Good Job

Congrats to the Giants.

Sounds a bit odd coming from me, especially since the Giants lost yesterday 8-1 to the Astros. But they deserve every bit of it.

Yesterday's game I'm writing off. It was a really impossible combination of Roger Clemens and a bit of bad luck finally catching up with Scott Eyre. Clemens' performance was very good, but I do give the Giants credit for putting balls into play -- they only struck out four times vs. the Rocket over seven innings, which is a minor accomplishment in and of itself.

Eyre was simply due some bad luck. He's pitched so well all season, and I'm sure he'll continue to pitch well the rest of the season. Hey, sometimes sh-- just happens, and feces did indeed happen in the form of a two-out rally vs. Scott yesterday.

How's about Brian Cooper, though? Called up for an emergency start, and all he does is come as close as one can usually get in matching Clemens pitch-for-pitch -- their lines were very similar yesterday. Apparently Brett Tomko has a sore foot and couldn't go yesterday, and Kirk Rueter had to go on the DL for gout, of all things. Not used to seeing Woody on the DL.

Over this weekend that saw my prediction of the Giants sweeping the Astros almost come to pass:

• Randy Winn. What can I say? The guy is doing it, and doing it in very exciting fashion. Am I ready to eat crow as far as the trade for him? Heck no -- if he can continue to put up an OPS of 1.031 the rest of the season, well, I'll take my crow fried in butter, olive oil, onions, and garlic cloves, please. Otherwise, I'll give the guy some credit -- he seems to be as advertised (solid player), but I'll point out that despite his superb performance and the Giants taking 2 of 3 from the Astros, that the Giants have fallen back another game to 7.5 back.
• Ray Durham seems to be fully back into form. Despite his slow start, all his stats are currently in-line with previous years, and he seems on his way to another solid season production-wise at the plate. And, something I mentioned before, even with all of his normal nagging injury problems, he's still on pace to play more games this season than his last two with the Giants (110 in 2003, 120 in 2004, on pace for 137 in 2005). While I think trading him wouldn't have been a bad idea, except for a some irritating defensive lapses and the injury woes, Durham earns his contract at the plate.
• A guy who is, without doubt, earning his contract dollars is Mike Matheny. There isn't any way that anybody thought he'd hit like this in this park. But nevertheless, he is hitting like this, so I tip my cap to him.
• Between Jason Schmidt and Noah Lowry, the Giants have two of the more devastating change-ups in the league -- and boy, is it fun to watch when they are on. Both pitchers have a need to be able to locate their fastballs to take full advantage of how nasty their change-ups are.
• I officially state that Jason Ellison is settled in defensively. Regardless of my opinion of Winn being in CF over Elly, the fact remains that Elly should still cover a lot of ground in RF, and should be able to show off his arm even better from a corner OF spot as opposed to all the longer, more difficult throws from CF. And the diving catch and double play he made yesterday was sick, just sick.

Here's to hoping the Giants can continue to play good baseball. It's just a shame that when opportunity knocked in the form of the Rockies, the Giants didn't answer the door. They did very well to take 2 of 3 from the Astros, but unforunately things have worked out towards something I mentioned before -- the Padres have finally started winning again, now having earned four wins in a row.

This is the problem with having so much ground to make up. Things have to go almost perfectly for the Giants to come back, and there just isn't the luxury to lose 2 of 3 to the Rockies or lose on a day when the Padres win. Everytime those types of things happen it drives another nail in the Giants coffin for this year.