Idiots Write About Sports

The Giants’ bullpen is, to put it mildly, not really working out so far this year.

Noah Lowry pitched an excellent game tonight, leaving in the seventh with two runners on base. In came the parade of diseased bears, to allow both of Lowry’s runners to score as well as six of their own. Jim Brower got two outs while allowing a hit and a walk; Scott Eyre was completely useless in giving up two hits and getting nobody out; and then there’s Tyler Walker, who really shouldn’t have a job as he’s not now, nor has he ever been, any good (and allowed the lead-losing home run on the very first pitch he threw). An eight-run seventh inning for the Rockies, and a 6-0 Giants lead had suddenly turned into an 8-6 deficit.

However… in a situation where I might be expected to angrily enter into super-speed-TiVo mode (which is how I watched the late-ish innings of thelast two Dodger games), I kept playing this game at something approaching normal speed. (Okay, I admit I blasted through the bottom of the 8th, figuring that either they’d get through it okay or the game would be out of reach.) My rationale for sticking with the game? The Rockies, it turns out, aren’t a very good team. Even if they can light up the Giants’ awful middle relief.

Speaking of special kinds of awful, the Rockies have that in their bullpen, too, even when they’re on the road. Ryan “No Relation” Spier was lucky to only give up one run in his two innings, but Brian Fuentes was incompetent and the great Scott Dohmann was worse, giving up a blast to Grissom to lose the game 10-8. (It ricocheted off the top of the wall for a homer, but it probably would’ve won the game even if it had hit off the wall for extra bases. At worst, the winning run would’ve been at third with nobody out.)

So to recap: When you’re only down by two to the Rockies, even out of Denver, you can’t flip the TiVo into three-forward-arrows mode. Because the game is always within reach. Sort of like it is when you’re facing the Giants’ middle relief, apparently.

On April 8th you wrote:
> The Giants’ bullpen is, to put it mildly, not really working out so far this year.

And were proved right again today (the 12th). Normally I'd be happy (being a Padres fan), but you lost to the Dogs!

Shame on you!

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