Running 2011 Baseball Thread, Vol. I: Dedicated to spnited

It was clear during the offseason and certainly from spring training that the Giants would be offensively challenged and Sabean took little corrective action. They're last in the majors in runs scored and last in the NL in batting and on-base percentage.

 

Easy on the Panda. He shouldn't even be out there -- I mean, he can't even swing right-handed, you don't think that shoulder is affecting him a little bit from the left? -- but the Giants simply have no other options.

Beltran is a stiff, and the next year of Huff's contract is going to be painful, but you have to cut them some slack for the Posey and Sanchez injuries. And at this point I am just glad that they did not get overly giddy after the championship and give long-term deals to Torres and Ross.

 

They were lucky they got that many.

 

The Rays schedule getaway games all the time. Just not for the Yankees.

 

Shhhhhh ... don't jinx it.

 

Sorry. That's what I meant. They refuse to give up the better gate that a night game against the Yankees would draw.

 

and why should they?

they are a low revenue team and need to maximize every penny they can.

 

Imagine if someone like, let's say, Ron Guidry had put a shotgun in his mouth while the Yankees were on an 11-game road trip, and the franchise was pretty shaken up about the whole thing. Now imagine the Yankees saying "Hey, we just don't feel like we can play a double header coming off this mentally exhaustive road trip, and we're going to go ahead and try to move this game to our mutual off day in September. I hope we can work together on this, because we're going through hell right now. Oh by the way, there is a hurricane coming that's going to leave half our fans without power."

Now imagine if the Orioles bitched about how frustrating it was to lose one of their few remaining off days. And imagine if they continued to bitch and bitch and imply they were being inconvenienced. The media shitstorm would be enormous. Jon Heyman would call for Buck Showalter to be stoned to death on Eutaw Street. The amount of copy suggesting the Orioles were being disrespectful would be rain down on us like a plague of frogs on Egypt.

Sometimes I think the Yankee sense of entitlement is overblown. But good lord, both Girardi and Granderson (whom I really like and think is a really good guy) came across like tone deaf pricks during this whole thing. Girardi came about as close to say "Yeah, but, it's just the Orioles... " as he possibly could without actually saying it.

 

One upside to this: More people realizing what a world-class prick Girardi is and always has been and always will be.

 

They really don't deserve slack on Freddy Sanchez. The guy is never healthy, so they should not have counted on him.

 

How quickly we forget Posey and what he means to the team ... unless you're a Japanese baseball writher with a BBWAA ballot. And remember, Sandoval nearly ate himself out of the league last year. Also add Zito to the list of payroll millstones as well. I'd say expect wholesale changes next season, but given the Giants' love for veteran talent, you expect they'd still be trying to get innings out of Christy Mathewson and Joe McGinity.

 

I don't know why the commissioner's office doesn't take control of some of this. The dickering is absurd.