One: Bombs Away
Fleet Week and the U.S. Navy is back into buzzing Mission Creek, where beards have suddenly sprouted like mushrooms. That won’t set off the red telephone in the White House, will it? They won’t think this is an Afghan wedding party, will they? Maybe we should hide the “Fear the Beard” signs, at least until we finish the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
It’s the second game of the first-round playoff series between the Atlanta Braves and “your” San Francisco Giants. If you didn’t know it, “your” Giants are up 1-0. Fans flow out of the Financial District at 5 p.m., a river of orange and black — like that poison sludge flood in Hungary.
No. Can’t make those kinds of negative associations.
Be positive, I say to my inner pessimist.
Two: Manic
“What’s wrong with SF?” texts W.
He’s upset with the spontaneous horn-honking and high-fiving that broke out at King and Third after last night’s game. “L.A. fans don’t celebrate until the Dodgers win the World Series. There’s still a lot of baseball to play. Anything can happen.”
Like a head-on collision between Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval in the first inning. Sandoval is down on the ground, lying prone. Posey has caught the ball, managed to hold on, hands it over to Pat Burrell, and then collapses onto all fours. Medical staff runs onto the field. Commercial break.
Three: A Giant Awakening
With only five hits and one run yesterday, Giant hitters are due. Atlanta pitcher Tommy Hanson is reported to be one of the better young pitchers in the league. In addition to throwing a lot of sliders and other off-speed stuff, he throws a 95-mph fastball. How good is he? He strikes out leadoff hitter Andres Torres.
It’s never a good sign for the Giants when Torres doesn’t open the game on base. But then I get a text from a friend in Berlin. “I just touched the wall for the Giants.” Freddy Sanchez singles to left, but Aubrey Huff strikes out. Buster Posey walks on four straight fastballs.
Hanson throws another fastball to Pat Burrell; this one inside but over the plate. Burrell smacks it into the left-field bleachers and the Giants suddenly lead 3-0. They tack on a fourth run in the next inning after Cody Ross doubles to left and Matt Cain singles him home.
Four: Date Night
It takes me a while, but I finally get it: Every time Matt Cain pitches a strike, they kiss. And no, they won’t give me their names. How do they know Mission Local is not a porn site?
It’s taking Cain a while to get into sync. Having four runs at his back certainly helps. By the fourth inning, Cain seems more confident, as seen by the increasing number of strikes he’s throwing.
He’s making more than one couple very happy.
Five: Anger Management
In the second inning, Cain threw a changeup to Alex Gonzalez, who must have known it was coming because he smashed it into the gap between Juan Uribe at shortstop and Pablo Sandoval on third. Uribe dives to make the stop, jumps to his feet and throws a bullet to Aubrey Huff at first, getting Gonzalez by a whisker.
Not so, screams Atlanta manager Bobby Cox, who gets himself ejected for throwing a tantrum. But it’s an act. He wants to light a fire under his team. And look: Rick Ankiel gets the message, lacing a hard single to right.
Not that Bobby Cox isn’t a head case. He’s the most ejected manager in baseball history and has been around the block more than once with anger management, especially after clobbering his wife in 1995 (subsequently denied by both).
Six: Alcoholics Anonymous
By the third inning, no one can tell where the line to buy beer begins and the line to the men’s room ends. It’s never been like this during the regular season.
They’ve given us plastic orange pom-poms to wave tonight. Before the eighth inning, one guy, very drunk, is dancing with his pom-pom for the benefit of the guy, fairly drunk, sitting next to him. They are both with women who look at each other, then look away.
They look at Sergio Romo, who’s come into pitch for the Giants.
Seven: Unruly Beards
While starting pitchers like Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum get most of the attention, the Giants’ bullpen has been every bit as tenacious, if not more so. This is one area where San Francisco has a clear edge over Atlanta. The two black-bearded leaders of the bullpen, Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson, work side-by-side: Romo in the eighth, Wilson takes the ninth.
Back-to-back singles and Romo gets the hook. Wilson comes in with six outs and the tying run at the plate. Can he save the day? One run scores on a Sandoval error and two more when Wilson figures he can blow his fastball past Alex Gonzalez.
4-4.
Eight: Eternal Overtime
We may have been too drunk to notice, but since Cain knocked home Cody Ross, Giant bats have fallen into a stupor. Now they have to wake up again. Fans wave pom-poms. Men(?) with orange beards run up and down stairs. Hey, don’t laugh. It works.
A bunt single, a bunt, a hit batsman and a walk: bases loaded. Sounds more like the Tokyo Giants than the homer-happy San Francisco Giants, but with one out in the bottom of the tenth, they are on the verge of manufacturing a run and taking a two-game lead. And who better than Buster Posey to be hitting? All the rookie has to do is lift the ball into the air.
He hits it on the ground. Double play. In the top of the eleventh, Ramon Ramirez throws four straight fastballs to Rick Ankiel. Two are balls, missing outside; two are strikes, hitting the outside corner. The 2-2 pitch is a fastball over the heart of the plate, practically begging to be hit into Mission Creek. Ankiel figures, Why not?
Nine: Depression
Blame the loss on the guy sitting next to me who kept saying the Giants are going to take it all this year, and the orange plastic container from which he drinks a Cuervo margarita. It will be his keepsake to remind him how great it felt.
It doesn’t feel real great in Giantsland as fans trudge silently down the ramps, forgetting that this is Giants baseball in its essence:
Torture.