Category Archives: Game Recaps

Giants Win Round One of 2011 Bay Bridge Series

Ryan "Tweety" Vogelsong dominated the A's on Friday night at AT&T Park.

Giants win 2-1 over A’s in 10 innings.

In my years as a Giants fanalyst, I’ve been outspoken about one thing above all else: Ryan Vogelsong is not a long-term replacement for Barry Zito. He doesn’t have any sort of track record that would indicate that he can sustain success, and despite Barry Zito’s poor start, he’s still a league-average pitcher who fills out a 4th or 5th starter spot pretty darn skillfully.

Well, make room on the Vogelstrong bandwagon, because I’m throwing that out the window. Continue reading →

Frustrations and Schadenfreude

There's a reason pandas are so easily found in the wild.

Imagine for a moment that you’re a fan of the Washington Nationals.

You’re an 11-12 team, and you’re starting to get pretty disappointed by your team’s long-term, big-money investment in Jayson Werth, who even without his caveman beard is batting a scant .221. Your most promising pitching prospect in quite some time, who could easily break a few records in his career, will miss at least the entire season recovering from surgery, and you need to bat against the Phillies rotation 18 times.

Today, your team is facing a pitcher that can charitably be called “erratic,” who is doing his very best to leak some runs. He walked three batters in the first inning, and wound up with five walks and two hit-by-pitch in the first two innings. The one mistake that your team made, when Ian Desmond got picked off at first base, didn’t end up costing anything, because the shortstop dropped the ball. You even caught a break, when Mike Fontenot’s double hopped over the wall, preventing Miguel Tejada from scoring.

So how did they manage to score just one run?

Continue reading →