Giants-Brewers Series Recap: A Great Start That Suddenly Doesn't Matter

If you've spent several years playing baseball or you've been watching it closely for a while now, there is one undeniable truism that gets proven over and over and over. 

It's not that good pitching beats good hitting.  It's not that the designated hitter is an unmitigated evil loosed upon baseball to drive revenue.  It's not that you should never make the first or last out of an inning at third base.

No, the one absolute constant about baseball is that it's a cruel, cruel sport.

Usually, its cruelty is of the trivial kind:

• A pinch-runner inserted for speed and base-running prowess will get picked off.
• A defensive replacement will see action on the first batter and it won't be a simple play.
• A guy making his first career start at a new position will see a barrage of action right away.
• When you're in a slump, you constantly see at-bats with runners in scoring position and the game on the line.  When you're hot, you're always hitting with two outs and no one on.
• When your team most needs a hit, the batter will whiff even if he owns the pitcher.  When it most needs an out, the hitter will rake despite an 0-for-lifetime against the hurler.

The baseball gods are like that—they are an uncharitable bunch and they have a sick sense of humor, but you can usually find comedy in the theater of the obscene.

Today, that is not the case.

By now, everyone has heard the indescribable tragedy that has befallen the Anaheim Angels and the family of Nick Adenhart

The promising young 22-year-old pitcher was killed by a drunk driver (driving with a license suspended for a previous DUI) after making his 2009 season debut with six glittering frames against the division rival Oakland Athletics.

Along with Adenhart, two other people were killed and a third remains in serious condition.

I'll not going to delve into the tragedy because I was only superficially aware of Adenhart and I'm not an Angels fan.  I'll leave the eulogies and memorials to people who followed the kid more closely and deserve the area untrammeled because it is theirs, not mine.

They will be able to produce a much better tribute to a young man who died on the cusp of greatness and who, consequently, will always be there.

Instead, I'm sticking with the theme and bringing it closer to home.

I was going to recap the opening series against the Milwaukee Brewers.  And there is plenty to talk about—the Giants opened against a stiff foe and took two of three games, losing only to the Brew Crew ace.

The bats have carried a hot spring right into the opening three games. 

Tim Lincecum got off to a slow start, but both Randy Johnson and Matt Cain turned the starters in the right direction. 

Aaron Rowand, Fab Five Freddie, Big Money, and Little Money are all raking. 

Sandoval's off to a stellar start with the leather at the hot corner and Travis Ishikawa jumped from the gates with a big triple that should give him confidence moving forward.

But none of that seems important in the wake of the news about Adenhart and, more personally for Giants fans, the scene that unfolded with two outs in today's game.

Our San Francisco Giants experienced a terrifying moment of their own when rookie pitcher Joe Martinez took a vicious line drive from the bat of Mike Cameron off his forehead, just above his right eye.

Obviously, it would be the height of indecency and callous indifference to compare Adenhart's tragedy to the scary moment suffered by Martinez—Martinez looks like he'll escape with a gnarly bump on his head, a bad headache, and some uncomfortable flashbacks.

Nick Adenhart and his two companions are dead—there is no rehab time, there is no bouncing back, there is no comparison.

Nevertheless, I mention it because, in the wake of one young pitcher getting cut down right as he arrived, the blow to Martinez was even more upsetting than your typical line drive to the head.  The image of Martinez dropping heavily to his knees rattled everyone who witnessed the moment.

The sickening thud of ball against skull was too horrible to allow for anything else.

Mike Cameron couldn't watch—he barely wanted to continue running out the play, which was a double since the ball caromed all the way to the backstop and no one was particularly concerned about it.  While trainers attended to Martinez, Cameron could be seen literally shaking with emotion as SF players tried to console him.

Giants players and fans could be seen covering their faces or uttering silent prayers as personnel surrounded their fallen teammate.

This is a 26-year-old kid who made his major league debut on Tuesday and picked up his first major league win in steady relief after the Freak's early exit that night.  More importantly, he is a gem of a human being (by all accounts) and has been adopted by the clubhouse as that lovable rook who soaks up everything the vets have to offer.

If that ball hits a couple centimeters over, it hits Martinez right in the temple and Major League Baseball may have been confronted with a second round of the unthinkable—a second incomprehensible loss of another promising young talent, fresh off the realization of a dream.

On second thought, maybe the baseball gods aren't such an uncharitable bunch.