Thursday, September 27, 2007
Time It Was, and What a Time It...Um, Wasn't
Did anybody notice the sad (yet fitting) bookend to the Giants season at Mays Field? On Opening Day, they got utterly shut down by Jake Peavy, and then last night, in the home finale, they got shut down by...yup, Jake Peavy again. It was pretty much the Giants' offense this season in a nutshell: totally weak overall and utterly useless against the better starting pitchers in the league. It's also sobering to realize that of the eight position players in the Opening Day lineup against Peavy, only three (Bonds, Winn, Molina) have had even decent seasons with the bat.
I tuned in to the game last night to catch the standing ovation for Barry Bonds, but that was about it. I had better things to do than listen to the Giants get slaughtered by a Scott Hairston-led Padre attack (seven of his ten homers against the Giants this season...what is with this guy?). In the past three weeks, I have caught two full Giants games and otherwise perhaps a grand total of one hour of G-men baseball on the radio. That's sad, and it's a problem, because I never thought my Giants fanaticism would sink to such lows.
I'm not a bandwagon fan, and I never have been. Last year the Giants sucked and I was still at Mays Field during the last weekend series, yelling for the team to beat the Dodgers. I remember in 1996, the last time the Giants lost 90 games (they look to be headed well on their way this year), I was rooting and rooting up until the last game, because somehow they were still fun, even though they were trotting out some of the worst players to ever don the black and orange.
Unfortunately, this year the team is just so dull, so poorly constructed, so clueless, that it's gotten to be too tiring. Losing is one thing; losing while simultaneously offering absolutely nothing of entertainment value is another. Last season I linked to Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" as a eulogy to the lost 2006 campaign. This year I'm not going to bother; the Giants don't deserve anything as beautiful as Lisa Gerrard's voice.
And the worst part is that Sabean and Co put this team together harping about pitching and defense and improving team speed and other such bullshit, and then when things fell apart, they got all butt-hurt and defensive when the fans started hurling well-deserved criticism their way. And it's going to be even worse next year without Bonds! Worse! Can you imagine that?
To steal a line from The Nerd...Sabean's my ass and Magowan's my balls! What a miserable, forgettable, gawdawful year.
I tuned in to the game last night to catch the standing ovation for Barry Bonds, but that was about it. I had better things to do than listen to the Giants get slaughtered by a Scott Hairston-led Padre attack (seven of his ten homers against the Giants this season...what is with this guy?). In the past three weeks, I have caught two full Giants games and otherwise perhaps a grand total of one hour of G-men baseball on the radio. That's sad, and it's a problem, because I never thought my Giants fanaticism would sink to such lows.
I'm not a bandwagon fan, and I never have been. Last year the Giants sucked and I was still at Mays Field during the last weekend series, yelling for the team to beat the Dodgers. I remember in 1996, the last time the Giants lost 90 games (they look to be headed well on their way this year), I was rooting and rooting up until the last game, because somehow they were still fun, even though they were trotting out some of the worst players to ever don the black and orange.
Unfortunately, this year the team is just so dull, so poorly constructed, so clueless, that it's gotten to be too tiring. Losing is one thing; losing while simultaneously offering absolutely nothing of entertainment value is another. Last season I linked to Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" as a eulogy to the lost 2006 campaign. This year I'm not going to bother; the Giants don't deserve anything as beautiful as Lisa Gerrard's voice.
And the worst part is that Sabean and Co put this team together harping about pitching and defense and improving team speed and other such bullshit, and then when things fell apart, they got all butt-hurt and defensive when the fans started hurling well-deserved criticism their way. And it's going to be even worse next year without Bonds! Worse! Can you imagine that?
To steal a line from The Nerd...Sabean's my ass and Magowan's my balls! What a miserable, forgettable, gawdawful year.
Labels: baseball depression, brian sabean rant
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Bummed
I think it's safe to say that this is the absolute low point of the Giants' season. A month ago I was at Mays Field when the Giants' lineup got dominated by the immortal Lenny Dinardo and the A's finished off a humiliating sweep. I walked out of the stadium that day thinking that, no, it just couldn't get any worse than that. Well lo and behold, it has, tenfold.
I was actually up and excited going into this series. Yes, I spend a lot of time bitching about how the Giants suck and that their lineup is old and boring, but come on, it's the Giants and Dodgers. No matter how bad the Giants are, no matter how hideous they are to watch, no matter how much Cammy Blackstone makes me never want to watch another FSN Bay Area broadcast ever again, I'll still get excited about Giants-Dodgers. They're the Bums, after all, and who doesn't want to see the Giants be the sub-.500 force from the grave that prevents the Dodgers from advancing to the postseason?
Well, it didn't happen in this series and, except for the riveting comeback in yesterday's game that just proved to be a big, fat dry hump, the Giants looked like the same old boring, punchless team with no hope and no prospects. Meanwhile, the Dodger sweep was led by a group of upcoming young players, most notably Russell Martin, who's awesome, and Matt Kemp. It's enough to make a weak-hearted fan like me immensely jealous. The Dodgers showed the kind of talent and poise that makes a team, well, good. Now excuse me while I re-read that sentence and then go throw up all over the place.
The Giants are now 38-51 and, forgive me for saying this, all you delusional optimists out there, but their season is done. Now it's time for this franchise to go out and give us a reason to care again. Mr. Sabean, you just got a two-year extension, yay for you. You're very fortunate that the word "accountability" is not in Peter Magowan's vocabulary. You got the vote of confidence, now start earning it, right freaking now.
Do whatever you can to get rid of the chaff on this roster. Get some young guys in, get some guys with potential. I don't want to watch this team anymore if it involves sitting through more awful at bats involving Pedro Feliz or Dave Roberts or Rich Aurilia. If you make some trades, get some young players in here, some players with upside, any upside, even if it turns out later that they suck, I'll watch, and I'll like it. But this veteran mediocrity dancing bear show has got to stop.
I understand that the Giants aren't going to get young impact players with the veterans they've got now. Maybe the most valuable piece they have is Ray Durham, simply because of his position and his history of productivity, but even he isn't a player who is going to bring back a whole lot of talent.
The team might have to surrender Noah Lowry to get something really good in return, and if that's the case, so be it. Break some eggs. Trade Lowry to a team looking for pitching and try to get a building block, something close to a sure thing. Package some of that young pitching together (not Cain and Lincecum, obviously), and try to get a young bat that this team can build around.
The last time the Giants were this bad it was 1996, and the Giants had the same bleak outlook for the future. Then Brian Sabean came in and brilliantly rebuilt the roster into a contender. Can he do it again? I don't like the fact that he was brought back. I thought it was time to go in another direction, and so did legions of other Giants fans. Now is his shot to prove everybody wrong. That involves getting younger and getting rid of the veteran deadwood, and if it doesn't happen very fast, it's going to be very hard to continue investing any kind of energy into supporting this team.
I was actually up and excited going into this series. Yes, I spend a lot of time bitching about how the Giants suck and that their lineup is old and boring, but come on, it's the Giants and Dodgers. No matter how bad the Giants are, no matter how hideous they are to watch, no matter how much Cammy Blackstone makes me never want to watch another FSN Bay Area broadcast ever again, I'll still get excited about Giants-Dodgers. They're the Bums, after all, and who doesn't want to see the Giants be the sub-.500 force from the grave that prevents the Dodgers from advancing to the postseason?
Well, it didn't happen in this series and, except for the riveting comeback in yesterday's game that just proved to be a big, fat dry hump, the Giants looked like the same old boring, punchless team with no hope and no prospects. Meanwhile, the Dodger sweep was led by a group of upcoming young players, most notably Russell Martin, who's awesome, and Matt Kemp. It's enough to make a weak-hearted fan like me immensely jealous. The Dodgers showed the kind of talent and poise that makes a team, well, good. Now excuse me while I re-read that sentence and then go throw up all over the place.
The Giants are now 38-51 and, forgive me for saying this, all you delusional optimists out there, but their season is done. Now it's time for this franchise to go out and give us a reason to care again. Mr. Sabean, you just got a two-year extension, yay for you. You're very fortunate that the word "accountability" is not in Peter Magowan's vocabulary. You got the vote of confidence, now start earning it, right freaking now.
Do whatever you can to get rid of the chaff on this roster. Get some young guys in, get some guys with potential. I don't want to watch this team anymore if it involves sitting through more awful at bats involving Pedro Feliz or Dave Roberts or Rich Aurilia. If you make some trades, get some young players in here, some players with upside, any upside, even if it turns out later that they suck, I'll watch, and I'll like it. But this veteran mediocrity dancing bear show has got to stop.
I understand that the Giants aren't going to get young impact players with the veterans they've got now. Maybe the most valuable piece they have is Ray Durham, simply because of his position and his history of productivity, but even he isn't a player who is going to bring back a whole lot of talent.
The team might have to surrender Noah Lowry to get something really good in return, and if that's the case, so be it. Break some eggs. Trade Lowry to a team looking for pitching and try to get a building block, something close to a sure thing. Package some of that young pitching together (not Cain and Lincecum, obviously), and try to get a young bat that this team can build around.
The last time the Giants were this bad it was 1996, and the Giants had the same bleak outlook for the future. Then Brian Sabean came in and brilliantly rebuilt the roster into a contender. Can he do it again? I don't like the fact that he was brought back. I thought it was time to go in another direction, and so did legions of other Giants fans. Now is his shot to prove everybody wrong. That involves getting younger and getting rid of the veteran deadwood, and if it doesn't happen very fast, it's going to be very hard to continue investing any kind of energy into supporting this team.
Labels: baseball depression, dodgers suck
