Here Comes the Grump

Infield of Dreams

The problem of what's been happening to the Giants is what's been happening to the Giants.  Their pitching giving up tons of homers, two homers by the same hitter more than once, and a hitter with three homers in one game--pretty much unheard of in recent Giants seasons.  Their hitting wilting with runners in scoring position.  Managing to avoid being no-hit by one to a journeyman pitcher up from the minors that morning.  And the baserunning indignity of a triple play against them--and a particular triple play that no one can remember seeing before.

Add to that the uncharacteristic errors--or at least, they used to be uncharacteristic.  And the kind of bullpen failures, especially in the 8th and 9th, that just didn't used to happen to the Giants, not so regularly for sure.

So how does the front office respond?  By trading away the linchpin of the best defensive infield in at least the division, for an iffy starting pitcher, and depleting future choices (and a solid third string catcher) for an iffy left handed reliever, who in Bochy's scheme, is usually a specialist who faces one or two batters.

It all came back to bite them on the first day of the rest of their season in Philadelphia, when Duffy's replacement made a costly error at third that led to four unearned runs, and the reliever put the tying and winning runs on base in the 8th inning, after the hitters had come back from a six run deficit.  To eventually lose the thing by five runs anyway, to the Phillies, about as bad as the Reds, who swept the Giants quite recently.

The announcing team and the pr people and the bleacher site all paint a rosy picture of these trades, but I do not.  I do not like them.  I would like to be proven wrong.  But that hasn't begun to happen yet.

I admit that part of this disappointment is personal.  I'm going to be in the Bay Area in a couple of weeks and plan to catch at least one game.  I'd recently calculated the injury rehab schedule to tell me  that I would quite possibly see the starting infield I love and longed to see in person--Duffy, Crawford, Panik and Belt, plus Posey.  I'm crushed that I never will have that chance.