A 4-3 road trip and a split against a team they have a tough time beating. The Giants did well for themselves, but very little to distinguish themselves as something better than a .500 team. But when you have Matt Cain to root for I guess none of that matters in May. In fact, the early story of this game was how the most beloved Giants were really in control of the outcome. Matt Cain Matt Cained the Marlins through the first four innings, Buster Posey manifest destiny'd them, too, and Melky Cabrera, well...

I've written about Melky Cabrera's importance to the Giants before, but that was without two months of stats to back up the analysis. He's doing great things for this team and has been easily their most consistent player. It would be great if I could talk about his performance from a quantitative perspective or even in .gif form, but instead I will just say that a dude with a chinstrap beard, the upper body of a coat hanger, and the whip swing of Indiana Jones has been a wonderful distraction from the .500-ness of this team.

He had four hits today, and they were all well-struck. The line drive home run in the first will certainly get the most attention, but I liked the way he yanked the pitch away during his third PA for a hit. Even his stolen base was entertaining. Not many people can say they got to taste Omar Infante's glove.

So even as someone who threw stuff when the Jonathan Sanchez for Melky Cabrera trade was announced (because I felt very strongly that the Giants should've been targeting a shortstop all along!) I'm glad the trade has worked out so well for the Giants. It was always a risky proposition to bank on a catcher and an unproven first baseman to be able to carry the offense at times when the de facto slugging superstar third baseman struggled, and so if nothing else, Melky Cabrera is the main reason they're not a sub-.500 team.

You know, besides the pitching.

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In a game that had a little bit of everything except home runs and errors what most stood out was how completely forgettable it nearly was. It was every Giants-Athletics game ever rolled into one, really, and the Giants both continued their experimentation with patience and resumed their devotion to being hacks. And yet, it was a remarkable game in that it certainly *felt* different from previous games where the Giants stacked the deck in their favor only to change strategy and do a 52-card shuffle. It felt so different, in fact, that it required a style change to recap it:

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COMMENT!

The San Francisco Giants defeated Clayton Kershaw for the first time since August 1, 2010. A numerological analysis of how they were able to accomplish a seemingly impossible task reveals a curious, persistent link to the number two...

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Dumb people aren’t curious. They don’t ask questions. They either don’t know that they should ask or are too embarrassed to ask and that causes their ignorance to persist. They say this game will humble you (if you’re a player), and I submit it can make you look like a dumb fan if you don’t ask questions (seriously, people who don’t know that they’re called "runs" and not "points" – ask somebody!)

The Giants make me ask a lot of questions. In this particular game:

"Why the slavish devotion to splits?"

"What’s wrong with working the count and drawing walks?"

"Why only look at four pitches from a new pitcher late in the game?"

"Why didn’t Pill run home on that groundball in the sixth?"

"Why is Theriot playing?"

"Why did Theriot struggle so much with those pickoff attempts on Kottaras?"

"What was Posey doing on that ground ball in the top of the seventh?"

"What are you swinging at?"

These are not rhetorical questions and they don’t really take up much time to answer, it’s simply the volume of questions the Giants inspire on a day-to-day basis that I find to be most troubling. Well, first, I find it kinda hilarious and then troubling. The daily "Lineup Jumble" and the "Whack-a-mole" plate approach are comical at this point. The Giants might as well run the Wildcat while they’re at it. Somehow, the offense and the defense have become a gimmick, entertaining so as to distract from the questionable assemblage of talent.

Flemming’s color guy, Bill Schroeder, commented during the Giants’ sixth-inning rally that put them ahead, "Just don’t pull that ball. You pull a ball, you wind up putting it on the ground." He was saying that as a compliment to Buster Posey who had hit the ball up the middle to score Melky Cabrera, Melky Cabrera who had tripled pulling the ball into the left center field gap. In the previous inning, Madison Bumgarner had pulled a slow curve down the left field line. The point I’m trying to make is ALL THE GIANTS DO IS PULL THE BALL. THAT IS THEIR ENTIRE APPROACH. THE HITTING MEETING BEFORE EACH SERIES IS JUST A BUNCH OF GUYS SITTING AROUND A TABLE WHILE BAM BAM POINTS TO A DRY ERASE BOARD WITH ONLY THE WORD "SWING" WRITTEN ON IT. The first 4 innings of this game was a tribute to weak contact and could’ve been photographed and put in a book called The Joy of Pull. Their "swing first" approach is just… well, let’s all be thankful that Randy Wolf decided to hang some curveballs.

But then there’s the pitching. I don’t know how much I need to write about Madison Bumgarner here. Grant already sings his praises far better than I ever could and the jubilance in the game threads is obvious. He is a remarkable presence on the mound and the roster. His success and skill at such a young age defies what Bruce Bochy thinks about young players on offense. Bumgarner has earned his place by being dominant, unflappable, and far better than any other option the Giants have in the organization. It’s tough to be gimmicky with Bumgarner and the rest of the pitching, though a case could be made that throwing Mota in there for the eighth over Sergio Romo (despite his rough outing last night) was a bit of a gimmick.

So yeah, the Giants are kind of a gimmick team. They’re going to hang around .500 for most of the year and the only consistency we’ll be privy to is the inconsistency. Today’s win was great because winning is great, but besides the obvious – Madison Bumgarner – there wasn’t anything on display that was different from the losses that preceded it. Which raises the question: why?

Runs... whoa.

Occasionally, my entertainment industry contacts will have something sports-related for me. In this case, a bro I know on the TV desk at CAA hooked up with the cousin of a fellow who works for the San Francisco Giants. In a bit of happenstance, the fellow relayed to my bro insider knowledge about how the Giants handle player blogs. I've learned that Bruce Bochy gets to review all content before it's posted. He makes suggestions and comments on every word a player commits to paper (or data file) and sends them to GM Brian Sabean for review. But it's clear that Brian does not review any of his notes as his changes are never implemented (according to my source, anyway. I don't read these player posts).

I've been fortunate enough to get a scan of Bochy's notes for Brandon Belt's latest blog post at mlbblogs.com. After reading his thoughts on Belt's comments it's pretty clear why Hector Sanchez is getting some work in at first base. Behold:

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Baby, if you’ve ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me… I’m blowing all these games in Cincinnati… Cincinnati screws Bruce Bochy.

No point in getting too worked up about another loss. This was a Giants game through and through.

For the second night in a row, Bruce Bochy left his starter out there a bit too long and got burned. The defense got weird. The bullpen -- still recovering from the Mets series -- once again expLOLded.

Still, Melky Cabrera added a couple of hits (#Melky200), Pablo Sandoval hit in his 18^th straight game – tying the Giants’ franchise record (sharing it with Johnny Rucker) – but, mainly, he hit a baseball so hard (and so foul) that it caused these facial expressions:

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As the right-hander in a platoon situation and a power bat off the bench, Brett Pill is a nice, cheap addition to the Giants’ roster. Last night, Brett Pill went 1-4 with a double off of Cliff Lee. He did not embarrass himself in the field as he did in Colorado. His Twitter handle is @PillzRGood (Millenials: click here to learn the source of this reference). He’s sporting a 157 OPS+ in his really, really, ridiculously brief MLB career (65 PA). His facial expression never changes:

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Pardon me for peaking. I started writing this after the first inning because, hey, it's Roy Halladay.

Brandon Belt seems to give away the first two pitches of an at bat. Anecdotally, he watches the first pitch, swings at the second pitch, and then manages to firm up his approach and put together a decent at bat most of the time (even when it winds up in a strikeout). Opposing pitchers seem to be attacking him with a breaking ball on first pitch or otherwise attack his "swinghole" up and in in the zone. The very next pitch, then, is usually a change up or another breaking ball, but one that darts beneath the zone, usually getting a swing over by young Belt. Anyway, this just *appears* to be a consistent pattern with Belt’s plate appearances this season.

His bloop hit to left in the 4^th inning was probably the luckiest thing to happen to the kid in months, at least where being a major leaguer is concerned. Of course, in the very next inning, the luck normalized and he was punched out on a very questionable call. Then, he had a great play in the field to show off his range and he ended his night with a three-pitch strikeout. Bad at bat, good at bat, bad at bat, great play in the field... the kid is the ultimate neutron.

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Aubrey Huff is seeing the ball well, too.

Well, that game sucked.

That was the ol’ Coors Field special, but remastered George Lucas-style to incorporate the humidor. There was plenty of offense, but fewer home runs than usual. Ironically, the only bombs were Tim Lincecum and whatever ball was unlucky enough to meet the bat of Nate Schierholtz (I’m not forgetting Crawford’s blast, but it didn’t even crack 400ft).

Still, the offense showed up for a couple of innings and the Giants actually held the briefest of leads against the Rockies would-be ace of Jeremy Guthrie, who managed to work the Giants for three innings with nothing but a fastball and a bit of a curveball before it all went Coorsy for him.

Melky Cabrera continued to impress, Pablo Sandoval continued to put 2010 in the rearview, Gregor Blanco walked, Brandon Crawford had good at bats, Emmanuel Burriss had three hits (!) and even be-shingled catching icon Buster Posey made an appearance. All in all, can’t complain about the offense. Nooooope.

And, and… it’s only one game…

HOWEVER…

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Look, if you want a long post with actually insightful baseball analysis through statistics, read this post by our very own Roger. In the meantime, I’m going to prove Tim Lincecum’s #1 career comp isn’t actually Doug Drabek, it’s the primetime television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’m not afraid of the maths, it’s just that my brain isn’t quite compatible with algebra and beyond. My SAT math score was of the "Hey, at least he showed up" variety and I passed high school geometry despite never solving a proof correctly. So, there’s that. I don’t question math’s usefulness; I am desperate for these projection systems and stat categories as data points when evaluating teams and players, but I am fully incapable of being consistently handy with them.

But TV shows? That’s where I’m a Viking! And I think I’m really on to something here. My extensive preliminary analysis (conducted in traffic while commuting to and from work, over a single day) indicates that it is possible to evaluate and project player performance by comparing them to concluded TV series. TVcompnalysis © is going to be the next big thing.

You are hereby warned that I am running spoilers.exe, so, if you don’t want to know anything about seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer then you should be really, really careful when you skim through the brilliance that follows…

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So, I stumbled upon this report from 2008 concerning Melky Cabrera:

The Yankees have found their center fielder for 2009, as they are set to send Melky Cabrera to Milwaukee for veteran outfielder Mike Cameron on Thursday, according to two major league sources.

Can you imagine if that had happened? The Brewers ultimately held on to Mike Cameron. He posted a 110 OPS+ in a season that saw them go 80-82. Meanwhile, Melky Cabrera was basically a full-timer in New York. In 540 plate appearances, he posted a 93 OPS+. But what would’ve happened if that quasi-confirmed trade had actually happened in the winter of 2008?

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Today is Brian Wilson’s 30th birthday. Today is the official release of the new iPad. Elite closers and tablet computing devices are both great to have but, ultimately, luxuries. And they’re expensive. And a new, better one comes along every year. And yet, it would be foolish to think that either is without merit and that the people who like them are silly. I won’t belabor the comparison here. If you think tablet computing devices are pointless, that’s fine. If you think closers, the closer mentality, and spending big bucks on a closer are all pointless or otherwise inefficient, that’s fine, too. But Brian Wilson, specifically, is a part of the Giants psyche, and there’s something to be said about that.

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If there's one thing we can all agree on it's that we love to see our San Francisco Giants on TV... or via the Internet... or live at the ballpark. Point is, we love to SEE them. Well, the 2012 advertising campaign has kicked into gear -- "Let's Get Back + Together" -- and we're being treated with a new TV spot which you can SEE here.

All great advertising goes beyond mere visuals and affects us on an emotional level. A deep analysis of the images in this new ad reveals that the Giants are saying more than what's on the surface in the slick editing and hip font. They want to get back to the World Series, sure, but what they need is something more profound. Here are the thirty images that reveal this truth:

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Jon Miller interviewed him during the final game of the season. I transcribed those comments to the best of my ability. 

Miller: … Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News was talking about how just a couple of wins last week on that road trip and the Giants would also be tied [for the Wild Card], so, the team still came awfully close.

Sabean: Well, I got one big question: what the hell are all these people doing here? It’s a testament to their interest in the team, including us getting swept in Arizona and virtually being eliminated from the division and the Wild Card. To think it was sold out that the people showed up really is heart-warming. I know our players appreciated it. It certainly has been a tough year to navigate for anybody that was part of the team…

Miller:  [the organizational meetings start soon], do they not?

Sabean: Well, we’re gonna start tomorrow, and, actually, that’s our first for us. Given all that happened last year, which was the good, it seems like it’s all one whole year which last year was the good and the this year has been the bad and ugly, while everything was fresh in everybody’s mind we wanted to get everybody in the room, starting with the manager, the coaching staff, some of the front office personnel and kinda, you know, share and care what our thoughts are and how we can get better first internally and how we go forward to build, you know, the team in the near future and get back to our winning ways, so, the sooner the better.

Miller:  …you wanna see how the people in the organization are evaluating the players themselves? You wanna hear from everybody and get all of their input before you start making the decisions that are still to come this winter?

Sabean: Exactly. We’ll go over everybody on the 40 man roster and, uh, try to do whatever we can to judge their situation fairly whether they’re a free agent, arbitration-eligible to be, somebody that was a September call-up, and see how we can evaluate their role… how we would go forward or not go forward with specific needs and wants, and I think it’s important, that, you know, especially after the two years we’ve been through that everybody gets a chance to kinda exercise their demons. And, you know, I think everybody will appreciate the opportunity to get in on their first gasp. We traditionally do it later and in a different fashion, but this year we decided that…

[Kouzmanoff singles, Fowler scores.]

Miller: You wanna hear not just about the players on the 40-man roster, then, but any possible free agents the Giants might go after. You wanna hear the feedback from everybody on different guys and that sort of thing, too.

Sabean: Well, everybody does have an opportunity in written form a) with the roster at hand and how we go forward with controlling who has contract left with us or who would be under contract; they have the opportunity to write out the 25-man roster. We also give them the complete free agent field and they have an opportunity to circle their desirable players, and then we compile that, and we’ll go into those meetings in the next couple days and debrief all that information and kinda put together a relative game plan in both areas, first what we can do to get better internally  and secondly, how the outside world looks at, will favor us as we identify our needs and what the possibilities will be.

Miller: … there really is no off-season if you’re a GM… so, what are you anticipating… you think the Giants will dabble in the free agent market? They likely to pursue some trades? Try to fill some holes internally…?

Sabean: Well, I’ve already spoke to this publically and one of our themes going into tomorrow, we know two things: our pitching is our gold standard. Anything we can do will, uh, to keep that intact , uh, we need to identify what that means against payroll present and into the future. And secondarily, that’s really how you build your ballclub and then whatever dollars you have left, how you’ll decide to either keep your own free agent to be or pursue whoever you can in the market… but first and foremost we have to find a placeholder in our budget for what is our greatest strength in our pitching, and that’s obvious.

Miller: [How do you see the wild cards playing out?]

Sabean: Well, you have to give all the credit in the world to teams like Tampa and St. Louis. You know, we were part of an interesting race like this for the wild card in ’98, where I think we were five out with ten to play and ended up tying with Chicago to play a one-game playoff and losing it to them. But, uh, it just proves that with this new format – and, evidently, we may add even another wild card in the near future – uh, that, the season is never really over until you are mathematically eliminated. And, quite frankly, I’d like to see it tied in both leagues and go to a playoff game. It’s great theater.

Miller: It really is… [I think the playoff used to be decided by a coin flip].

Sabean: Exactly. Back then, the coin flip was the old saying, "Always say heads and you’ll probably make out." What is it? 51 percent against 49 percent, as ridiculous as that sounds.

[Miller and Sabean talk about ’98 wild card.]

Sabean: Well, it proves exactly what we’re talking about. It’s a wonderful game. It’s like life. Day to day, you don’t know what the result’s gonna be and, uh, you know, fall baseball, September baseball is meant to be meaningful and, uh, we’ve had a lot of Septembers like that. Fortunately, in most cases, we’ve had a chance, as we’ve been in a position to win the division, we’ve done it. In that case, we didn’t get by that playoff game, but, uh, you know, it proves to what I said earlier: keep playing and good things can happen. I think that’s  the type of attitude we’ve built here in the last three years. The thing I’m most proud of was at least we’re gonna win 86 games and that’s pretty amazing to me, and a lot of it’s the culture we’ve created, the fact that a lot of these guys come to play, expect to win, and a lotta other organizations would’ve gone the other way or perhaps their players would’ve tanked it and we certainly haven’t done that.

Fleming: [Thoughts on how Beltran performed and integrated into the organization’s "culture."]

Sabean: Well, it’s obvious the guy can hit. I mean, I said it when we acquired him. He’s gonna be every bit of what you want in a number three hitter in almost anybody’s lineup. You know, as fate would have it, he gets here, he gets injured, and I think we were 5-8 in the 13 games he was out, but uh, he made a difference not only in lengthening our lineup but had the professional at bats you’re looking for and I think it rubbed off on a lot of players, especially Pablo, so, he’s the type of player that you wanna acquire at the deadline and we’re certainly lucky that he’s in a Giant uniform and we’ll see what the offseason brings with him.

Miller: [On Beltran’s comments to the media that Sabean should get a leadoff hitter.]

Sabean: Well, I think he’s amongst a million other people that offer assistance and I certainly think he’s right! You know, we’ve missed having the leadoff hitter the whole year. It’s been difficult to put together an offense on the day to day basis including the leadoff hitter.

 [Commercial Break.]

Miller: Brian, the Giants first round draft choice was Joe Panik… how well did Panik actually do up there [in the minors]?

Sabean: Well, the fact that he’s a left-handed hitter in the middle of the diamond, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll stay at shortstop – in fact, he’s going to the fall league to play a little second base ‘cause we could only protect one primary position and that’s gonna be Crawford playing shortstop everyday – but, uh, our scouting people did a real good job on him. He’s got good all-around skills and can handle himself at the plate and that’s comforting to know that you have a bat like that coming in the middle of the diamond.

Miller: [re: AZ Fall League – there’s only so much control any one team can have over their own players?]

Sabean: Well, by naming that player as the primary player you’re pretty much guaranteeing he’s gonna play four-plus times a week; and, in Panik’s case, in Gary Brown’s case, they’ll only play a couple games a week.

Miller: [Brown had a great year in San Jose. Brass must be impressed by Brown. How good was he? How do we project him?]

Sabean: Well, we hope he’s the prototypical leadoff hitter in time. And, he certainly can play center field. And to have the type of year, first full year in pro baseball is exactly what you wanna see, so, this kid’s right on schedule. Good things are gonna happen to him. He came out of college as an accomplished all-around baseball player and that certainly helps with his being so well-rounded.

Miller: [Could Belt, Pill and Sanchez be on the big league roster next year?]

Sabean: Well, I think we’ve learned a lot about all of them and the one thing I’ll say about young players in general: the game has gone – especially true in our division – to the pitching getting so much better that, as we found out starting with Belt in his case, you wonder whether he actually earned his way onto the team or was he here by default with Ross’s injury? We know that we had to react, be quick on our feet in moving Crawford from A-ball … [Miller calls flyout, asks Sabean to continue:] We moved Crawford all the way from A-ball under duress because Pablo had gone down. We had to move Tejada to third base. In Sanchez’s case, we were scratching our heads to try to get more offense and, you know, he had jumped from a real good start of his season in San Jose to Triple-A and was holding his own and we wanted to see what it looked like in the big leagues, but, uh, I mention those three first because as we found out, they’re really not ready to play in the big leagues. We shouldn’t expect them to be ready to play in the big leagues and it’s tougher and tougher because of this pitching for them to perform; whereas, if you take somebody, by example, like Pill, who’s got three thousand at bats in the minor leagues… who’s played winter ball… seems to be a guy that you might be able to turn to next year in some form with your major league roster. So, the other three guys are still earning their way and we’re gonna figure out whether they’re in our plans or not in the immediate future.