Treading Water

It’s time to catch up on our Giants. They lost the last two games at home this week to a truly mediocre Pirates team followed by a couple of wins in Houston.

I got to see the Wednesday afternoon game, which was a real disappointment. Our young Mr. Lowry gave up just one hit in the first 6 innings, a homer to Adam Sandler’s brother. He was in total control. He got in trouble in the 7th, but appeared to stem the tide when Moises made a diving catch for the 2nd out. Then a 2 out single followed by a Ty Wigginton jimmy jack into the centerfield bleachers made it 4-2 for the bad guys. Noah finished the 7th, having only given up 4 hits. It was another excellent outing marred by one bad inning. My record at SBC: 2-2.

In Houston they’ve gotten a couple of pretty good pitching performances the past two days from Brad Hennessey (likely up for a while with Schmidt on the DL) and Kirk Reuter, who has been improving with every outing. Just in time, too, because with just 4 bonafide starters, it appears the bullpen is headed for a lot of innings over the next month. The Giants are threatening to use Fassero et. al. again, possibly on a regular basis.

They are not giving into the desire to bring up Matt Cain so we can see what he’s really got. His current Fresno stats are indicative of a pitcher with monster stuff who is not quite ready for prime time. 3-1, 40 IP, 24 H, 24 BB, 47 K, 3.79 ERA. BTW, scanning the team stats, I see Todd Linden hitting .306/.435/.629 with 10 homers and 10 doubles in 124 AB’s. This kid can hit. What are the Giants waiting for? I also see Jerome sporting a 10+ ERA, having given up 29 hits in 15 innings. Let’s remember that the Pounders paid about $150 for this kid last season (the Nomar fiasco).

So the Giants are in 4th, a game over .500, going nowhere fast. Milton Bradley still looks like a potential MVP, driving in 5 more last night with 2 homers. You’ve got to hand it to DePodesta…that Dodger team is way better than it appeared at the beginning of the season. And don’t forget, they are missing Penny and Gagne, and J.D. Drew hasn’t really started to hit yet.

Last night I got to see the premier of Bob Costas’ new HBO show, Costas Now. Excellent. Particularly good was the tragic story about Tony Conigliaro. But the highlight of the show was a roundtable discussion with John McEnroe, Chris Collinsworth and Charles Barkley (who also did a segment last night on Bill Maher’s show). It was absolutely vintage Sir Charles, who said Lance Armstrong wasn’t a great athlete because he’s “just ridin’.”

He also discussed playing in the NBA finals against Chicago and realizing after game 2 that there was another player on earth who really was better than him. I once saw Barkley put up 56 in a playoff game against the Webber-led Warriors in a game that both teams were over 100 at the end of 3 quarters. Mullin finished in the 40’s, but Barkley was flat out unstoppable. In fact, it occurs to me that this was the last playoff game that the Warriors have played. Game 3 against Phoenix, which Phoenix won for a sweep. I wonder if he would say that was the best game he ever played. I’ve been going to NBA games since the late ‘60’s, and I have to say I consider him to be among the top players I’ve ever seen, arguably the best small forward ever.