, with Durham and Aurilia starting the inning with hits, Rajai Davis reaching on a fielders choice and stealing second, and Fred (Barry Who?) Lewis, who was 5-8 in these two games with 4 doubles, doubled to right to score Davis and tie the game. Remember how the Giants had brought in Wilson to pitch the 9th? That left two live pitchers in the bullpen, 39 year old Keiichi Yabu who had thrown 22 pitches the night before, and Erick Threets, who throws hard but you never really know where its going. Boch opted for the gritty Threets, who proceeded to give a maximum effort walk to Adam Kennedy followed by a consistent HBP to Jason Larue. After a sac bunt, a strikeout, and another walk, Chris Duncan came up and blooped a single between three Giants. So now it was up to the gamers to win the game in the bottom of the 10th off of Anthony Reyes, first came Winn with a scrappy strikeout, then Molina, with an even scrappier strikeout. Newcomer Jose Castillo tried to do his best Pedro Feliz, swinging at a pitch out of the zone, but managed to drive it for a two out double, when the number one gamer Ray Durham came up and hustled into a groundout to end the game.

I think the only way to get through this season is to refer to erase poor, bad, ineffective and untalented from my vocabulary and replace them with scrappy, gamer, gritty, gutty, and hustle. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this trainwreck from afar.

Cardinals · Post by **Cardinals** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 11:25 am

go cards

Yankees · Post by **Yankees** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:10 pm

That was the funniest thing I've ever read...Jake, can we make you do this regularly?

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:45 pm

I'm thinking about starting a blog and doing it all season. Even if I don't I intend to make every baseball fan I know suffer through this season with me.

Giants · Post by **Giants** » Sun Apr 19, 2009 9:04 pm

We had a terrific example of Giant scrappiness today. Boch decided he really wanted Aurilia on the roster, with the result that the Giants have no backup catcher. So in today's game Bochy can't pinch run for Molina up 1-0 in the 8th, and he fails to score from second on a Pablo Sandoval single. This sets up rookie-ish Travis Ishikawa with the bases loaded and nobody out with the opportunity to be a hero. Melvin pulls Jon Rauch and replaces him with Scott Schoenweis, and Boch knows the percentages say bring up a righty to face the lefty, plus the Giants need veteran grit in that situation. Of course, once Aurilia's name is called out comes Melvin again to bring in Tony Pena. Aurilia has that veteran swagger as he strides into Pena's pitch, and he continues that gritty swagger all the way down to first base as the ball rolls quickly to Stephen Drew, who flips it to Lopez who flips it to Tony Clark for a very scrappy double play which scores a run, and Bochy congratulates him for getting the run in. Is that doing the little things? On the plus side, we got to see the two tallest baseball players ever take in this game, as Randy Johnson threw a gem and Jon Rauch did not so much.