I don’t know why the Giants have so much trouble with the A’s.
All their pitchers need to do is hold the A’s to one run or less and they wouldn’t keep losing 4-1.
Sure, San Francisco’s pitchers might complain to themselves about their offense only accounting for five runs in four games against the A’s this year (after scoring all of nine runs in six games against Oakland last year … leading to the A’s outscoring the Giants 54-14 in 2007 and 2008).
The Giants’ hurlers need to get over it.
San Francisco’s pitchers don’t realize how hard their hitters have it. Without BALCO around anymore, Giants hitters are in the midst of a new Dead Ball Era. Not that the balls aren’t wound tightly enough in games played in San Francisco and Oakland, it’s that the Giants’ hitters play lifeless ball whenever they’re in the Bay Area.
Now the A’s are getting cocky, with their P.R. team placing a much talked about advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday with the word “Battle” crossed out in the middle of the phrase, “The Battle of the Bay is 100 percent baseball.” In the corner of the ad a note said, “Well, when you’ve won eight of the last nine, it’s not exactly a battle.”
Wow, that really woke up the lifeless Giants. They went out and pounded out five whole hits! Good thing that ad got them riled up or Dana Eveland might have thrown a no-hitter last night.
The Giants have more money, a better ballpark and attendance figures that take away the need for tarps in the upper deck, but the A’s keep on smacking the Giants around as if they’re the big brother around these parts.
If the Giants want to turn around this disturbing trend of getting abused by the A’s like Javon Walker in Vegas, they just need to stop allowing the A’s to score any runs. That means no Keiichi Yabu, who all the sudden has turned into a human batting tee.
Nowadays, with the fanciest chemistry lab in sports no longer in their backyard to make their aging lineup young again (hello Benito Santiago!), the Giants must depend on their pitching for life support. Tim Lincecum, your duty is to pitch a shutout tonight (a perfect game actually, if it’s not too much to ask).
