Traschelled

I made it out to see the Giants lose 1-0 to The Phoenix, Steve Traschel, who arose from the dead to pitch his first game of the season, allowing only 2 hits in 8 innings. I don’t know exactly how he did it, because he sure didn’t seem to have great stuff, and he can’t top 90 on his fastball anymore. His pitches must have a lot of sneaky movement, because the Giants’ slop hitters were off stride all night. Randy Winn got the first hit, a ground ball with eyes hit up the middle in the sixth inning.

Sorry, but I’m never going to trust Traschel. Not ever. We had him a number of years ago in that fatal season when our entire pitching staff headed by the fabled Jim Bullinger stunk beyond The Elder Barry’s wildest dreams. I always remember a game in which Traschel faced Bullinger, and the final score was something like 16-13. Neither guy made it out of the third inning.

We got to see our mainstay closer, Braden Looper, pick up a classic Looperesque save, giving up a lead off double to Omar Visquel, and then retiring the next three batters. Looper doesn’t throw quite as hard as he used to, or at least he didn’t last night, (93 on the gun), but he’s having a better season than you think.

I was at the game with my buddy Will, who commented in the 7th or 8th inning that the game was kind of dull. I looked at him quizzically and said, “You’re crazy. It’s one to nothing. Nothing beats one to nothing. One to nothing is art.”

The machers at major league baseball don’t agree with me, which is why the balls are tighter, and why the suspensions of players whose balls are tighter are so short. (That one was pretty funny, if I do say so.)

Meanwhile, the game took two and a half hours. There were only 10 hits in the game. There were no mid-inning pitching changes. That was a game that could have gone under 2 hours, but Traschel and Correia (he pitched well last night) just don’t have that Tomko-Reuter tempo. Come on, guys, get up there and throw. Stop picking your nose on the mound between pitches.

My Giants’ season record is now 7-8. I’ll get to see the Mets again on Sunday with 3 other BABI Boys.

The Saturday morning standings are:

Pecklers 67.0 (E)
Any 9 65.0 (E)
Cappers 64.0 (-3.0)
Busch Leaguers 64.0 (+2.5)
300 Pounders 62.5 (E)
Bats 60.5 (-.5)
Lickers 60.0 (+2.0)

Hobo has 56 points, but they’ve only got about 4 points upside, maximum, so again, I’m not going to evaluate them.

The Cappers gave back those batting average points yesterday with a flailing 8 for 39 day at the plate. Three of those eight hits came from Neifi Perez. They also had a zero RBI day.

Meanwhile, thought the Leaguers hit an even more anemic 5 for 32, They had 2 wins (Harang and Sheets, both beauties) and a save from Todd Jones. Throw in a hard luck loss by Derek Lowe (2-1) and the Leaguers’ pitching numbers were pristine: 24 IP, 4 ER, 20 H and 4 BB. Their upside points, though, came from moving back to the top of the bottom win pack. They need 5 more wins to pick up another win point. So it was the easy win points that moved them up yesterday. It helps when you have 3 starters going.

Here are some random notes I saw this morning:

Lastings Milledge NYM OF AA. Really starting to heat up at Double-A; he's hitting .337/.389/.491 with 11 steals in 42 G. I think he’ll surface in the majors some time in 2006.

Matt Cain SF AAA. Had his ERA dropping toward 4.00, but it has ballooned back up to 4.58 after 25 GS. He’s going to pitch for the Giants this week. He’s not doing as well down in Fresno as we all assumed.

Gavin Floyd PHI AAA. Has ERA down to 5.77 at Triple-A, which is actually some pretty good progress. Not likely to be activated in September by the Leaguers.

Ian Stewart COL 3B A. Numbers are now back right where they should be after a slow start; slugging .490. Maybe we’ll see how much George wants to finish in first by whether he trades this guy.

Michael Bourn PHI OF AA. The Phillies are expected to bring up speedster Michael Bourn who is hitting .268 with 34 stolen bases for Double-A Reading. We really liked this guy when we drafted him. Larry might have gotten a good one that he doesn’t yet appreciate.

Nomar Garciaparra of the Chicago Cubs played third base for the first time since high school on Friday afternoon against the Florida Marlins. I wonder who the shortstop on his high school team was.

Ken Griffey Jr. is now batting .298 with 32 homeruns and 89 runs batted in. And still we all discount his keeper value.

Michael Barrett of the Chicago Cubs continued his climb back towards the .300 mark on Friday afternoon as he went 2 for 5 against the Florida Marlins. Barrett is now batting .292 with 13 homeruns and 53 runs batted in. Recent rumors out of the Cubs camp have Barrett among Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez as the only position players who will for sure be back next year. Since Barrett is among the top three catchers offensively in all major categories in the National League that makes sense. This is here as an advertisement paid for and endorsed by the Pickled Pecklers.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, "Russ Branyan swung a bat Friday for the first time since the weekend, joining the group of Brewers who took early batting practice. He said his back, which became stiff after a chiropractic adjustment, felt better but was still a little sore. I thought your back is supposed to feel better after an adjustment.

According to the Miami Herald, "McKeon said Damion Easley would remain at second as long as the Marlins continue to win." And he’s not going to change his socks either.