Zito is Finito

After watching Barry Zito let another batter off the hook, after having a two-strike count on the batter, (and it just happened to be the opposing pitcher) I have had it with number 75.

I had hoped this season he would come into his own, after reading articles (and sharing some on this blog) about how much he had learned through all the bad press. But he lacks the killer instinct to put batters away and therefore his team loses.

Sure, the Giants are notorious for not matching good offense with good pitching but a pitcher has to handle his end and Zito fails to do so, time and time again. I mean the guy is an automatic out who has learned to bunt but for the money he is being paid you'd think he'd do more.

Since he signed the outrageous contract offered him by Brian Sabean and Giants' brass he has led the league in allowing opposing pitchers base hits off of him and batters reaching base after being behind in the count. You can look it up! (as Casey Stengel used to say. AND, it should be duly noted, when he gives up these hits the count is usually: no balls, two strikes.)

What is it about Barry Zito that says to opponents, 'let him get ahead of you because he seems to lose ferocity after that happens.'

Most pitchers use a no-balls two-strike count to bury the batter but not Mr. Nice Guy, Barry Zito. Nope, he just feels the need to offer up one more meatball for good measure. And the end result is, boy does the San Francisco Giants' organization look stupid for signing Barry Zito to such a high-priced contract. (Once again, the idea that Zito doesn't miss a start just boils down to Zito "just showing up" because he really doesn't make his appearance worthy of anything positive.)

Kevin Marquez

Bungle in the Tunnel

Yes, this is in reference to the Botcher, a.k.a. Bruce Bochy.

Yesterday, in the Giants 9-7 win, I ask Manager Bochy, why was Javier Lopez brought in to face just one batter? It wasn't his fault Juan Uribe has less range than the ageless Omar Visquel (who is still playing at a high level with the Chicago White Sox) and yet he gets removed for Santiago Casilla. A pitcher who takes your breath away, not because of his awesome ball movement, which can be sensational, but more because you know the catcher doesn't know where Casilla's next pitch will be going.

The Giants need to look seriously at a shortstop who can cover ground. Brandon Crawford, the top selection in the 2008 First Year Player Draft from U.C.L.A. should be high on their list of choices for someone who plays shortstop next year.

Do they do the Buster Posey thing by letting him hang around the minors for the first couple of months or do they bring him with the big club when training camp breaks?

You see, in baseball, you can only hide someone with limited ability so long. And the shortstop position as well as Jose Guillen in right-field is asking for trouble. In every game of the recent series (Aug. 27-29) versus the Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Guillen had misplayed a ball. And it's largely due to the fact that he moves like Bengie Molina would if he were in the outfield.

Not a good fit, to say the least.

This 2010 season has been a fun year and I would hate like hell to see the Giants blow their chances for winning enough games to enter the post-season because the manager thinks a bat is more important than a glove.

Your thoughts? Or is this like what (KNBR sportstalk host) Gary Radnich says most days, "Nobody cares." (When referencing something the vast majority of the listening audience has little to no interest in discussing.)

Kevin Marquez

Fielding Culbreth...Is That A Chip on Your Shoulder?

Say Fielding, every fourth day it's your turn to call balls and strikes, correct? Does this work for you? I mean you get treated well being that you are representing the Major Leagues of Baseball, albeit as an umpire, right?

Judging by your efforts on Sunday, August 22, 2010 at St. Louis, I'd say you were disinterested at best.

The sporadic strike zone you allowed for Barry Zito and the favorable one you provided for a St. Louis Cardinal rookie was in a word: sickening.

The San Francisco Giants pitching staff has had only 2 wins from its starters in the past 16 games and I think the fact that some umpires are inconsistent with the strike zone has a lot to do with it.

Sure, the pitcher has to adjust. But if that means having to throw pitches over the middle of the plate he may as well ask the batter where he wants the pitch thrown. When the umpire exhibits a poor judgment of what a strike is then it is the umpires who need make the adjustments. Someone up in the Replay Booth needs to taser the ump with a tweet that he's off the mark and the game itself is suffering because of it.

The umpires are arbiters of the text inside the rulebooks. They must and shall aways adhere to these rules. The umpire is the person who knows the full-intent and meaning of these rules. It's not open to interpretation. If it is the umpire who needs an interpretation of the rules, he is NOT doing his job.

These "chips on their shoulders" in blue have the attitude that they are the law. Fu-get-about da rulesbook! I am the law. That attitude is as old and stale as the calorically-challenged-umpire's breath.

This is why we need Instant Replay. The same way You Tube has invaded our privacy, a constant camera angle on the "Chips'" work behind the plate will show those (whose job it is to review the umpire) just how consistent that particular "Chip" is and if the umpire gives a half-hearted effort, for whatever reason, it'll be duly noted by the person reviewing his performance.

It has been long overdue that all sports use the technology to get the calls right and not give the officials unlimited power in how they choose to interpret rules. I am the first one to say I'd rather have a human do it but if the human is stubborn and appears to be ad-libbing something that has a distinguished rule assigned to it then that person needs to be replaced.

If you don't want to follow the rules and do what you were hired to do, you no longer do that job.

Of course, like with everything else, not everybody is guilty of this half-hearted effort. We just need to weed out the ones whose consistency leaves something to be desired.

Umpires have set the bar very high for their profession. They don't need attitudes in need of adjustment or chips on their shoulders to lower the bar. They are there to see to it that the rules are followed and no one is getting an unfair advantage. By no means can we accept that it is the umpires whose bad judgment and questionable behavior is what's providing the unfair advantage.

Kevin Marquez

Best Advice I Ever Got

(From an article in ESPN magazine, dated 8/9/10)



Richard Jefferson (San Antonio Spurs)

"When I first got here, Tim Duncan told me, "Don't suck. As long as you don't suck, you'll be helping the team.' He basically told me that I wasn't very good. Now, most nights, if I play okay, Tim says, "Yo, you didn't suck tonight.' So, for the most part, I try not to think about anything other than not sucking. It's good to know that as long as I don't suck, as long as I don't hurt the team, as long as I'm neutral, I'm okay."

Mariano Rivera (New York Yankees)
"A long time ago, Whitey Ford told me, 'When you're getting a pinch-hitter, don't try to change.'"

Mardy Fish (tennis)
"'If you play like you're broke and hungry, you'll never be either.'" My dad told me that."

Brandon Jennings (Milwaukee Bucks)
"The harder you work during peace, the less you bleed during war."

Barry Bonds (all-time MLB HR leader)
"I got so much good advice from my father and from Willie (Mays). Once when I was a kid, I was talking too much and Willie said: 'Open your eyes, and that'll quiet your voice." I used to talk a lot, but when I started to be quiet and study more, I became a better player."

Jennifer Harman (professional poker player)
"Chip Reese gave me some great advice about 10 years ago. 'You know Jen, If you play your hands right, you can't worry about the outcome.'"

Elton Brand (Philadelphia 76ers)
"My mom always gives me motivation. A long time ago we were going through tough times, and she's very religious, so she says, 'Greater is he that's in me that he that's in the world.' To me, that means you stay with your faith, focus and work hard, and everything will pan out. And it always sseems to do that."

*************************************

(thanks to the ESPN mag dated August 9, 2010 for the advice)

Kevin Marquez

Everyone With an Opinion is an Expert

It's tough listening to sports talk radio when your favorite team is struggling. And that is because, everyone with an opinion thinks they're an expert.

Just as the word great is often misused, so is the word expert. Not everyone referred to as an expert has that special skill or knowledge in the subject introduced by the sports talk show's host(s). But just as Yogi Berra's quotes are funny, as well as remarkably accurate, what seems so grammatically imperfect is its own charm. Sometimes a caller says something so outrageous you lose track of the subject matter and just laugh hysterically.

Most comments heard on the radio are conjecture. Words spewed from the mouths of fans that have reached their fill of what's been happening and they are not amused.

You may be educated by the host of the show but you cannot expect much from the callers. Occasionally callers will surprise you and perhaps even enlighten you-the listener- but they aren't the reason why I listen. I want to hear the host discuss what he has determined to be the hot topics based on what happened the previous day.

Good hosts have a low tolerance for bad callers, unless the callers are so outrageous it's gut-busting funny! (The host can always blame the bad call on the call screeners.)

680AM, KNBR and 1050AM have hosts with good sense of humors so their shows will have their moments.

Kevin Marquez

Baseball Terminology...A Lot Depends on Broadcasters

I feel very fortunate that the San Francisco Giants hire the best play-by-play announcers. These "voices" sell the product that is Giants baseball better than any advertisement could and they have decent ads.

Baseball begins in March, with Spring training, and ends in October (if your favorite team plays well enough to make the post-season). That's eight months of a twelve month year. The voices of your favorite ballclub are like family, the way they enter your life by way of the airwaves. Some people prefer watching baseball on television, but when I first followed the grand old game I had a transistor and it's my preference to listen to games on the radio.

People see me walking with my walkman and they probably see something that is outdated but it serves me just fine.

I enjoy tuning into Giants baseball and am entertained by the likes of Jon Miller, Dave Fleming, Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow and occasionally J.T. Snow or F.P. Santangelo. I am so plugged into their insights that often I'll say something and moments later the announcer will repeat what I just said.

Baseball terms, you can find them under Wikipedia's glossary of baseball. The explanation of terms is interesting, especially since the glossary is an ever-growing list of words.

For example, it's no longer a bloop, excuse-me swing, duck snort or dying quail. The in vogue term, according to Giant broadcasters (Miller and or Fleming), is looping liner.

Ninety-nine percent of the time a looping liner falls safely. If a fielder were somehow able to catch this accidental phenomenon it would have been described as a squibber or a ball that was cued as if hit with a billiard stick.

Kevin Marquez

Be on the Lookout for Bad Home Plate Umpiring.

Nothing ruins the good ole game of baseball like bad home plate umpiring.

Yesterday, at AT&T, Daryl Cousins assumed the role of umpire calling balls and strikes. And the attitude he exuded was, 'it doesn't matter what you think, if I say it's a strike, it's a strike.'

The San Diego Padres were the benefactors of a more batter-friendly strike zone than were the hometown Giants.

Now, I've said this before and it bears repeating, when your team struggles to score runs, things like this are magnified tremendously.

And as far as Cousins is concerned, this was another day of bad judgment and questionable behavior. It wasn't so much a matter of teaching an old dog (as Cousins has been around a few years) new tricks but more like teaching a dumb ass dog a (one-singular) new trick. But apparently, Cousins never got "fetch!"

You could see the look on his face, the countenance of someone searching for trouble as if armed and ready to toss the first person who questioned his questionable efforts. It was, in a word, disgusting.

Meanwhile, the Padres hit duck snort after duck fart and they bled the Giants with dukeys until the final score read 8-2.

Perhaps the outcome would have been different had Jose Guillen decided to be happy with a leadoff double. Or the several batters who had 3-balls 0-strike counts only to get 2 phantom strikes on pitches way off the plate but in the center of the catcher's glove (word to Cousins, it kind of matters where his glove is before you bellow "Strike." I mean, uh, if the catcher is setting up outside of the strike zone, it's, uh, not a strike."

A count that goes from 3-and-0 to full, means the batter, not knowing what the umpire's strike zone is, will probably protect. And sometimes the foul is a popup to a fielder.

Oh well, it was only one game. I hadn't graded the performance of Daryl Cousins before yesterday but I will now. To see just how consistently bad this guy is when it's his turn to call balls and strikes.

I won't give him the benefit of the doubt because of his demeanor. He is not worthy of such respect.


Kevin Marquez