Giants shut out, still closer to playoff spot
Odrisamer Despaigne threw the first curveballs the Giants had ever seen, and it was too much for the Giants.
In my living room, there is a file cabinet. In this file cabinet, there are folders of scenarios, all alphabetized. Go to 'N-P', find the Padres. Flip though the Padres folder. Pull out the one-liners about losing to a dooky-throwing floop-flam artist. Flip through more of the pages. Find the one-liners about hitting the ball right into the gloves. Copy. Paste. Add in a Ferris Bueller's Day Off or King Crimson reference. Post. Sleep like a damned baby.
That's the usual routine. I figured I had tonight off. Except it's better to leave the file cabinet alone tonight. This isn't a cookie-cutter loss at Petco Park, with a moribund offense embarrassing themselves in front of a crowd on the road/at home. Those happen. With the unbalance schedule, they happen two, three, nine times every year.
This has nothing to do with the Padres. This has to do with Tim Hudson and the Giants having a broken pitcher. That's a bigger deal than anything they've had to overcome in the past month. The Brewers lost; the Brewers are helpless. They could play like a 120-win team over the next week, the Giants could play like doodyheads, and they would still make the playoffs. Focus on the big picture. Hudson is the big picture.
Next to the file cabinet, there's a red button that reads 'SAMPLE SIZE', and when the need arises, I whap that red button and scream 'SAMPLE SIZE' and run around the room and huff and puff. The internet is serious stuff, and when someone tells me that Gregor Blanco lost all of his baseballing talent, I need to respond. Sample size sample size sample size.
Except, you get this isn't sample size, right? This is Tim Hudson, unable to locate. This is Tim Hudson, 39 years old, with a hip problem, pitching his way out of a rotation that he was carrying in the first two months. Yusmeiro, stay sharp. Vogie, you're cool, don't let us down. It turns out the odd man out is Hudson.
Considering that Tim Lincecum threw two good innings in relief, is it possible that Hudson isn't one of the 12 best pitchers on the staff? Might even be likely.
Barring some baseball-related freaky-deaky, the NL West is mostly lost. Three-and-a-half games out with nine games to play is no way to go through life, son. A sweep could make everything better. Tim Hudson vs. Clayton Kershaw next week. Set your DVR. But with a win here and a win in that one game, the Giants are in the playoffs, the real playoffs. Once they get there, they'll need a fourth starter.
Tim Hudson is broken, though. He'll have another start to convince us -- Kershaw! -- but he's probably in a bad way. That's the most important/absolute worst takeaway from this game.
Tim Lincecum looked outstanding. The easy joke is to mention the Padres and shrug it off, but it's not fair to pooh-pooh his best outing since he was unceremoniously dumped. He looked legitimately impressive. Pitches were down. Offspeed stuff looked crisp.
There's no way that I take him over Hunter Strickland on the postseason roster. We'll see about the long-reliever role, though.
★★★
Angel Pagan looks like a papier-mache stand-in for the real Angel Pagan, possibly placed in a bed to fool his parents like Ferris Bueller. He didn't look like a player ready to help a major league team, not with his uncomfortable swing and tentative fielding.
At this point, the Giants need to write Pagan off and consider themselves pleasantly surprised with any contributions he can provide in the future. That goes for Sept., 2014 and it goes for April, 2015. He's an outstanding player with a jerk of a body, and I'm starting to get a Sally Draper complex when he doesn't show to pick me up for the weekend. He has his own demons that he needs to deal with.
At least the Giants do just fine without him. Lemme double-check that stat and see if that's accurate.
In the ninth inning of a stupid game, Buster Posey got a baseball thrown at his face. He was okay. After he dusted himself off, this was the only thing I could think of:
★★★
Now we have to worry about the Pirates hosting the second wild card. Considering how weird the Giants' season has been, I'm not sure if that's worth fretting over. Going 12-7 in a nine-game stretch is going to take a few road wins. Also, I'm defeated by the Padres fog. Whatever. Just get into the play-in game, you goofballs.
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