Thursday, July 01, 2010

Reflecting on the Dodgers' Sweep of the Giants

Today's off-day gives us a chance to bask in the glory of our sweep of the Giants, in their stadium, exorcising some of the demons that haunted us following that horrible Yankees game June 27. So why not take the opportunity to see how the Bay Area press covered the series?

Here's beat writer Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News with his lede from game 1 of the series:

Sometime during the middle innings Monday night, Giants mascot Lou Seal provided a metaphor for the season. His electric cart died on the warning track and had to be pushed off the field.

It was apropos for the Giants, whose old, slow, lifeless and unreliable offense failed them yet again in a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Casey Blake hit a tiebreaking, two-run home run in the eighth off Santiago Casilla, Pablo Sandoval made a monster of a mental mistake on the basepaths, and the "Beat LA" cheer was rendered trite in the first rivalry game of the season at AT&T Park.

Poor, poor Lou Seal.

The next evening, when Sandoval made a baserunning error in Game 2 that reprised his baserunning error the night before, the wolves were out in force. Wrote Cam Inman of the Merc:

Vote for Pablo. Remember that All-Star campaign last year for Giants phenom Pablo Sandoval, a fan-friendly but ultimately unsuccessful movement?

A year later, Sandoval is getting lampooned for his askew baserunning, beer-league-softball belly and, above all else, slumping bat. Call this mantra: "Pick on Pablo." [...]

Not surprisingly, he turned cheers into boos Tuesday night when he grounded into his National League-leading 18th double play to end the third inning.

Three innings later, a baserunning blunder got him picked off at second base, killed a needed rally and reminded everyone of Monday's baserunning gaffe in the Giants' 4-2, series-opening loss. Vote for Pablo? Fans are ready to impeach him from their good graces and return those Panda hats.

An even more telling sign about the State of Sandoval came in Monday's ninth inning, when he was denied a chance at rally-churning redemption and got pulled for a rookie pinch hitter, albeit this year's phenom, Buster Posey.

Vote for Posey? Oh, how times can change.

Posey actually replaced Jeremy Affeldt in the ninth. But he lined to short for the final out, anyway.

Finally, here's the SF Comical reporting on Game 3:

"It was embarrassing," Giants' outfielder Aubrey Huff said. "As an offense we never got anything going this whole series." [...]

The Giants scored a total of 14 runs over their six-game homestand and scored two or fewer runs in each of their past five games.

"There's no sugar-coating it, we didn't play well this whole homestand," Giants' manager Bruce Bochy said. "We got our tails kicked. This was a rough series. Our challenge is to get out of this as soon as possible. We're still in a pretty good position."

5 comments:

rbnlaw said...

These articles really make me sad.

WHO AM I KIDDING????? I'M GIDDY LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL!!

Steve Sax said...

rbnlaw, don't you be that giddy out in Texas now. All those guys are packing heat in their glove compartments.

Kyle Baker said...

The self-flagellation on their blogs and in the local media is widespread. To hear them, this series - against the Dodgers no less - is the nail in the coffin for the 2010 season.

I, for one, am thrilled.

MeanieBreanie said...

rbnlaw,sax - a lot of women pack them in their purses too. We are a feisty bunch!

MR.F said...

When will we get word on the MRI?