Weekend could have been but wasn’t
Hey, it could have been worse. Just kidding! The Giants’ weekend could not have been worse. It was worse than the weekend Bernie had in “Weekend at Bernie’s.”
Ugliest, most demoralizing threegame sweep ever experienced by the Giants? We’ll leave that to the historians to debate. I’ve been covering the team only the last quarter century.
If it’s any consolation to the Giants, they have inspired their fans to create a new rallying cry: “Wait ’til the year after next year.”
Next season was supposed to be a new dawning for the Giants, but fate and the coronavirus both waved their index fingers at the Giants, like Dikembe Mutombo.
The Giants were counting on this to be a crucial developmental season for their promis
ing crop of kids, but the minorleague season was canceled, and the regular season was stripped down to 60 games, if that.
Not only that, the Giants are not likely to have much success picking up young prospects with tradedeadline deals involving contending teams. Because the season is so short, many teams will be reluctant to take on the Giants’ expensive players for only a few weeks’ usage.
Also, some teams might deem it unwise to make bold, futurecompromising trades in an attempt to win a secondrate World Series.
I would try to make Giants fans feel better by pointing out that their lads were swept by baseball’s best team, but that won’t really help, will it?
What made the weekend truly terrible for the Giants is how starkly their woes stand out in contrast to the team that crushed ’em, their Bay Area neighbors.
The Giants are baseball royalty in terms of payroll, team value, World Series titles over the past decade, and ballpark coolness. The A’s are bargainbasement scufflers, a team whose future is tangled in lawsuits and gondola permits.
Yet, the A’s are everything the Giants aspire to be: young, successful, scrappy to the max, entertaining ... and powerful.
Oh, lordy, how the A’s abused Oracle Park for three games. Stephen Piscotty almost pulled off the ultimate indignity to his hosts Sunday when his fifthinning threerun homer almost crashed into the big Coke bottle above the leftfield bleachers.
Legend has it that if an opposing batter ever hits that Coke bottle, the entire stadium will crumble into dust. So at least the Giants were spared that.
Neighbors living in the condos across the street from Willie Mays Plaza were calling the cops Sunday afternoon to complain about all the racket the A’s were making.
“Officer, I know they’re playing baseball over there, but can’t they use quieter bats?”
The A’s hitters were so scary Sunday that Oracle Park’s cardboardcutout seagulls were pooping.
Making it worse for the Giants, the A’s did all that damage with at least two hands tied behind their back. The A’s played the threegame series without Ramón Laureano, currently their most dynamic player. He sat out the series on suspension for defending his mother’s honor. Baseball is so funny.
Who could possibly fill in for the redhot Laureano? Well, let’s see what Mark Canha can do.
Also, the A’s mightiest home run blaster, Khris Davis, is hitting .149, with one homer on the season. Marcus Semien, last season’s AL MVP thirdplace finisher, is batting .216.
Matt Olson came into Sunday with a .158 BA. But here’s what good teams do: The mighty Oly came to bat in the fifth, A’s up by two, runner on first, and he beat the shift with a bunt single, keeping the line moving in a ninerun inning. Nine. Bunt. Ouch.
Just wait until the A’s start hitting the ball.
But baseball is crazy, especially this season. Had the Giants held onto their massive leads Friday and Saturday, by playing highschool level defense, they would now be sitting only 11⁄2 games out of the playoffs.
Instead, the Giants skidded into Death Valley, hitting the franchise’s spiritual low point post2014. If this was a limbo contest, the Giants won.
Confidence in teambuilder Farhan Zaidi and new manager Gabe Kapler also hit new lows, which is impressive, considering that so many Giants fans began the season with their arms crossed, demanding evidence that Zaidi and Kapler are the future.
Still waiting. Although, in fairness, when Kapler brought in reliever Trevor Gott on Saturday in the ninth, after the horror show of the previous night, the 29 other bigleague managers all said, “Absolutely, gotta show faith in your guy.”
Just the Giants’ luck, this year they bring in some fences, they close up some outfield wind tunnels, they make their ballpark more homerfriendly, at a time when the ball is superjuiced, and a heat wave hits town just when the A’s do. Bernie can relate.