Giants Sweep Bay Bridge Series

Well, I've wanted a day off for a few days now, but this Giants team just will refuse to partake in extremely exciting ballgames, forcing me to halt my scheduled Sunday to get in a quick post about the Giants sweep.

First off, Jonathan Sanchez dealt, and had it today, and my first beef is with Bochy for taking him out in the eight inning, especially the way the A's were struggling against him. Then, why Bochy brought in Jeremy Affeldt in a 1-run game when he's admitted to not having confidence right now, is beyond me? I'm so over the lefty vs. lefty jive, just let a good pitcher like Ramon Ramirez or Guillermo Mota throw if you insisted on removing Sanchez. Jonathan was only at 100 pitches, so I would have let him at least start the 7th, then he gets in trouble, go to your good arms you trust in close games, not a guy who doesn't even believe in himself right now? I put this one on Boch, and I don't normally like to use the manager for the scapegoat! He's should thank his lucky stars tonight that Nate Schierholtz bailed everyone out with that towering home run to right field in the bottom of the 8th, which tied the ballgame at 4 and put momentum back on the Giants side. The dude is earning the nickname "Nate the Great" and I'm not big on corny nicknames like that, but for short, like I'm calling Volgelsong, the "V" on this site, I will now be occasionally refer to Schierholtz as "The Great". Cause it was right then and there I knew it was going to be another one of those crazy Giant finishes, ones we're quite used to and darn good in, and surely enough, the Giants collected their 7th walk-off victory of the year!

On the Game went, into the 10th until Darren Ford, a guy who's just begging for more PT with that uber-amazing speed, led off the inning with a single then the stolen base to move into scoring position. That brought up the guy who's come up and somewhat re-invented himself this year with the Giants, Manny Burris. Manny came up with one of the biggest hits of his young career, an RBI single to right of A's closer Brian Fuentes that drove in Ford from 2nd base to win the game.

So basically in this game, I learned a few things about this team today. One is, Mark DeRosa is basically toast, and shouldn't be counted on anymore this year. Two, that opens the door for infielder Manny Burris to up his playing-time load, and I say he should start at short for a few games to see how he does. He can't be any worse than what they have their now, can he? And finally, it may be time to add left-handed reliever to shortstop on the list of needs for the Giants as they approach the trade deadline. Watching a Fontetnot(.218)-Tejada(.224) left-side that isn't too good defensively is eating me alive, and when a big leaguer (Affeldt) loses confidence publicly, it's not a good thing. That means you pitch him in a few blowouts or DL him or something, not put him in with the game on the line? Still boggling me with that one Boch?

Side Note: This isn't directly baseball related, and I didn't touch on the Bryan Stow situation much here because I felt other sources were a lot better informed and I didn't want to put out any mis-information, so I didn't touch it. But now he's making progress, and there's a suspect in cuffs, I had to give some praise for the LAPD and the medical staff that's worked with Mr. Stow. It's great to see the progress he's making and it's icing on the cake they have a suspect in custody who they believe is one of the two men involved in the beating that put Brian Stow on the brink of death. Those two deserve what's coming, then some for kicking a defenseless man in the upper body and head area, when he's down and un-conscious, that should be attempted murder with the right prosecution, but that's a whole other case/story!