What's odd is that I really do think the Giants are a pretty good team. Not, to be sure, a great team. But to me at least, clearly the best team in the division this year, undone by a devastating run of injuries. Not just Posey and Sanchez, but what happened in August -- Beltran, Torres, Ross, Schierholtz, Burrell and Rowand all missed time -- that's six outfielders -- along with Sandoval, Keppinger, Cabrera, Tejada, and Whiteside. And J. Sanchez, and Romo and Wilson. Did I miss any? Now, granted, some of those were only a few games, and some of them weren't exactly missed a lot, but then you add them all up, and you also note that a lot of them didn't hit right away when they returned, and the team wound up with a short bench for about half the month...well, no wonder they had a terrible month.
Yes, there are a fair number of old players, and old players tend to break down. Not always all at once, though. What I guess I mean to say is that for all the specific complaints I have about Sabean this year (and Cabrera is just inexcusable), overall he's done okay. At any rate, I've always said that my main request every season is to get to watch (or listen to) meaningful games in September. It may only turn out to be a handful of them, but they got there.
Also: this isn't really meant to be a post complaining about luck; I'll take the combined luck of 2010-2011, thank you very much, no problem.
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I'd say the injuries can be stuffed into two categories. There were the awful ones: Posey, obviously, and to a lesser extent, Freddy Sanchez. And there were the injuries that came simultaneously. Losing Brian Wilson hurt, but Romo's been the better pitcher for a couple of years, so the real whammy was having both of them gone at the same time. Many of the infielders stink, but the alternatives are even worse, so having so many hurt at the same time was a real problem. Same with the post-Posey catchers.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird, though. A World Series title makes me less pissed off. And that Showtime series really made it hard to get down on the players, esp. guys like Huff, working so hard to find his lost juju.
For a future post, next week, Jonathan, would you please address the Obama administration's handling of the EPA decision? It actually makes sense to me why he and his advisors would have decided it was a concession worth making now given economic conditions. But why would he have not prepared the ground, carefully discussing it with environmental groups and the EPA heads, at least so as not to produce stories like this one?:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62586.html
MPR,
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched the Showtime series yet, but I will sooner or later, I'm sure.
Of course, a big chunk of this was attempting to go the entire season without a major league shortstop, and then failing to pick up a C when Posey got hurt.
Here's a theory: when Sabean was wasting great Bonds years, it was a lot different than when he wastes great Lincecum/Cain/Bumgarner years, since we need to give Sabean credit for both the good and the bad.
Jeez guys, it's only baseball.
ReplyDelete@PF: I think that story was a significant part of the point: Classic hippie punching.
ReplyDelete