After I wrote many words about Tim Lincecum and his alarming regression in 2012, I added a couple paragraphs about #RallyZito . At the time of my writing, it was a fun little Twitter meme that Giants fans were using to try to stay positive about their chances in the NLCS. Game four was a chore to sit through and it didn’t even look like the Giants were supposed to be on the same field as the Cardinals. Giants fans were upset, but some creative fans decided […]
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Sweet Chin Muzak – On Tim Lincecum And #RallyZito
Before I mention the Giants loss on Thursday night, I wanted to tell a story. It’s about a man named Tim Lincecum. After blazing through Pac 10 hitters at the University of Washington, this man named Tim Lincecum was the 10th pick of the Giants in the first round of the 2006 Amateur draft. He made minor leaguers look like little leaguers for a short while before being fast tracked to the major leagues. He was a 150-pound fire breathing […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – 7 Hours Later, The Cards Upend The Giants In Game 3
Game three of the NLCS between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals started at 1PM Pacific time and ended a bit before 8PM Pacific time. No, it wasn’t a seven hour game. There was a three and a half hour rain delay in the middle. October baseball! Before the rain delay, the Cardinals took advantage of a Matt Cain mistake and the Giants couldn’t take advantage of any Kyle Lohse mistakes, or Cardinals’ unlucky breaks. Cards’ slugger Carlos […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Giants Get Even In Game 2
If you want to find a turning point in game two of the NLCS, look no further than the top of the first inning. Maybe it wasn’t really a turning point. Maybe it was a starting point. With Matt Holliday on first and one out, Allen Craig hit a slow chopper to Brandon Crawford. Crawford fielded it and quickly threw to second to get the force. Holliday waited to start his slide until he was on top of the bag, […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Cards Hold Off Giants In Game 1
The Cardinals and Giants have played in the NLCS twice before. Giants fans remember the team being up 3-2 in 1987, only to lose the next two games in St. Louis. There was the 1-0 John Tudor vs. Dave Dravecky masterpiece and the Atlee Hammaker implosion . The Giants got payback in 2002, beating the Cardinals in five games. The last three games in that series were all determined by one run. This year’s Cardinals weren’t supposed to be back in the playoffs. They lost franchise player Albert Pujols to […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Buster Hits For Us All
Giants fans have been accustomed to Buster Posey’s theatrics all season long. The probable National League MVP hit a league leading .336 (thanks Melky Cabrera) with twenty four home runs and seemingly a big hit in every important game. Yet, in the postseason through four games, Posey’s swing looked tired. He hit a home run on a hanging breaking ball off Mat Latos in the game one. But other than that, he had only two singles, though, one of which […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – The Redemption Of Tim Lincecum
If you’ve ready any of my baseball posts around these parts, you may know that Tim Lincecum fascinates me. He fascinates me when he does well, and he also fascinates me when he’s not doing well at all . He’s the most charismatic ball player the San Francisco Giants have had since Barry Bonds. When he’s on the television, you don’t turn away, you don’t get up to get something to drink, and you don’t empty your bladder. Well, except this season. You know that old […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – The Giants Show Life
Early Tuesday before the Giants tried to hold on to their playoff hopes for dear life, there were whispers that Hunter Pence delivered an inspired speech to the team. After Pence struck out in the second inning, I joked on Twitter that Pence’s speech sure didn’t work on himself. My joke would turn out to be wrong. While no single player would say they played the best game of their life, the team did what they usually do – they […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Mission Impossible
In my post after Saturday night’s debacle , I mentioned that Sunday’s game was now a must-must-win. So what is Tuesday’s game three then? It may be “Mission Impossible”. The Giants looked flat on Saturday night in game one, and then they were steamrolled Sunday night. Their bats were so listless that all the erectile disfunction ads TNT was showing could’ve spliced in shots of the Giants hitting in with the horse back riding and no one would’ve blinked. When the game was finally over, […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – Giants Lose “Must-Win” Opener
Like I mentioned in our latest Heat Check , I will be writing game stories for San Francisco Giants playoff games. If the Giants lose quickly, it will be short and sweet. If they last for a while, I’ll be writing every other day for several weeks. Everything had fallen right for the Giants before the the first inning of their division series playoff game against the Cincinnati Reds had ended. With the weird home-field advantage rules, they’d play the first two […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – SF Giants Heat Check (End Of The Season Edition)
The SF Giants Heat Check crew has covered the San Francisco Giants in an in depth fashion from spring training (my favorite search term for the Spring Training Edition was “brandon crawford mormon”), all the way until now, the end of the regular season. It was a bit of an experiment for me personally to see if I could gather some very educated hardcore baseball fans and analyze the team from many different angles. I think we succeeded. It’s also […]
Sweet Chin Muzak – What Baseball Should Do About The Steroid Issue
I love discussing steroids. Growing up as a wrestling fan and now also following MMA closely, I feel like I’ve been aware of steroids for longer than most, including many sports writers today. The fact that writers were defending Ryan Braun instead of calling him out for his technicality after his test failure in which his epi-testosterone to testosterone level was the highest ever tested tells me that. Ahem, Jeff Fletcher . In the last couple weeks, two productive players have been suspended […]