You’re right mhendo. I was there too, and the Giants made history. It was a triplicate shutout sweep of the Dodgers, the first ever in the Giants’ 129-year franchise history (cite1).
Mon 25-Jun: SF 8 - LA 0 (WP - Zito)
Tue 26-Jun: SF 2 - LA 0 (WP - Vogelsong)
Wed 27-Jun: SF 3 - LA 0 (WP - Lincecum)
The next day, the Giants also shut out the Reds and set a franchise record of 36 straight scoreless innings (cite2).
Thu 28-Jun: SF 5 - Cin 0 (WP - Bumgarner)
As much as it pains me to admit as a Reds fan, I do believe this is accurate. FU Giants!
The Yankees’ lead is down to 3 after getting swept by the White Sox. Skip Bayless questions Derek Jeter’s resurgence at the plate this year. I don’t think it’s unfair to raise the question, actually. Why should Jeter be exempt from speculation? I hope it’s just Bayless being Bayless, but unfortunately in this day and age I can’t even say it would shock me anymore.
Bayless is a fuckwit, and to my knowledge he’s never been right about anything. I realize ESPN has to fill several hours a day with non-fact based speculation, but really, who gives a fuck what he says?
Chad Johnson.
It can be added that the Giants’ 36-inning scoreless streak looked likely to be extended, as Matt Cain took the mound the next day. Alas, the FCRs scored 3 in the 1st en route to a win against the Giants.
{FCR: I’m sure you can figure it out, but if help is needed, the F does not stand for Fantastic. :D}
Has anyone else noticed that high def has made baseball players’ constant spitting even more disgusting?
Hrm. I thought it made it more alluring. YMMV.
You are of course right. That first series was in San Francisco. I really don’t mind being wrong, because either way the Dodgers got shut out in a three game series. That’s enough for me…
The Braves beat the Nats last night, avoiding a sweep, but the Nats are still six games up. We stayed through the sixth inning before deciding that it was time to get the Firebug (and ourselves) to bed. When we left, the Braves were up 2-0, and would ultimately win 5-1.
For the Nats, Ross Detwiler was pitching an excellent game until he’d gotten 2 outs in the 5th. There was one baserunner, a man on first, and the pitcher was coming to bat.
Detwiler walked him on four pitches. Ouch. Then he gave up a long bases-clearing double to Prado. He then managed to get out of the inning, but he was even worse in the top of the sixth. Fortunately, Johnson replaced Detwiler with Craig Stammen, who contained the damage. On the whole, the fifth and sixth could have been a lot worse than giving up two runs. It sure felt at the time that more damage was being done than that.
I’d never heard of Kris Medlen, the Braves’ starting pitcher, but he’s a good one. Threw a good fastball, changed speeds a lot. On the subway ride to the ballpark, I was looking at his stats - he’d been in 42 games, only started 4 but one of them was that modern rarity, a complete-game shutout. His ERA was just over 2.00, good K/W ratio, only 2 HRs in ~80 innings. Before the game, I told my wife, “he’s not one of their regular starters, but the stats say he can pitch.” And he could, and did. And when the Nats got men in scoring position (including bases loaded, one out in the bottom of the 6th), he was able to pitch out of it - much to my disappointment, of course, but I was impressed by the game he was pitching.
It hasn’t just been the Padres, either. The Pirates have won only 4 of their last 14 games.
I saw Medlen pitch against the Mets a couple of weeks ago and I thought he looked good. Of course he didn’t need to be all that good since the Braves scored 9 runs in the first two innings that night, but still. Freddie Freeman hit a hell of a home run in that game. It went to dead center and the home run tracker estimated it went 455 feet. It passed right over the home run apple.
Anything’s possible, and as a good Yankee hater i think it would be sort of hilarious if the King of New York were found to be taking PEDs, but i really doubt that he’s been doing it, and a simple spike in performance like this is not, by itself, anywhere near sufficient to make such assumptions.
Furthermore, in my opinion the simple fact that Skip Bayless said it makes it even less likely, because the guy is a fucking idiot who has never been right about anything more complicated than a boxscore.
I like Jeter’s response in the media: “Maybe Skip should be tested.”
I doubt they’d find anything, though. I see no evidence of enhanced performance in Bayless’s work.
I haven’t seen the stats compared side by side, but Jeter had a crap start in 2011 and picked it up in July after he missed a few weeks with an injury. He’s been on that level since, more or less - he started off hot this year, slowed down for a while, and then went back up. We know there can be a lot of variation in a player’s results from one year to the next.
Indians’ last two road trips: 0-9, 1-8.
Utter. Collapse.
Wow, I didn’t foresee the NL wild card race being so tight.
We’ve still got two more series to play against one another, including the last series of the regular season.
Which reminds me, I need to buy tickets…
Yeah, it’s gonna come down to the wire. The Cardinals can’t seem to decide if they want to be in or out - a lot will be decided by how well they can beat up the Astros, who they play seven more times including today’s game (which they are currently losing).
And we all know what can happen once you sneak in.
Woohoo just got home from my 10th Tigers game this year. I can’t remember the last time i got to ten games in a year.Seen Verlander for 5 of them too.
By the way can someone please let The Blue jays know they are actually allowed to play a major league line-up, that was a really “now who the hell is that guy?” roster today.
I’m sure they’d be happy to, if most of their major league lineup weren’t injured.
I knew it! You said this last night and I was thinking, that’s not right, we swept at home. I should have said something out loud. I hate it when I don’t say something out loud!