Giants-Padres Series Recap—So Much For That Warm Feeling

Ugh.  To say this Major League Baseball season has gotten off to a surreal and rocky start would be an understatement.

Obviously, the horrible loss of Nick Adenhart casts a pall over the opening week of baseball and will continue to do so for the remainder of the season as it should.  Now, news is circulating that Harry Kalas has passed away.

Good grief.

On a more personal and totally different level, the line drive off Joe Martinez' face made for an eerie end to a successful series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

And, in the trivial confines of the actual diamond, our beloved San Francisco Giants have taken a very promising step forward followed by two very depressing steps in reverse.

After taking two of three from the Brew Crew—a playoff team from 2008 with a ferocious offense that should at least keep them running a bit in front of the middle of the 2009 pack—the boys went out and dropped all three games in soggy San Diego.

Yeah, that's right—it wasn't sunny and 75 in SD, the broadcast booth was even talking about how cold it was.  I'm beginning to think we need to check the alignment of the planets/stars for something fishy here.

More strangely, the Fathers looked like a glorified AAA team before the season started.

To be honest, they still look that way on paper.  The games, as they say, are not played on paper.  I still think my admittedly harsh preseason assessment for San Diego's 162-game affair will hold—we are, after all, only six or seven games in.

But give the Pads their credit.  They whooped on the Giants for three days this weekend.

The pitching is still a disaster if you ask me (I realize no one has), but that didn't matter too much with the SF offense having an anemic series.  The scalding bats cooled considerably in the second trio of the year, managing only seven runs in three games.

Randy Winn, Freddie Lewis, and Bengie Molina continue to swing a nice stick although only Randy and Fab Five Freddie emerged from Saint Diego with anything to show for it.  Emanuel Burriss got his first knocks of the year, but Aaron Rowand and Pablo Sandoval rocked a combined 2-19 (Rowand didn't even play Sunday).

But we knew that was gonna happen from time to time.

Furthermore, this was the first road series of the year and the weather was unexpectedly nasty.  You can forgive the bats (remember, a lot are young and learning on the fly) for going a bit dormant.

Especially considering the fellas had to deal with both Jake Peavy (Saturday) and Chris Young (Sunday).

The tall righty looks to have reclaimed his dominant stuff from '06 and '07, which means the Padres have a nice one-two at the top of the rotation.  That's because Peavy is as grotesque as ever—the little righty (he sure as hell doesn't look 6'1") struck out 10 Gigantes without walking a batter while coming two outs from only his second complete game since '06.

So, yeah, the Orange and Black lumber was in for a tough couple o' days at the office.

The unsettling part was the pitching shine has not be so lustrous thus far and was really shaky over the weekend in northern Mexico.

Barry Zito's much ballyhooed offseason workout regimen and nice Spring Training got chucked out the window about five batters into the game.  In almost the same blink as it took for his '08 Opening Day start to go terribly awry, the $126 Million Man was aflame in '09.

The Gents found themselves in an early 3-0 hole after a first inning full of bad location and that was all she wrote.  Barry was gone after four innings and SF never recovered.

In the second game, with the G-Men facing off against the aforementioned (and filthy) Jake Peavy, our side trotted out Jonathan Sanchez.  The young lefty matched Peavy's uncleanliness for a few frames before the wagon wheels decided they'd had enough.

Sanchez whiffed five of the first six batters SD sent to the dish, absorbed an inexplicable tater from Henry Blanco, and kept cruising...until the fifth inning and a second, even more inexplicable dong from Blanco.

The second big fly must have knocked the Giants' southpaw for a loop—it's not every day (apparently) that you see someone go off the upper levels of Petco Park.  And I'm guessing it'll be a chilly day in Hades before you see Henry Blanco do it otra vez.

Anyway, Jonathan retired the next hitter and proceeded to walk Peavy before the rest of hell broke loose.

The boys actually managed three runs off the Padres' ace (no small feat), but it was far from enough to compensate for the crooked fifth.

However, the last day of the series was the most discouraging because Giants fans didn't get the rebound we (and everyone else) expected from Tim Lincecum.

The Freak was by no means awful, but he gave up four runs in just over five innings on a day when it was clear from Young's ball that runs were gonna be scarce.  To be perfectly fair, his day could've been a lot uglier since he left with the bases drunk and only a Jeremy Affeldt induced double-play saved Lincecum's bacon from further damage.

The outing was even more distressing because the Franchise has owned the San Diego Padres over the course of his young career.  So there is reason to be worried.

Let's just not get carried away.

Having rehashed all the bad, there are several reasons to keep the faith and I'm sure I don't need to point them out to you, loyal Giant fan.  I do so more for my own reassurance because, after putting all the grossest failures down in print, I feeling a tad guilty.

The best reason to believe in our boys is the 156-game marathon remaining on the docket.  The year's barely begun and SF does have two wins so all is not lost.  Dropping three games to a division rival is never a good idea, but you had to figure you're probably taking an L off Peavy most nights.

Considering Jake got gently clubbed around in his Opening Day twirl, a betting man would've taken the Pads on Saturday.  Probably on Sunday, too, because Chris Young looked quite fine and beat a Los Angeles Dodger team merely 24 hours off its bruising of Peavy.

With Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Zito going on Friday and the whole enchilada on the road, the sweep isn't totally shocking.

All the more so because of the guys at the plate.  I'd be an ass if I didn't give the San Diego bats some credit.

The two prized youngsters, Chase Headley and Nick Hundley, gave backers of both franchises a little peek at what the future may hold.  Headley went 4-12 with three runs scored, two long balls, and three runs batted in.  Hundley only played in two of the games, but went 4-4 on Sunday.

I covered Blanco's day against Sanchez, Scott Hairston continued his ownership of San Francisco (4-8, 1 HR), and Adrian Gonzalez was his usual superlative self (4-12, 5 RBI).

A sweep is never a good thing—it's never even okay because winning three in a row (or four) against the same foe is damn hard to do in baseball, no matter the discrepancy in strength.

But this was set up for a 1-2 trip through Cali's most southern jewel and the Padres were hot at home.

So, yeah, the sky is a whisper too close to our heads for this Giants fan's liking.  But it's not falling quite yet.