So, the Giants did it again yesterday – an unlikely inside the park homer by Pagan in the bottom of the tenth. We’ve sort of gone into this before in a recent blog but here’s a little more detail why the Giants are able
to come back so much – and hit so well for a team with previously weak-hitting players.
First off, you’ll note, the Giants only struck out three times during the game, and walked six times. The Rockies, in contrast , struck out six times and walked only once. This is key and it’s been a pattern this year and in recent years. Note also that the Giants were , last we checked, in the Top Three for teams with fewest stikeouts.. They’ve also improved their walks. Sandoval, who used to lead the team in strikeouts, has ‘magically’ cut his strikeouts in half, as has Scutaro, since coming to the Giants from Colorado last year. (Even more ‘magically’ they’ve both improved their averages, significantly and even more amazing is that Sandoval has improved his homeruns. Similar patterns have taken place with other players on the team. One could accept Sandoval’s achievement a littlel more if it weren’t for the sudden display in homers going back to last month of last season when he hit seven and this year when he already has eight. So, it’s not just a question of cutting down on the swing, going for average.
Something else is giving these Giants a boost. Scutaro never hit over .300 in his career, and , now at age 38, he’s been hitting well over .300 since coming to the Giants last year.It’s simple. When that ‘something else’ improves one’s vision and hand-eye coordination, as well as bat speed and power, he’s going to not strike out as much and get more hits, in our view. And, in the bottom of the ninth – or tenth- when the pressure’s on and a player is working extra hard and concentrating. he’s going to work the pitcher. Normally you’d see some strikeouts against a good reliever like Bettencourt, but many of the Giants, with their magic powers, just don’t strike out anymore- or very rarely now. The improved eyesight will also help draw walks, as Crawford did to lead off the tenth. Then Pagan will work the pitcherto get in a hitters count, if necessary, after the pitcher is already concerned with a runner on base.And Pagan hits a long ball – he’s hit more homers on the Giants in the bigger park – than in past years – to win the game.
The pattern has happened time and again and people just assume the Giants are great. It’s that ‘something else’ we’ve talked about that the Giants have been using, off and on, since Bonds and Balco over a decade ago, in our opinion. And, amazingly, they’re still getting away with it. Of the current Giant crop of players who played for other teams before the Giants, they had a combined average of around .250 before coming to the Giants. The Giants now , inexplicably, lead the league in hitting, at .271 as of 5/24, in what’s considered a pitcher’s ballpark.
It is our believe that Giants management continues to load up on the type of players who will play into this ‘system,’ if you know what me mean. (Eg a journeyman catcher, Quinonez (sp) ,of Venezuela (like Sandoval, Scutaro, the late Melky Cabrera, Blano, etc ) who had only one homer in his career, was another one of those late inning heroes with an unlikely homerun after being called up). It’s pretty incredible that a virtually different lineup won the 2012 series as compared to 2010. Who thought the Giants could do it without Brian Wilson, Ross, Huff of 2010, etc. Only the names change, the results are the same. And don’t be surprised to see the Giants win another series if they make it to the playoffs. If they weren’t paying their st struggling, starting pitchers so much you ‘d likely see some changes for the similar type of ‘system’ pitchers like Mijares, Jean Meache(sp) , but don’t be surprised to see Lincecum and co. magically transform themselves. (The new designer ‘something else’ is largely undetectable today with current ‘testing,’ which is done as little as once during a season, according to the new testing rules).
PS We’ve been getting great interest from these pages and the big site that was recently taken down, inexplicably. We have our feelings who was behind it- and it wasn’t MLB. Our previous website was recently taken down as ‘spam’ if you can believe that, and this one may too… Looks like we may be victims of that whole government-related conspiracy against the media, sadly, performing a ‘watchdog’ service that people appreciate (we’ve had more readership than on all our other non-sports website.
MLB Trying To Cover Itself From Further Embarassment as PEDs Continue To Purvade Baseball
Notice things seem a little quieter in the Spring Training Circuit this year? With only a week before the season starts, baseball hasn’t even reached the First Page of the Sports section. Along with an unusual amount of ‘mysterious’ injuries this year, there’s an underlying feeling of discontent in Mudville. Especially among the old school guys, the broadcasters and sportswriters, who know, deep down, that baseball is far from the pure sport it was thirty years ago when guys named Willie and Micky lead the way. The old ‘spring fever’ isn’t there. No surprise what with the continuing stream of players continuing to test positive for chemical enhancement – and more often those who don’t- and the unknowing who IS and who ISN’t ‘on’ something…
Sadly, the young generation – under age 20 – has never seen baseball played CLEANLY , now over 10 years since Bonds made Ruth turn over in the grave and Henry Aaron wince a lot, when Bonds broke Ruth’s asterisk-free season total of 60 homers with 73 and broke the Aaron’s lifetime total – and in cold San Francisco, where homeruns used to be scarce; Bonds was really the one who set things off, though McGwire and Conseco played a smaller role, a mere blip on the radar years earlier. Now we have players being invited back to a team a second and third time after playing with performance enhancing drugs – and still making big money while at it. Who knows if they are still on the juice or not? If they are, they’ll probably perform well; if not, they probably won’t. It’s crazy that this is happening. Does anybody care anymore?
So,’Commissioner’ Selig and MLB decide they have to make a point, lest they continue to look even more like ‘turn the other cheek’ laughing stock, as they’ve been for over a decade now. They come up with some names, much like Edgar Mitchell did – remember the Mitchell report that went nowhere? – and threaten a lawsuit against this new Miami-based version of San Francisco’s BALCO. Good luck guys. Sounds like going after straws again. Give ’em a little scare, I guess. Without real hard evidence, you’re putting yourselves in position for a reverse lawsuit – and to further upset the game.. Nothing’s going to change at this point, especially with the speed and ineptness that Selig and his ‘yes men’ do things. Baseball’s players union is very strong and you’re not going to get very far. Meanwhile the fans will suffer, or will they? The young ones don’t know any other way than baseball on steroids. It’s sad for both those who haven’t had the opportunity to see REAL baseball , and , us ‘oldtimers’ who remember how great the game can be if played honestly. But, like so many things today, there are easy short cuts to easy money, thanks largely to advanced chemicals, computers and , perhaps, a society gone south. I, for one, have pretty much lost interest in baseball (especially living in the SF area ( PED headquarters) but it looks like things may be going bi-coastal . As Buster Olney noted in his ESPN column today, the problem is now so entrenched . Easily half the SF Giants are on the stuff, in my opinion, lead by the Venezuela connection of Scutaro and Sandoval. (Scutaro comes over mid season to suddenly become Babe Ruth and ‘teach’ Sandoval his ‘tricks’ just as A-Rod did with M Cabrera, before Cabrera took his ‘secrets’ back to Kansas City where he taught his fellow Venezuelan Scutaro and Mijarez before THEY came to the Giants… and on and on it goes.. Incestual relationships all over the place but either I am the only one who sees them or perhaps one of the few who cares enough to speak out. So the Giants lose another star of 2010, Brian Wilson. No big deal.. J ust go back and get old suspects from 2010 , Andre Torrez and Rafael Ramirez, who had their best seasons with Giants, as have most of these guys. Across the bay The A’s bring back Bartolo Colon, who will either still have to be on the juice , at 39 , to perform well, or will be a throwaway. Here today , gone tomorrow, just like the experiment with Manny Ramirez, last year; that failed, leaving him out of excuses and into retirement. Finally. More @ http://wheredidyougojoedimaggio1.blogspot.com/
1) Giants suddenlywent from a .500 team at all-star break to .800 rest of season , with most victories in league the second half of season with only additions of Jose Guillen* and Cody Ross* ( Buster Posey was brought up from minors, though Molina was having a good season) and then there was also a new ‘throwaway’ third baseman. Mike Fontenau(sp) from the Cubs.
2) Giants team went from among the teams with fewest home runs to most homeruns in league during September, after Jose Guillen joined the team, and this coming at one of the worst ballparks in which to hit homeruns.
3) Jose Uribehas hit the most homeruns of his career this year ( 25 ) at age 33 , playing in a unfriendly-hitters ball park. He also defended latin players on steroids in an interview May 2009.
4) *Cody Ross*hit 7 homeruns in less than 100 at bats since coming to the Giants in August, including three homers in his first 6 at bats in the playoffs. These are Bonds and McGwire –like stats of homers per at bat, roughly 1 home for every 12 at bats since joining the Giants.
6) *During his short month time with the Giants, Jose Guillen* had several key hits to win games, probably more than enough to close the two game gap between the Giants and the San Diego Padres to give the Giants the NL championship. The acquision by the Giants of the known-steroid user (in 2002 and 2005, Mitchel Report) may alone have propelled the Giants into the playoffs and potential World Series.
7) If GM Brian Sabean was willing up pick up a known ‘dirty player’ like Guillen – with a bad attitude to boot, and then deride the media for bringing it up, there’s no telling who , among the other cast-offs-or regular players- might be dirty. Sabean has had a 10 year-plus track record of bring in players ‘ at any cost’ that other teams didn’t want, for obvious reasons.
8.) A weak-hitting Giants (until the last month) manhandled the American League’s top pitcher, Cliff Lee, not once but twice in the WS, in their park, after he never lost a game to better hitting teams in nearly 10 previous playoff games? Same holds true for the Giants beating virtually every other top pitcher they faced lHaliday, Oswald, Hamils, etc.)
9.) Body changes and unusal habits: In addition to the aforementioned Cody Ross’s stats, we are told Ross gained a significant weight recently. This is hearsay, as I haven’t really seen a picture of him as he doesn’t do many interviews; sudden weight gain can be a sign of steroid use, especially in sports figures where normal weight gain is unusual; some reports on same thing happening to Edgar Renteria; the latest hitting star of the Giants and WS Most Valuable Player had been dead in the water the past several seasons, and at an advanced baseball age suddenly hits two homers in World Series after hitting only one all season!. And, what about Jonathan Sanchez going to his mouth on a regular basis while pitching?
10 .) The Giants are the only team to win the World Series after only being in first place as few as 37 games during the season. You may be able to fool stats in short series but the numbers clearly favored the Rangers over Giants in the 7 –game World Series – by a lot; same for Philadelphia over the Giants in the 5-game playoffs. In a short three game series , or even five, luck can play more of a part, but in a seven game series the better team almost always wins, yet the weaker team
won this time, and by a big margin in only 5 games – and in the opponents home park.
Bonus #11) RENTERIA – Just as we were about to bring up Renteria as the next possible Giants user, based on his sudden improvement during September and October, after a totally lackluster several years with the Giants and object of much derision and trade bait. One homerun all season. Then, suddenly a good ‘Guillen’ last month and then he hits not one but two homers in the world series including the winning homerun! Too much.
STEROIDS
Just too many factors above pointing at a world series stoen by the giants. It’s not a scientific fact yet, other than Guillen’s use but a little more investigation could and should bring out the facts.
Could there be a connection between Guillen’s joining the team and the Giants stepped-up performance in September? Could he have shared his stuff with his Giants friends, much like Bonds did before? Maybe other Giants already had theirs. There have been allegations on the internet that Ross was a steroid user, -not to count that as fact, but often where there’s smoke there’s fire. We’re just adding up all the pieces and when you put them together it doesn’t look good for the Giants and baseball, unless you’re one of those Giants fans who never cared that Bonds was using and probably don’t care now.
San Francisco has become an Sanctuary now for wayward ballplayers just as it is for wayward people, homeless, drug users, etc. But that doesn’t make it right. More steroids
The contrast between the cities of Dallas and San Francisco is startling.
If the San Francisco Giants win the World Series Texas fans shouldn’t feel like their team let them down.. The best team wasn’t necessarily the winner, in fact, probably not. We’ll explain.
Giants fans and media are reveling in the startling Giants run of success of late, but they are also angry that their team isn’t getting credit , nationally. They were calling the Giants the ‘Rodney Dangerfield’s of baseball’ on the local sports talk show Sat afternoon before the third game of the World Series. In fact most pundits, NATIONALLY, see the rather obvious fact that the Giants are not the better team. Yes, yes, they’ve suddenly become world beaters during three rounds of olayoffs – and the last month of the season; Giants had the best overall record in baseball the past two months.
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One must ask the question ‘How did this come about?’How did a team barely above .500 suddenly become a .800 winning team, finishing 20 games above .500?? How has this team been beating the much stronger hitting teams like Philadelphia and Texas without any real changes? The acquisition of one journeyman player, Cody Ross, could not make all the difference. In fact, the Giants have a veteran team, and older players usually tail off somewhat near the end of the season. Not the Giants.
Players like Juan Uribe , Edgar Renteria and even Jose Guillen, while he was with the Giants right up to October, showed an upsurge in hitting, especially in power – for guys in their thirties, playing in a large, cold ballpark never friendly to any power hitter, except, yes, Bonds. Uribe had also made a statement , May, 2009, defending steroid use, especially among struggling Latin players. As for Giants pitchers, I’d like to think its less likely that any of them might be using enhancing drugs , but , again, they’ve all come on stronger than ever, too, this past month. One simply must question, especially with the Giants track record of having the most implicated drug users in all of baseball over the past decade, including Guillen just the past month. STEROID SHIRTS AND MORE
Giants Still on Steroids 10 Years Later…
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GUILLEN INCIDENT SHOWS
STEROIDS JUST PART OF
‘WINNING’ FOR SF GIANTS
Thanks, New York Times and Carl Steward of the Bay Area News Group for reporting on the ‘politically incorrect’ ( at least in San Francisco) story of Giants’ JoseGuillen and steroid use. Again, Giants management turned a blind eye to the known reports of his past steroid use in 2002 and 2005 , including being part of the Mitchell Report. I guess it’s just a part of the Giants ‘Win At Any Cost’ philosophy. Especially after its history of having the most ‘roided players (per the Mitchell report) and the Kingpin himself, Barry Bonds – who threw out the first pitch in the World Series opener (and remains a hero among Giants fans . (Would it not be unbelievable if he became hitting coach? Maybe not so unbelievable for the Giants.) Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports The BIG thing here is that , once again, three years after steroids were perportedly out of the game, they’re back and could well be influencing results. Guillen had a number of key games in September with the Giants, incluiing a couple game-winning hits. This alone could have made the difference between the Giants getting into the playoffs and World Series, at the expense of the Padres, who were only out by two games. For GM Sabean to get angry when a reporter brought up the subject of Guillen and steroids and for Giants president Baer to do his standard ‘ it’s baseball’s issue’ after well knowing of Guillen’s past steroid history, before acquiring him in August one just has to shake his or her head. San Francisco is one of the most tolerant and progressive cities but I don’t see the Giants as progressive. They’re continuing to hurt baseball 10 years later – and if they win the whole enchilada it will be a travesty. . Hello Bud Selig. Where are you? You’re telling us you’re happy with the 25% dip on viewership of this year’s world series. Another interesting thing, during this renwed talk of steroids on the Giants, one of Bond’s Merry Men from the mid 2000s , visiting ATT over the weekend to watch the Giants, tells u that , yes, he was using steroids then. But we’re hardly surprised.
Who knows how many other Giants
players may still be using roids in 2010. I really was about to give some Giants some credit for winning this thing NATURALLY, but now , with this report, it brings back those old suspicions again. Not to cast aspersions but you look at certain members of the Giants motley crew doing things they’ve never done before, like Jose Uribe hitting more homers (26) than he’s ever hit – at age 32 – and in San Francisco’s spacious , cold ballpark. Being friendly with Guillen. You gotta wonder. Or , turn a blind eye, like Giants ‘Baer, Sabean and company More at http://BayAreaCoupons.info and http://YellowPagesCoupons.infoNEXT: Yet another big name steroid user on Giants?
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Sure, pitching may be key but you gotta have hitting.Yankees’ Derek Jeter may have hit on at least part of it:
A team can get hot at the right time. In a short series a team can get lucky and beat a better team.
…or words to that effect Certainly, San Francisco is a perfect example.A .500 team through the All Star break, they came on the second half, with a great September.They seemed to have just enough to sqeak by, game after game… thus the ‘ torture ‘ moniker given them.San Diego had asimilar run earlier in the year, only to finally implode near the end.
In the playoffs, the SF guys were recipients of twice as many errors by Atlanta and Philadelphia than San Francisco and a lot of seeing-eye hits.Give secret weapon, Manager Bruce Bochy more credit than any player for getting the most of this motley crew. He puts everything into each game, playing for today, not looking ahead so much. He knows just how far his starters can go – and not often very far, knowing who and when to bring in relief, when to get a player in the game or out of there. So what if he and the front office keep getting rid of players who don’t work, they’ve got a few new ones to stick this year. Where other managers will sit and wait, Bochy is always maneuvering. He has to .
Here’s a team that hasn’t seen a regular lineup all season and with players coming and going with the wind. Yet, all the pieces have come together for the Gigantes so far this year. It happens. But , don’t expect it to continue next year. Other teams will finally wake up and realize who they’re playing – a mediocre team with some very good pitching. But they’ve been winning on fumes…very little gas left in the tank ofpatchwork and luck.
As Serius radio’s Chris Russo says, don’t be surprised to see the Giants
win the Series on a blooper on the right field chalk.It’s been that kind of year…
not one of the better ones for baseball. Coming out of the steroids era, power production was half of previous years. Mutli-million dollar players were pathetic
shells of their former selves…
None of the big guys acted like they wanted to win it in the end.The Yankees, Philadelphia, Minnesota.Then there are two, Texas and San Francisco, neither team expected to go anywhere this year. Expect one of the lowest-viewed Series, with the added effect from the National Vote November 2.
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