So, What’d I Miss?

Operation ‘Move All My Junk’ was successful.

The move went amazingly well, no boxes were lost, or items shattered into a million pieces. I’ve got all my fingers left and just a few things are left to move, but the bulk of the work is done. I can’t thank my friends enough who volunteered their Saturday to help us move. Things went smoothly despite our U-Haul breaking down as soon as I got it home. The U-Haul lady I spoke to earlier in the day drove me out another truck that thankfully worked. She had to crawl around under the first one, banging on various engine parts with a wrench, muttering under her breath about how “stubborn” this truck could be before she could start it and drive it back to the U-Haul place across town.*

*A U-Haul Sidenote: Is driving a U-Haul, for any amount of distance, one of the diciest things you can do? I think it’s somewhere between eating expired dairy products and bathing yourself in diesel fuel in terms of dicey-ness. Our truck had several features, including: a non-working car horn, a malfunctioning middle seat safety belt, and oddly enough, several thousand safety stickers inside the cabin of the truck.

“Warning, You’re Driving a U-Haul!”

Let’s see check out some Giants related news that happened while I was away from the blog.

- Barry Zito strings together two passable starts against Pittsburgh and the Astros. Zito is still winless but his last two starts, which border on something more than mediocre, are a welcome sight after his horrible start to the season. Zito’s line over the last two starts looks something like this: 11 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 7 SO, 2 HR, 4.09 ERA. Even if it’s over a stupidly small sample size, I’m glad to see these numbers, I’m just not sure if they’ll continue.

- Tim Lincecum is still composed of 1000% awesomeness. Timmy moved to 5-1 after beating the Phillies, who, by-the-way, can swing the bat with the best of them. Lincecum went 8 innings while striking out 8 hitters and he only gave up two runs. Lincecum is still the best pitcher on the Giants and a true ace in the National League. Beside pitching, Lincecum also added an RBI knock in the game to raise his batting average to .286 on the year.

- Backup catchers everywhere, rejoice. Steve Holm hit his first career major league HR to boost the Giants to a 4-3 win over the Phillies. In limited playing time, Holm has done well. Hitting a (.306/.375/.500) over 36 AB’s. It’s very possible that he’ll get more playing time with Molina playing banged up.

- Youth reborn? Omar has looked like a new man since coming off the DL. He’s 4 for 10 with a double and a run scored. He’s even stolen a base. I haven’t seen him play the field yet, how’s he looking? How does his mobility look? I’ll be on the lookout for him when I can catch my next Giants game on TV.

- After a slump, John Bowker has been hitting a little more lately. He popped a HR last night against Roy Oswalt, his first HR since April 20th and his first HR against a team that wasn’t the Cardinals. Over the last 8 games and 21 AB’s, Bowker has hit (.524/.564/.714). His OPS+ is at 107 while mainly playing first base. What’s this!? A league average or better Giants’ 1B? Do my eyes deceive me? Bowker still looks really raw at times but you’ve got to like that swing.

It’s good to be back and hopefully I’ll be able to start catching some games again.

Go Giants!

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Welcome newcomer to the Giants blogging community, Orange Black and Blue. I can’t be certain, but I think that ‘blogging and writing about the Giants’ is listed in the DSM under mental disorders. Welcome to the fold OBnB!