National broadcasters are an easy target. Hall of Fame announcer Tim McCarver, for example, had a whole website dedicated to his quotes (though it seems to have been taken down). FireJoeMorgan.com was a hit back in the day, dedicated to its namesake and many others, and other sites have sprung up to immortalize the gems coming from the mouths of the best and brightest.

Now, I understand that their job is pretty hard. We’re spoiled by the fantastic broadcasters in San Francisco. Kruk and Kuip do a great job of analyzing the game while providing insight into the players, and Jon Miller and David B. Flemming are great. But this is what makes it so hard to watch these national broadcasts, particularly with today’s broadcast crew. It’s not that it’s just “East Coast Bias,” whatever that is, if that really exists. But what really struck me listening to today’s game was just that these announcers have clearly watched a lot of Phillies games and know the team really well; on the other hand, they know next to nothing about the Giants besides what they can glean from stat sheets. This is especially apparent when they refer to all of the Phillies players by the first names – a pet peeve of mine – describing Gregor Blanco a “role player” and then proceeding to list players faster than him, or saying that the Giants’ offense has been suffering as a result of Aubrey Huff and Hector Sanchez being on the DL. That’s just incorrect.

But I digress. National broadcasts are a necessary evil when you’re a baseball fan, like camera angles behind the catcher, overpriced beer and advocates of the designated hitter. Let’s talk about the game. Continue reading →

The Giants have a rivalry with the Phillies. I mean, the Giants have a rivalry with a lot of teams: the Dodgers for being from Southern California, the Padres for daring to be good in 2010, the Diamondbacks for daring to be good in 2011, the A’s for sharing a fan base, the Marlins for injury Buster Posey (see the explanation given by the best personal injury lawyer), the Braves for being the toughest competitors in the 2010 playoffs and consistently dominating the Giants for the past 100 years, the Reds for Matt Latos, the Angels for 2002, and the Rockies for that juiced ball bullshit.

But man, the Phillies. It’s hard to know exactly when the rivalry with the Phillies started, but it’s almost certain that toolbag Phillies fans had something to do with it. Phillies fans have the swagger every year that they won the previous year, which is really irritating. And since that World Series win in 2008, the Phillies have had a slow and steady decline: Won World Series, Lost World Series, Lost NLCS, Lost NLDS, and this year they won’t make the playoffs. At least the Giants had the good graces to completely fall off a cliff after they won it all.

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After yesterday’s easy blowout, it made perfect sense that today’s game would get a little weird. Yesterday Buster Posey led the Giants on a rout of a pitcher who used to be fantastic, while Barry Zito shut down an excellent lineup, and the Giants shut down a team that has regularly dominated them in the past. That makes sense, if only to remind you that baseball is baseball, and you’re a fool for thinking that history repeats itself.

Now, Bruce Bochy is naturally going to take heat for pinch-running for Buster Posey (again!) in the top of the ninth inning. Now, I understand that there were many factors that went into the decision to pinch-run. After Posey singled to lead off the inning, Gregor Blanco represented the go-ahead run, and with his speed, Blanco could much more easily steal, go first-to-third on a single, or score on a double. That makes sense. I’m not sure why they didn’t give Blanco the sign to steal, but that’s a complicated decision and it just didn’t work out that inning. Fine.

What I really don’t understand is the decision to intentionally walk Tyler Pastornicky in the bottom of the ninth to load the bases for Michael Bourn. With two outs, it makes more sense to pitch to the weak-hitting Pastornicky than to Bourn, who is one of the best singles hitters in the league. Bourn’s one downside is his lack of power, but with the bases loaded in a walk-off scenario, that doesn’t matter nearly as much as his ability to do everything else like, say, beat out an infield single to knock in the winning run.

But hey, it worked out.

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