by
Greek Giant
That smell… that stench… is the Giants offense.. or lack thereof.
I would love to make this a super long post but between my other business obligations, personal matters and my need to be succinct so we don’t all wallow too much, I will keep this relatively brief. I generally start my mornings reading about the Giants previous game and checking the score. I watch highlights then I read other reports to garner information and insight for my posts. Literally, after I open my eyes and say “I love you” to my wife, I think Giants!
So, today was no different. But those thoughts are getting less and less pleasant. We’re all Giants fans and we all read and converse on TWG because we are diehards with a beautiful passion for our time, especially in light of the not too distant past that saw us witness and celebrate three World Series Championships. With a new regime the refrain has always been “Give them time.”
No more.
Last night the Giants were smashed by the Cubs 5-0. “Smashed” you might say is a bit harsh but the truth is that it’s actually somewhat too kind. The Giants were done once the Cubs put up a run on Logan Webb in the bottom of the second inning. That’s because Justin Steel totally ruined our hitters, who were already the worst scoring attack in baseball since July 1. Stelle won his 16th game in what could well be a Cy Young Season. Not bad for a 7th round draft choice!
The Giants had two total bases in the game. TWO! I am speechless at their prolonged offensive futility. Going back to this past weekend in San Diego against the Padres, the Giants have scored four runs total in their past four games and have not scored a run since garbage time in the ninth on Saturday! That’s 18 straight shutout innings by our lumber.
You want stinky? How about these numbers:
- Snce the All Star Break the Giants are batting .214
- Yes, that’s .214!
- The Giants have 38 home runs in 1,577 plate appearances since the All Star Game. That’s record-breaking bad.
- The Giants have struck out the most in the National League.
- The Giants are 8-17 in their last 25 games.
Again, I could add many more but I don’t want to belabor the point. Here’s some gold from Grant Brisbee’s latest on The Athletic:
“Assuming this team is one that can score runs like a normal team, which the Giants can’t right now.
Can’t hit for average, can’t hit for power, can’t thrill you on the bases. All the while, pitchers are doing the kinds of things that pitchers on contending teams should be doing, except it’s not leading to positive results.
There’s only one way to describe this kind of team: Unwatchable. It’s currently an unwatchable team. It doesn’t mean there’s no hope — June happened, and it was fantastic, so you’ve seen this team be electric — but there’s less hope than you’d like. This is the kind of team that should make Rob Manfred feel bad about the expanded postseason. The goal there was to keep more fans interested in the later months, but he never asked the crucial question: “But what if I hate watching my team?”
Translation: The 2023 Giants have traveled through many categories of baseball: from ok, to downright good to mediocre and now to downright horrible. Their record is 70-68 and with 25 games left in the season there is time for them to make the playoffs if they ever start hitting but it’s not looking good.
You want angry? Here’s some excellent commentary from the above Athletic article:
Unwatchable is pretty much how I would define 80% of Zaire’s tenure. The guy signs non-athletic, slow, pudgy, old dudes to play positions that require athleticism.
Before any of Farhan’s (quite frankly, weird) fans try to defend his failure to sign any true big named FAs over the years, let’s talk about these moves:
Mitch Haniger got a multi year deal? Dude has played 1/4 of a season (not a surprised, either) and has looked awful doing it. Bad signing. Joe Pederson, he of the $20 mil per year salary, looks like he weighs 300lbs and only can hit fastballs right down the middle with his beer league-esque swing. Speaking of fastballs down the middle, JD Davis cannot hit them. Speaking out out of shape slow guys, Brandon Crawford is quite literally not hitting his weight. Are we really supposed to be excited to watch Austin Slater, who has been on the team for god knows how long despite being the definition of “meh”? Remember when SFG beat writers tried to sell Thairo Estrada’s return from the DL as a “trade deadline addition”? If your team’s best reason to get excited is Thairo fucking Estrada…your team sucks, and is boring as hell to watch.
Let’s move on to pitching! Ross Stripling? FZ gave him a multi year deal. LOL. Alex Wood? Another multi year deal. LMAO. Anthony Desclafani? A three year deal LMFAO. Failure after failure from FZ to come even remotely close to constructing a 5 man starting rotation. Remember 4 days ago, when everyone was excited because it looked like the SFG’s finally had their rotation set, as if finally having a 5 man rotation on the first day of September was something to be proud of? How’d that go? Beck, Harrison, and Cobb proceeded to shit the bed in each of their first innings pitched in this new rotation. Impressive.
All this to say: who exactly are we to be excited about? It’s been half a decade with FZ at the helm and the Giants have 2 playoff wins in that timeframe, and thus far, Patrick Bailey looks to be the only serviceable prospect that’s been brought along (although he has tanked lately).
What an embarrassment from a franchise that used to have fans excited about “Timmy Day”, Buster Hugs, and snotrockets from a World Series MVP…hell, even the panda hats and baby giraffe mentions are missed. This team sucks.
-Karen B.
Thank you Karen.