The Pittsburgh Pirates tried to shake off the effects of nearly being victims of a perfect game on Saturday night.  Left hander Barry Zito was on the mound for the Giants.  The lefty was coming off a phenomenal complete game shutout in Colorado against the Rockies.

Sounded like trouble…

But the Bucs wasted no time jumping on Zito’s soft stuff, and it appeared that the team would give him a head start to his gig with the musical group Train.

But Zito would settle down,  and managed to go seven innings while giving up just two earned runs.  Despite some well hit balls and making some defensive gems, in the end it was the Bucs fielding, poor hitting, poor situational pitching and some questionable managerial moves that were the culprits in their latest loss, giving the Giants their third straight win with a 4-3 walkoff.  In other words, the Bucs have plenty of blame to go around.

In the first inning, the Bucs put together some two-out lighting with hits from Andrew McCutchen and Casey McGehee that would lead to a two-run RBI single off the bat of Neil Walker.

The Giants jumped on Charlie Morton in the bottom of the second with their all left handed lineup as Nate Schierholtz had an RBI triple.  He was singled home by Emmanuel Burriss.   Just when it appeared that Morton was on the ropes, he was able to work out of a first and third, no-out jam to keep the game tied at two.

The Bucs grabbed the lead in the fifth, the key play happening when Jose Tabata dribbled a ball off the glove of 3B Pablo Sandoval.   The Giants threw the ball around allowing Alex Presley to score.  The poor fielding by the Giants, who had three errors, definitely kept the Bucs in the game.

Angel Pagan crushed a triple in the bottom of the fifth.  Sandoval was able to redeem himself when he plated  Pagan to tie the game, and Pagan kept his ownership of Morton alive with two more hits off the Bucco right hander.  Morton allowed just the one run in what would be his last inning pitched.

The Bucs got scoreless relief from Tony Watson, Juan Cruz, and Jason Grilli.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Pirates went with their best reliever Joel Hanrahan to get the game to extra innings decided to go with Chris Resop.  Burriss singled.  Brandon Belt was announced, but called back by Giants skipper Bruce Bochy who sent Ryan Theriot to the plate.  Theriot failed in his attempt to advance Burris with a bunt, and with two strikes battled the Bucs reliever, ending up with a critical base knock that moved Burris to third.

Clint Hurdle came to the mound and huddled up the Pirates infield.  Then Angel Pagan was walked to load the bases with nobody out.  Joel Hanrahan watched from the bullpen.

Resop fell behind 2-0 to Melky Cabrera.  After Cabrera fouled off three straight pitches, he took a low pitch to run the count full.

And then the perfect scenario happened, Cabrera grounded sharply to shortstop Clint #AlwaysSmooth Barmes.  The Bucs free agent pickup grabbed the ball, but appeared to not square up as he threw to catcher Rod Barajas, who moved his glove to his right to grab the ball.  Barajas pivoted to turn the double play ball, but didn’t have the ball as the Giants stormed the field.

We hope a win on Sunday will provide a salve for our burning eyes – we sure could use it.

Buster Posey Has Shingles. Ewww...

The Pittsburgh Pirates will roll into AT&T Park hopefully ahead of the seemingly always present overcast skies. As the San Francisco Giants fans prepare to celebrate Opening Day, the gloomy weather could be indicative to the start of the Giants season.

The Giants fans should be a little cheerful as their club is coming off a victory.  The team put up some early runs against the Rockies 49-year old starter Jamie Moyer, and held on late when the Rockies loaded the bases in the ninth.  Brian Wilson got his first save of the season.

The win sets the Giants record at 2-4.  It’s not the record we anticipated.

In strange news usually left for geezers like Tony LaRussa, the Giants star catcher Buster Posey has shingles.  Yeh, shingles.  What the hell is shingles?

We looked it up.

Shingles has the word (herpes) listed after it.  That’s enough for me.  But if you want to play doctor–have at it.  But remember, I warned you.

The Giants offense has scored nearly six runs a game–most in the National League.  Six runs a game and still only two wins?  How is that possible? Don’t the Giants have a stellar pitching staff?

We reached out to Around the Foghorn to get some answers.

What can you say about the Giants  pitchers that will trot out for the series?

Scheduled starters are Cain, Zito and Vogelsong. Cain will be Cain – the question marks are Zito and Vogelsong. In the Colorado game, Zito did a fantastic job at repeating his arm slot which has been a revolving door of an issue with his struggles. He tends to have one solid three to four game stretch of starts per year where he can replicate that arm slot where he’s very competent and solid. He looked so awful all Spring with his new delivery, so they kept him in Arizona as the Giants went north to finish their Spring and worked with him on replicating that delivery. At least for one game, it worked well.

As for Vogelsong, he’ll be making his season debut after rehabbing in AAA Fresno. He’s looked solid in his rehab starts, but, first starts back are never easy and the Giants may play cautious with him in terms of pitch count. Difficult to project what he’ll bring to the table for that first start of the season.

Is Timmy going to be ok?

Timmy will be fine. He tends to get in these funks and send half the country into a tizzy. Just some bumps along the road he always runs into. He’s been having trouble getting his pitches down, which is what makes him so effective. When he’s leaving them up, the boomstick gets brought out.

Are you in panic mode yet after some serious damage has been done to the Giants pitching staff in the first few games?

Nah – actually, I myself feel pretty good. The Giants can pitch and they can play defense. So far, they’ve done both REALLY horribly so far. Their offense has been great though, which has been the problem child. Once the pitching comes around, which should be soon, the Giants will be fine.

Did the Giants do enough in the offseason to improve this club? Is there a move you would have loved to see the team make that didn’t happen?

I think so. They certainly changed the dynamic, adding speed and defense – two things the clubs needed heavily. All the Giants need is a competent offense and it appears they have it, so, I think generally the fan base is happy. I would have liked them to bring in a big bat obviously, but, financially they needed to commit elsewhere (Cain, Lincecum, etc) – but overall, myself and the majority of the fan base are okay with the additions and think they’ve improved the offense and defense for the better.

What’s up with Brandon Belt?

Belt’s probably wondering the same damn thing. Brian Sabean’s not exactly the nicest guy to his prospects – more of a tough love type, so I guess he feels the best thing to do is give the kid crap and yo-yo him around. There’s little reason for him not to be playing 5/6 days a week, but the Giants’ brass has their oddball reasons to treat the guy the way they do. Hopefully in the next few weeks he’ll get enough of a chance to maintain a spot in the lineup consistently before the guy has some type of emotional breakdown. lol

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn't face many of the Giants biggest stars as they took two of three in San Francisco

Bye bye baby. (more…)