Baseball '09, Volume II

What, if ever, goes to plan? Before the season, we were stoked up on effusive descriptions of the Giants pitching staff: Tim Lincecum, face of the franchise; Randy Johnson, the legend; Matt Cain, the solid pitcher who never got the run support he deserved; Jonathan Sanchez, another rising star; even Barry Zito, who looked like a $126 million dollar bust early last year, was looking better at the end of last season, and people were talking about more success.

Then in the first weeks we get shellacked by the Dodgers and the Padres, even Lincecum, and again, we were getting no offense, scoring one or two runs a game.

Here-we-go-again syndrome is something to which Giants fans are quite susceptible.

April 18th, I go to AT & T Park for my second game of the season, Giants versus Diamondbacks, Lincecum versus the slow-wind-up Doug Davis. It was a beautiful day, though hot. The classic brick facade of the park feels much more aesthetically pleasing than the Oakland Coliseum, and the sun sparkled off the water of the Bay, and the white sails of the sailboats and the passing cargo ships were fruit ripe for meditation between pitches and innings.

I'm there with Marina, Vaughn, and Tara, a perfect Saturday afternoon ball game, the field bright and clean. And Lincecum has recaptured his dominance. His windup is sharp, the white sphere flashing in towards the batter so fast you can just get a glimpse of it when it leaves his hand, and he is sharp, striking out more than ten on the day, surrendering no runs. When the Diamondbacks do mount a scoring opportunity, he shuts them down, usually with a strikeout.

But the offense is struggling too. In the first inning, Emmanuel Burriss gets a single, advancing to second on an error. Then, taking advantage of Doug Davis' rreeaallyy slow wind up, he steals third base easily. But then, with the clean up hitter Bengie Molina at the plate and two outs, Burriss tries to steal home, and is out by a mile. At the time, we like the aggressiveness, but it would look rash as the game went on, especially because in the second inning, Molina leads off with a single. Burriss hits the ball hard a couple more times in the game, getting a single and a hard line out that only a fine leaping catch by Chad Tracy at first base prevents from driving in a run, and he puts down a nice sacrifice bunt. But otherwise, the Giants offense looks lost, and in the 9th inning, after Lincecum pitches 8 full shut out innings, the Giants go to the bullpen, which promptly and weakly surrenders two runs, and the bottom of the ninth showed no fight from the home team, as they anemically went down 1-2-3.

Disappointing, but Lincecum's strength is encouraging, and the pitching has since done well, and the bats have come alive. This past week, the Giants have won 5 games in a row. One more example that one day at the ballpark does not define a season one way or the other. Which means that the acrid stench I detected as we were filing out of the stadium was not the Giants going up in flames, but merely the smoke of a muscle-bound, tank-topped jerk smoking a repulsive cigar. Probably a Dodger fan. A baseball stadium at our disposal, but not a single bat to be found.

It did kind of ruin my streak, as the Giants had come back to win both of the previous two games I've seen since I moved down here in 2007, and that ruins the premise I had of a short story where a man's favorite team wins every single game he attends in person.

But baseball is back, and that makes me happy. I'm watching the Giants-Diamondbacks game on TV in an hour, maybe getting a beer while doing so, fresh off the Giants winning the first two games of this miniseries, which means that even a loss today wouldn't be the end of the world.

Beats the heck out of worrying about swine flu and the economy on a beautiful Sunday.