This Too Shall Pass

During this slump, where the Giants fell from a few games over .500 to one game below, how many home runs by the opposing ball clubs have hit the dang foul pole?

How many times have the Giants' batters fouled one off and the poorly hit foul pop managed to stay in the field of play where the opponents' fouls reach the seats?

After hurting his hand making a head-first slide, Brandon Crawford was anemic at the plate. That is, until his last couple of at-bats in the Tuesday night game (6/25). So hopefully he has snapped out of his funk. A funk he achieved by not sliding properly.

Marco Scutaro had the misfortune of being hit-by-a-pitch and getting "mallet-finger" but he seems to possess an incredible pain threshold and has made it back into the lineup. Unfortunately, when you miss a day or two nobody notices. When you miss a few days the fans begin to notice. When you miss more you begin to notice that your batting swing is not what it was before the pinkie finger on his glove hand was struck by an errant toss of the opposing pitcher.

Pablo, WOW! To look at him is to just be in awe that a person that size can hit the way he can. And he is athletic enough to field his position competently. But it has become apparent that his teammates are over-compensating for the growing Panda like the other night when Brandon Belt fielded a ball in which Pablo was there as if Belt didn't expect him to be there. And the jokes are incessant when speaking of Sandoval. "He's had trouble with the hammate bones and the ham he ate." The guy looks very much like the Babe, with those skinny legs, the big gut and his trot around the bases. Only the Babe did it when he went yard. (And as for filmography, all films in the Babe's day had that problem. Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, all the celluloid heroes in those shadows on the wall had that fast-forward thing happening.) If they tried speeding up the film it'd probably make Pablo fall. Damn, if he did he'd probably Pop!

The bullpen has been dreadful. First George Kontos gets sent down then Jean Machi does so bad it's time to bring Kontos back up. Then they call up this kid Dunning. In the Tuesday night game Dunning loses his focus and attempts to pick off the runner on first even though the batter (Fife) has shown little aptitude for hitting a pitch. The ball rolls away from Brandon Belt and the runner on third scores making the game 6-2.

When you are mired in a slump every mistake is blown out of proportion. As was the case on June 25 at Chavez Ravine. 6-2 ended up 6-5. If not for the inexcusable errant toss to Belt, the Giants would have tied the game in the top of the 9th inning.

Oh well, this too shall pass.

Kevin J. Marquez