Disappointing...Exhilarating...Maddening

Disappointing, exhilarating, maddening……these are the first words that come to mind this beautiful Saturday morning as I contemplate the action thus far in these 2010 MLB playoffs.

There are at least three disappointments to me at this juncture, the failures of the Twins to take even one game from the Yanks , the fold perpetrated last night by the SF Giants against the Atlanta Braves and the very similar choking done by the Cincinnati Reds against the Phillies.

For sheer exhilaration, there was Tim Lincecum’s pitching gem of a complete game pulled off against the Braves in the first game of that Braves-Giants series. I also felt very much the same watching the Giants’ Matt Cain blank those same Braves over 7 innings or so. And then there’s Josh Hamilton of the Rangers who only does something great every single time. (Okay, he was the star of my fantasy team).

It was the umpires that were responsible for my maddening. But the umpires continue to blow calls, easy calls, game-altering calls, that your sister could have made correctly. (Okay, sisters, no mail please)..

Let’s take it from the top again. The single most disappointing team thus far has been the Minnesota Twins. What a sorry bunch. I’m sorry. When they see the Yankees on the field, they just go into choke mode. They had Sabathia on the ropes and they let him go. Then they did absolutely nothing against the old man with the mad stare, Andy Friggin’ Pettite.

Yeah, I know, the Reds did some fancy folding themselves. (The Rays were just outplayed totally, a result I was completely happy with). But I expected the Reds to fold. Didn’t everyone? There was real hope for the Twins, especially after their early good fortunes against the big guy Sabathia.

In the history of baseball, was there ever a worse location for a pitch? I’m referring to the ball left on a tee for Yanks first baseman Mark Teixeira late in that first game, the pitch that made it 6-4 after the Twins had been up 3-0. And did they have to pitch so boldly to Granderson or Berkman? And then there were the pitching decisions made overall by the Twinkies, who are doing everything possible to justify that name.

Francisco Liriano pitched valiantly for those Twins in that first game and was up 3-zip going into the 6th. The idiots in the dugout left him in way too long. They waited until it all unraveled, despite the Yanks killing him softly, with hit after hit after hit. When they finally brought in the relief in the person of Jose Mijares, they managed to snuff the rally but, by then, it was too late. The Yanks had taken the lead.

Then the Twins gave us Yankee-haters hope once again by staging a 2-out rally that featured another Cuddyer big bang enveloped by bases on balls, a strange way to score, I thought at the time, but the Twins would surely have better luck in their spanking new stadium than they ever had in that old dome.

But the Twins inserted still another pitcher into the mix, one Jesse Crain, who failed colossally. He managed to get Jeter out in the 7th on a hard line drive to center but he then gave up another hit to Swisher. His pitches had nothing. And the pitch that had the most “nothingness” was that ball up and in the middle of the plate for Teixeira.

The Twins had Yanks reliever Kerry Wood in a lot of trouble in the eighth inning, managing to get the tying and winning runs on 2nd and 3rd but then Girardi called in a guy named Mariano, you may have heard of him, last name of Rivera? He promptly ended things….again.

It seems as if it’s always the same guys, Posada and Pettite, Rivera and Jeter. The Twins see these guys and fold. Posada didn’t do too much in the victory yesterday but then he didn’t need to. In that first game he was pretty clutch. Pettite just scared the bejeezus out of them, possibly with that ridiculous stare. And of course Rivera just shuts them down. Jeter? Well, there’s still Game 3.

Okay, that’s enough about disappointing, I think. I have to focus on the finer things in life, such as, for example, Tim Lincecum. A little slip of a guy, that’s Lincecum. A bit of a flake, the Prince Valiant hair, the laid-back attitude, they all seem to contribute to the aura of the man, if that’s what you could call it.

The man just knows how to throw the baseball. Every ounce of his body gets behind every pitch to the plate. So he can overpower with his fastball when needed or he can just flick his wrist, take something off and watch the batter flail. Lincecum did it all in that first game and he did it for 9 innings.

How about some more on exhilaration? The Rangers have been awesome in all phases. For pitching, there were Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson and Neftali Feliz For hitting, there were, well, just about everybody, Vladimir Guerrero and Michael Young, Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz and Bengie Molina. Hell, even Jeff Francoeur joined the festivities. Oh yeah, and there was Josh Hamilton.

Hamilton just does it all. Five tools? Is that all? It seems like more. He’s the best hitter in both leagues, both for average and for power. He’s a fast runner. He stole a base in Game 1 and made two great catches in Game 2, both to his left and right, and went sliding on his belly, broken ribs be damned.

Hamilton hasn’t shown off that throwing arm yet. And he hasn’t hit any tape measures yet. But there’s always Game 3 for that.

Jason Bay, Tampa Bay, Rangers and Giants

It’s been a passing strange baseball season so far and strangest of all might be in Citi Field where starters surprise and big hitters utterly collapse at just the wrong moments. But if you like baseball, you’re getting your money’s worth from teams like Texas and San Francisco.

One has to wonder if our totally clueless cleanup hitter, Jason Bay, will ever get his act together. In fact, his at-bats are so horrible, one has to wonder if he ever takes batting practice. Although I fully expected streakiness when the Mets acquired him, I don’t think I fully appreciated how bad those plate appearances would look. And they feel worse than they look, being that there are always men on base when he comes to the plate.

The Mets could’ve swept the Reds if Bay were only mediocre. They’ve gotten good pitching, the rest of the lineup has been doing more than its share, and then Bay just totally kills them. It’s very frustrating, to say the least. The only interesting thing about a Bay at-bat is whether or not he’ll get the bat on the ball at all. He misses most pitches by such a wide margin that a foul tip becomes some wondrous event.

Jerry Manuel keeps talking about his history. He’s right, of course, but that doesn’t mean he should keep that number four spot in the order when he hasn’t a prayer of doing anything even remotely good. I mean….he’s been making Gary Matthews look good.

Maybe it’s the four spot that’s the problem. Looking back at his Boston and Pittsburgh years, he batted mostly in the fifth spot. But even then he had long streaks of futility to go with long streaks of wonderful productivity. We haven’t seen one of those streaks yet. I wonder if we ever will.

I had hoped Omar would have gone after Holliday in free agency. The Mets preferred Bay, supposedly based on his defense and speed. And it’s true, he does play a nice left field, and he does manage to not get doubled up on many of his DP grounders. Most of his paltry RBI total has come from fly balls or weak grounders.

Maybe Bay needs glasses or contact lenses. He’s late on just about everything. Okay, that’s enough. I can’t even stand my own whining. If he doesn’t ever hit….fine. That’ll at least spell the end of Omar for good. We’ll see less of the Matthews’s and Tatis’s of the world year after year… all the retreads .

Meanwhile, this baseball season might turn out pretty special. The Rays look great in the AL East and Evan Longoria looks like an MVP. Then Texas is really starting to come on with Josh Hamilton starting to look like an MVP candidate. Seattle’s got a lot of pitching but pitching hasn’t helped the White Sox much.

The NL East has been pretty amazing so far with Washington looking much better, Florida hanging in there and of course, our Metsies and their surprising pitching. The NL Central has the Cards up top, but it looks pretty even below them. The Giants in the West are making the Dodgers look bad.

Biggest story to me is that of the Texas Rangers. It’s an exciting team, with young up-and-comers like Josh Hamilton and Ian Kinsler. Texas has a good old fella too in Vlad Guerrero, and there was nothing better than watching KC’s usually lockdown closer Joachim Soria get nicked for the tying home run from Hamilton and the game-winner from Vlad. Hamilton’s was a real moonshot too, high in the upper deck in right.

Tampa Bay is great too, if just because they’re scaring the hell out of the Yankees, that self-proclaimed juggernaut of the American League East. The Yanks are great…. just ask them.

But what are we talking about really? Arod is batting .253 with just a pair of homers. Teixeira’s batting .178 with just a pair of dingers of his own. If it weren’t for some surprises in their rotation, like Hughes and Pettite, added to the two you knew would be good, Sabathia and Burnett, the Yanks just might be in trouble. Cano can’t carry them forever and neither can Swisher, although I’d love to see it. If anybody’s going to take them to the World Series again, it should be one or both of those two.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay’s got it all. Four of their five starters have ERA’s under 3 and the fifth is at 3.15. And in addition to guys you’ve certainly heard of, Upton and Crawford, Longoria and Pena, the Rays can boast of their relatively new rightfielder, Ben Zobrist, who gives them a little bit of everything, including speed and defense.

But, like many baseball fans, there has been no more exciting team than the San Francisco Giants, another team getting good performances from just about everybody. Top of the list goes to Tim Lincecum, of course, but they’ve also got Matt Cain, Barry Zito and Jonathan Sanchez performing like aces. Relief? How about Brian Wilson, whose fastball is almost as amazing as his hairdo.

They’ve been getting some timely hitting too, although their lineup can’t compare with some of those other teams I’ve mentioned. Chief among their batsmen is the redoubtable Pablo Sandoval, a roly-poly type whose fielding at third belies his waistline. He’s like Prince Fielder with more athleticism.

The bad news is that those same Giants are coming to Citi Field this weekend to faceoff against our lovable Metsies. They’ll roll out Jonathan Sanchez tonight against Pelfrey, a matchup that could be a great one. Then on Saturday afternoon, the Mets get a break in a matchup of Santana vs. Todd Wellemeyer, their one starter who doesn’t have great numbers.

The hammer comes down on Sunday though as Lincecum will face Ollie Perez and things could get really ugly. It’s to be hoped that Jason Bay wakes up. Stranger things have already been happening in Major League Baseball.

A Heart in San Francisco

This fine Friday is special. Why? Because I’m leaving town, bound for San Francisco, that city by the sea, but also home of the 49ers and baseball Giants and geez, whoever cared about those things before?

But the Giants’ve got the freak, Tim Lincecum, and Matt Cain, and that probably beats Sabathia and Burnet. And the Niners have a crazy old linebacker from Jersey named Mike Singletary, who’s been turning an annual pigskin joke into a real live football team.

Lincecum is 14-5 with 244 strikeouts in 207 innings, not too shabby I’d say for a team with no cleanup hitter, well, to be honest, they really have no hitter of any kind, leadoff, a guy to move the runner over, a real live number 3 hitter; you name it, the Giants don’t have it.

Why do they call him the freak though? Maybe it has something to do with being 5’11” and 170 pounds. Maybe it’s his weird delivery that features a whip-like release that ends up somewhere real close to his foot. Or maybe it’s just his demeanor, which is kind of laid back and unworldly, other-worldly?

Anyway, if they just had Lincecum at the top of the rotation, they’d be scary enough, but then there’s Matt Cain too. Now he’s only 13-6 with a paltry by comparison 155 K’s in 202 innings, but how many guys have a 2.71 ERA and 1.17 WHIP?

Oh, and there’s Barry Zito at 3.94 and Jonathan Sanchez at 4.16 and oh, yeah, they picked up an old retread (are there any new retreads) named Brad Penny from Boston, a city obviously not to his liking. But he likes San Fran real well apparently as he’s given up just 4 whole runs in 22 innings in 3 games in September.

Gone are the days when all anybody heard about was Barry Bonds, although they still revere him there, strange as that may seem to me. But then, there’s Giambi and Arod and McGuire and Sosa and about a hundred others. Of course, they liked Bonds before we knew about all those other guys. Maybe it’s having watched all those majestic drives into the water. That would probably do it.

As luck would have it, the Giants won’t be playing at home this weekend. They’ll be in La La-land, home of the Dodgers and, oh yeah, another freak named Manny Ramirez, who seems so much less freaky since his name appeared in the steroids-yes column.

Nevertheless, the Dodgers lead in the West by 5 over the Rockies and 8 ½ over San Fran’s finest. But they’re just 3 ½ behind the Rocks for the wildcard with 16 games left to play. And that will mean 6 more starts at least for Lincecum/Cain and a guarantee that the rest won’t be easy with Zito, Sanchez and Penny going.

The relief’s not too shabby either with Brian Wilson closing and Jeremy Affeldt setting things up. Wilson looks kinda freaky too, by the way, but he’s got 34 saves and a 2.69 ERA so whos going to make a big thing about hair.

So I won’t be seeing the Giants first-hand or experiencing the thrill of AT&T Park but I shall be feeling that buzz, a buzz you feel more in smaller and less cynical markets than New York, like Denver for sure and even Chicago for that matter.

The buzz will be that much stronger as the Niners are playing Seattle at home and both teams won their openers, but the Niners did it versus last year’s NFC Super Bowl team, the Arizona Cardinals while Seattle just walked all over an overmatched Rams squad.

But it all started for these Niners against Seattle last year. That was Singletary’s finest moment for most NFL fans (but not Mike himself) as he benched his star tight end Vernon Davis at halftime and dropped his pants to make a point. And, since that game, his point seems to have been made.

“…cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach with them. Can’t do it. I want winners. I want players that want to win.” And since then, the Niners have won, going 6-3 since that game and since inserting Shaun Hill at the quarterback position.

Ya think that doesn’t inspire SF fans? I know it inspires me, and I’ll bet it inspired at least some of those players. (Davis is now a team captain). You sure can’t point to any one guy, or even any one portion of the team, as the reason they’re winning. They just seem to be eking out these team victories.

Defense is a good part of it though and the Cards found that out last week as Kurt Warner was harrassed into mistake after mistake. The running game is part of it too, even though they couldn’t run very well against the Cards. The passing game got them the win in that one.

But that’s par for the course for this team. Whatever it takes to win from week to week, they seem to come up with. They’re my pick to win that Western Division this year, and this game against Seattle should go a long way towards deciding that one.

It’s too bad they haven’t yet been able to sign their Number 1 pick in the draft, WR Michael Crabtree, even though their offer was said to be for 5 years and 22 million, 16 of it guaranteed. Even that enormous sum is apparently low-balling a Number 10 pick overall. They supposedly are trying to appeal to the player directly. I don’t hold out too much hope for that effort, and I’d rather see them spend that money on a more established wideout.

But even the holdout might eventually work to their advantage, especially if they can manage to beat up the Seahawks a little this Sunday.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it , almost as much as that the Jets have taken the Pats and those G-Men the Boyz.