Bruce Jenkins:
Giants catcher Buster Posey, left, is among the reasons to continue watching baseball this season.
It’s been a frantic couple of days in Giants country, everyone scrambling to install mouse turds in their pole-vault pits. They say horse dung works just as well, but it’s best to stick with Bruce Bochy’s vision. What a hilarious way to ease the pain of an impossibly grim season.
In case you missed it, when confronted with a report suggesting dissension in the Giants’ clubhouse, Bochy described the needless commotion as “pole vaulting over mouse turds.” So that goes straight to the top of today’s list — reasons to have faith in the remainder of the baseball season. Never lose your sense of humor.
As the list goes on:
Madison Bumgarner: A cranky Tim Flannery laid out the truth after the lost weekend against the Mets, saying the only way to win is with “energy — with an edge.” And we don’t mean the Hunter Strickland variety. Bumgarner takes the mound and the field begins crackling with energy. It only gets better when he grabs a wooden bat. The Giants aren’t going anywhere, but they won’t look tired, or boring, when he’s out there. And they’re liable to start playing respectably again. (Bumgarner gets a rehab start at Triple-A Sacramento on Friday, likely to be followed by a July 5 outing at Class A San Jose.)
Why should he pitch at all? Shouldn’t he just take the season off, not risking aggravation of his shoulder injury? No chance. Bumgarner is a ballplayer; that’s his living. Careers are far too short in this game, and no athlete should dismiss a full year, inviting great piles of rust, if there’s a way to avoid it.
Buster Posey: The batting average is All-Star material — he’ll get the National League start, no questions asked — and the RBIs are starting to come. It’s been a difficult year emotionally for Posey, who had a couple of bitter on-field interactions with Brandon Belt and reflected the Giants’ indifference toward Strickland’s personal feud with Bryce Harper. But this is a time to appreciate a truly great catcher, a huge reason why the Giants hang three championship banners. He’s not regressing in the slightest.
Brandon Crawford: It was amusing to hear the Giants’ clubhouse described as “too quiet” in Ken Rosenthal’s report for Fox Sports. It’s true that the card games aren’t as lively as in the recent past, when the club’s Latin American presence was so strong. That was a guaranteed source of banter, with a musical soundtrack to match. But when you think about Crawford or Belt or Joe Panik or Matt Cain — throw in Matt Duffy and those departed veteran relievers — you’re not talking about motormouth chatter or a veritable toy department, at least in the media’s presence. The Giants’ clubhouse has been measured and low-key for years.
We mention Crawford because he’s not likely to vocalize his frustration. He’s having a down season, and on the list of influential shortstops, he’s fallen behind Corey Seager, Addison Russell, Trey Turner, Zack Cozart and the impressive group of American Leaguers including Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Xander Bogaerts and Andrelton Simmons. But don’t buy the talk about Crawford being a step slow or losing his batting stroke. He remains All-Star caliber and is likely to rebound in the second half. Trade material? Hardly.
The A’s: With the exception of Austin Slater, the Giants’ hitting prospects have made only a mild impression. It’s too early to make an accurate assessment, but the A’s appear to have legitimate big-leaguers in Franklin Barreto, Jaycob Brugman, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman, not to mention the ongoing long-ball appeal of Ryon Healy, Khris Davis and Yonder Alonso. This team is more entertaining ... than the current Giants.
Ballpark strategy: For all of David Kaval’s fine work on Coliseum visuals and the nods to tradition, the A’s continue to draw pitiful crowds most nights. Kaval’s promise to have a site established by year’s end? That to happen. It will be an interminable wait under any circumstances, but any plan needs an actual target. Count on Kaval and the city of Oakland to make this happen.
Home Run Derby: Imagine Cody Bellinger trading blasts with Aaron Judge. Giancarlo Stanton craving glory before his home (Miami) crowd. Hope for commitments from the wicked-swinging likes of Davis, Harper, Joey Gallo, George Springer, Javier Baez, Eric Thames, Miguel Sano, Yoenis Céspedes, Paul Goldschmidt, Wil Myers, Edwin Encarnacion. And when the stuffed shirts aren’t looking, sneak Bumgarner in there. He could steal it.
The game itself: Don’t get too exasperated over the torrent of home runs, strikeouts, delayed replay decisions, dawdling pitchers and players changing their “launch angle” to a full-uppercut swing. It’s all just chatter, and an obsession with numbers. In essence, the game has not changed. Just as you might get a 1-0 game with an alarming lack of balls put in play, you get the all-out aggression of the Dodgers, Astros or Nationals — or the Colorado Rockies surrendering five runs on wild pitches. Forever unpredictable, baseball tends to self-correct its aberrations, and “why” is not the question. Rather, “What kind of treat do we have in store tonight?”
I mean, hey. If you’ve got the turds, I’ve got the pole.