Mission Creek ballpark, July 26, 2010, 5 p.m. Giants vs. Marlins.
1. “Integrity Strikes Out” headlines Murray Chass, longtime baseball writer for the New York Times. Baseball’s integrity, he writes, “was on my mind because I suspect that teams like the San Francisco Giants have undermined it.” Teams like “your” San Francisco Giants? Undermine the Integrity of Baseball? Didn’t the Giants do that last decade? How much more can one team do? “These teams just don’t seem like they’re trying to win, or at least doing everything they can to win.” To be clear, Chass is not chastising the migrant workforce taking batting practice. He’s talking about how the Giants’ corporates have treated Buster Posey.
2. Buster Posey has lived up to his advance billing as the next Jesus Christ, at least for the first two months of his major-league existence. He hasn’t performed any of the standard miracles (yet), but he turned around a baseball team headed for the Dead Sea. Alone? Of course not. Well, maybe. Not only has he hit with timing and power, but as catcher he’s picked up the pace of the defensive game, helping his pitchers develop a rhythm they had been missing.
3. Barry Zito pitches for San Francisco. Last week in Los Angeles, manager Bruce Bochy pulled Zito in the eighth, after he had given up only two runs. As he walked off, he flashed anger, a rare show of emotion. Did he scowl because he felt that way, or did he want to show the fans he cared? Though Barry is cheered these days down by Mission Creek (albeit more with hope than conviction), he is still wary. He used to think all San Francisco hated him. To prove himself a regular guy, he abandoned his $9 million Marin maison for the season to rough it in the Marina. The Marina? Yes, remember that Barry was raised in Southern California. Tonight he has a good first inning. Ricky Nolasco, the Marlins’ pitcher, has a better one.
4. Andres Torres kickstarts the Giants’ first inning with a single to center, then takes a long lead off first. Looks like he wants to steal. Nolasco tries to pick him off, but Torres easily beats the throw. The next time, with the count 2-2 to Edgar Renteria, Torres takes an even bigger lead. Nolasco learned something from his first attempt, because this time when he throws to first, Torres is trapped. Poor idea, poor execution. Not a good sign.
5. Buster Posey leads off the second inning for the Giants with a single up the middle; his 19th straight game with at least one hit. Given his mature work behind the plate and his staggering .975 OPS (on base and slugging), it’s a wonder it took the Giants till the end of May to call him up from the minor leagues. Chass doesn’t wonder; Chass charges that the Giants purposely waited until after May 18, manipulating Posey’s time in the majors so as to delay for a year his eligibility for salary arbitration and free agency. Nonsense, Giants GM Brian Sabean told reporters. “The biggest factor was he hadn’t played much professional baseball. He was learning the catching position. We wanted to make sure he was comfortable at the plate.” That explains why they might have wanted to keep him in Fresno at the beginning of the season, but by mid-May the writing was on the wall. Between May 18 and May 29, how much more comfortable could he have become?
6. The moon rises full and fat, like Zito’s 84-mph fastball, a pitch both Dan Uggla and Mike Stanton hit high into the fog-laced sky above the outfield before the ball drops into the left-field bleachers for a home run. Dan Uggla we can understand, Barry; he’s their power hitter. But Mike Stanton, a rookie with a .225 batting average (and .458 slugging)? As Chass points out, the Marlins did to Mike what the Giants did to Buster, screwing him out of a year by not calling him up until June 9. Of course these decisions are economically based, and of course MLB will deny that economics has anything to do with it. But does it add up to subverting the “integrity of baseball”? What integrity?
7. When Zito is hot, opposing hitters, like Dan Uggla in the sixth, drop to their knees chasing the vanishing beauty of his curve. He’s doing alright, but seems he hasn’t quite thawed out yet. Cody Ross hits another ball with a soaring trajectory to deep center field. Running full speed with his back turned, Andres Torres catches the ball as it drops over his shoulder, his glove pointing away from him and his energy dragging him down on the grass. He jumps up, whirls and throws, holding Ross to a double, but another run scores. Barry can’t get off the mound fast enough; either he wants to escape the ire of the fans or he’s got a hot date.
In the bottom of the seventh, Aaron Rowand imitates the Marlins, hitting a high fly to left. From the press box it looks like left-fielder Emilio Bonifacio is going to catch it, but the ball keeps drifting toward the bleachers. With his back to the wall, Bonifacio leaps and makes the catch just as the ball is going over the wall. No, wait, he didn’t make the catch; a fan in the first row of the bleachers made the catch. It’s a two-run home run! The foghorns blow, the water cannons spray. No, wait, now what? The umpires decide to check out instant replay. A rule passed in 2008 allows umpires to look at instant replay in cases where fan interference affects the outcome of a home run. Upon further deliberation, Rowand’s home run stands and it’s a one-run game.
8. Not for long. Mike Stanton again. Another high archer, this one for a double off Guillermo Mota. Marlins lead 4-2. Would have been more had Freddy Sanchez not jumped 10 feet straight up from a standing position to stab a liner and end the inning.
9. Seagulls impatiently circle the field, but the Giants are not yet carrion. Consecutive singles by Aaron Rowand and Freddy Sanchez put the tying runs on base. Rowand will score, and Freddy will be at third as the man who took his spot in the batting order, Edgar Renteria, faces Marlins’ closer Leo Nunez with two out. Integrity is not the issue. Renteria strikes out.
Marlins 4, Giants 3. Game two Tuesday night.