Both Giants, A’s seek momentum amid ups, downs
The motto for this baseball season by the Bay: “We can’t decide!”
Get your T-shirts now, festooned with the likenesses of Stomper and Lou Seal dazed by indecision.
Baseball hits the halfway mark this week, and the Giants and A’s both know exactly where they’re going, if only they could find the road map. It was right in the glove box when we stopped at that dodgy truck-stop diner back there.
The Giants can’t decide if they’re gritty or just misguided. They can’t decide if they’re a scrappy, interesting blend of cagey vets and hungry kids
who will maximize their AllStar talent, or just a mismatched bunch of guys hoping to hang around .500. Will they suck it up and go for it, or give management a reason to quietly tear it all down?
The A’s indecision is on the part of ownership and management, which is either building a team that will be worthy of a new stadium, or treading water until MLB wakes up and says, “Hey, that’s not a major-league organization.”
The season so far isn’t about torture, it’s about teeter-totter. Don’t call it a roller-coaster ride, that’s too exciting.
In honor of the indecisive first half of ’18, here’s a random sampling of the ups and downs of the Giants and A’s.
A’s downers
⏩ TJ for A.J. A.J. Puk, the A’s prize pitching prospect (No. 6 overall draftee in ’16) bloomed like crazy in spring training, cramming a few years of development into a few weeks. Then the A’s team doctor asked the youngster: “Have you had your flu shot? Check. Did you floss your teeth? Check. Have you had your Tommy John surgery? No? Well, report to sick bay and we’ll see you in 2019.” ⏩ The looming likelihood that one of more of the following fellows won’t be with the A’s beyond next season: VP of baseball operations Billy Beane, manager Bob Melvin and/or general manager David Forst. As per a recent story by the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser, owner John Fisher might be looking in some other vague direction.
⏩ No new ballpark. Food trucks, a Tree House, a cool Shibe Park club, but no new ballpark.
A’s uppers
⏩ The increasing likelihood that Beane/Melvin/Forst might be headed out. This could be a sign that owner Fisher is mulling selling the A’s, which is the only way the team will ever become relevant.
⏩ Sean Manaea’s no-hitter. Lanky lefty baffles BoSox.
⏩ Stephen Piscotty’s home run in the game after his mother’s funeral. Serious chills.
⏩ Snagging Jonathan Lucroy, who is having a major impact on the team and the pitching staff. What this guy doesn’t know about his pitchers and the other team’s hitters ain’t worth knowing.
⏩ Blake Treinen is quietly one of the top three closers in baseball. Don’t tell the team doctor. ⏩ Franklin Barreto’s arrival. Signaled by a pair of three-run jacks in one game. Maybe he’s not that good, but enough already of the yo-yo-ing between the majors and minors for a guy who looms large in your future. ⏩ Jed Lowrie, knocking the ball around, playing his best ball at age 34.
⏩ Khris Davis. Baseball’s trendy homer frenzy offends some purists, but it’s nice to see a Bay Area ballplayer participating in the jack-a-thon.
⏩ The A’s sticking around .500, actually two games over. If they could switch leagues/divisions with the Giants ...
Giants downers
⏩ Singin’ the Metacarpal Blues. Madison Bumgarner, Evan Longoria, Hunter Strickland. You can count on the fingers of one hand the fingers that have plagued the Giants.
⏩ Knockdown blows to the top three starters — Johnny Cueto, Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija.
⏩ Outfield woes. Hunter Pence has gotten old, Andrew McCutchen’s not his young self, Mac Williamson didn’t seize the day. Thank goodness for Gorkys Hernandez, quietly gettin’ ’er done in center and at bat.
⏩ Rumors and rumbles about the future of general manager Bobby Evans and skipper Bruce Bochy. Giants uppers
⏩ What if Cueto and Samardzija join Bumgarner for a latesummer run?
⏩ Finding Alen Hanson in the scrap pile. Hits .300, plays anywhere, un-Giants-like speed. Discarded by the Pirates and White Sox, he was marked “eh” until the Giants took a flier on the flier.
⏩ Brandon Belt’s 21-pitch at-bat. Sixteen foul balls! The most exciting 765 seconds in sports.
⏩ McCutchen’s six-hit game.
⏩ Pablo Friggin’ Sandoval making an impact. Said to be a distant relative of the Pablo Sandoval who played for the Giants from 2008 to 2014, New Panda has enlivened the clubhouse and sparkled afield.
⏩ Sticking around .500. What, you liked last season better?