GAMEBALL and JOKER 08/05 GIANTS at ASTROS

Weekday Day games are sort of a pain for me, I am at work and depending on how busy I am I may or may not even be aware they are playing. Well I can say today was a fairly busy day, and I knew the Giants were down early. When a co-worker walked into my office and asked "Hey, the Giants are playing now right? What's the score?" I clicked on sports and saw 7 Astros, I immediately loudly said FUCK! before what I was looking at settled into my brain…which was Giants 7 Astros 3……at which point and laughed and explained…..well I saw a 7 and assumed it was against the Giants……and what else could we have expected….with Joe Martinez pitching, with the Giants road woes, and with our "powerful" cleanup hitter on the bench…….but no, the Giants battled back from a 3 run deficit for the first time all year (thx Baggs from an earlier post)…..

GAMEBALL and JOKER 08/05 GIANTS at ASTROS

GAMEBALL

WHITESIDE

Backup catcher in the major leagues…..it's a lot like winning the lottery of baseball…..These guys play week after week after week, just hoping their number comes up and they get a chance….and when they do get a chance, they play so sporadically if they just happen to run into a couple pitches at the right time they could make a career out of it…….and with a Major League minimum salary of $400K+ it ain't a bad living……….but for every backup catcher that makes the show, there are 20 toiling away in the minors just hoping to get a spring training invite when there are 100 pitchers in camp……well Whiteside has taken advantage of his opportunity, running into a few pitches at just the right time and Whiteside record as a starter now lies at 10-6, of course most of that is due to the fact he was toiling in AAA when the Giants were sucking early……but I digress……good job on your first homer, your first grandslam, and that hair and that accent just makes you a more interesting character for the Fans……just keep it up and pretty soon you can add "proven veteran" to your "backup catcher" title……

TIP OF THE CAP :
MARTINEZ
Welcome back to the show, and the kid has some balls showing no ill effects of the incident earlier this year…..working in the low 90's and mixing in a little slider and a couple of change ups….really only made one really bad pitch for which he was punished, the double to Michaels which was a fastball that leaked out over the plate……Looks like the kid has pretty good movement on the fastball, the slider is average at best, the key will be control…..and he could be an important cog down the stretch…..that #5 spot will get about 4 more starts versus the Dodgers and Rockies…..we don't need a shut out from this slot, but a solid 5-6 innings would do wonders for the Giants playoff chances……

SANDOVAL
Man, all this kid does is square the ball up and get hits…..you don't have to kill the ball to get hits, good wood solid contact will do the job and even though the Panda was caught off balance a few times, he still was able to notch 3 hits 2 runs, 2 rbi and BTW this kids speed and defense is still underrated……at least league average on both counts…..at least

SANCHEZ
I am liking this kid, he is just line drive after line drive…..and today he got three hits going with the pitch all three times…….lets hope he rubs off and leave him in the 3 hole, at least until he cools off…..

GARKO
I am liking this kid as well…and he has hit more balls hard than his average would indicate…...and Garko was rewarded with 2 hits for his trouble today……and come on, he's not THAT slow…..I mean, I bet he can beat Molina to the post game spread by 20 feet…..

JOKER

SCHMIDTY

Maybe I am going soft…..but I kinda feel bad for the guy…..he was one bad ass pitcher on a team that needed an ace….no Schmidt, no run to the series in 2002, no 100 wins in 2003, no Fathers Day 1 hitter of the Red Sox….and if you remember 2003, he threw a 3 hit shut out versus the Marlins in Game 1 while injured…….he was a gamer……..so when I heard he was hitting 89, my mind thought back to 2005 when he was effective working in the 88-90 range for most of the season……well, I got to watch him pitch for the first time tonight, and he is not back…..he topped out at 89, but worked in the 87-88 range most of the night…..and without much control……he might be a passable 5th starter…..but he will have as many bad starts as good starts…….too bad a player that good is looking so bad……he still might be able to be decent, but he is going to have to do a lot better with his control than he had tonight……with 9 walks in 14 innings coming INTO tonight, it doesn't seem like he is going to figure it out anytime soon…….

SMACK OF THE STICK :
HOWRY
Well there goes the Howry save idea….plunking Keppinger was intentional….2 out in the 9th and on the hip…..but the adrenaline got to Howry and he started fucking the pooch……and we needed Wilson to come in and shut the door…..

BIP
Good God……I can't believe this lasted another day….somebody has GOT to talk to him…..winning innings has nothing to do with anything……and my co-worker…who asked me whats the score….I asked him if he had heard Bip the night before…..the response….."I just watched a little of the game…(pause)….was he the Winning Innings guy?"….I just started laughing my ass off…..even people just passing through are pointing and laughing……. I think Kuiper has to bite the bullet and tell Bip SOMETHING…..but its like when your friend has really bad breath, you try to hint at it, buy a few mints, ask if they had garlic, but in the end they really don't get the message until you say something, or some stranger asked them if a small rodent crawled into their mouth and died……

COOPER
Good job walking Renteria…..sure it was by the book, but I hate how it is always automatic to walk the bases juiced to set up the force….you also back a pitcher in a corner where he HAS to throw strikes and the hitter knows it…..

JOE MORGAN
What the fuck???? did you see this commercial….. Joe Morgan is as good a pitchman as he is a broadcaster…..and my god,looks like a cross between a A Weeble (tm Playskool), a inverted ice cream cone, and a batting tee. What a monstrosity of a device….. and all for the low low price of $150 and that’s with a $50 discount….makes me think of those 70's players who used a contraption on their bat in the on deck circle that kinda looked like this

REDS PITCHING STAFF
Just saw the projected starters…..each of them have an ERA worse than Zito……man we got it good…..of course after a series with the Giants those ERA's will look much better on Monday

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