Carpe Diem: Giants Bats Seize Day From Cardinals Ace

“It’s bad luck to strike out the first guy on three pitches...that’s an old saying.” – Mike Krukow.

Not an unattractive lineup. Especially considering how hot Sandoval, Uribe, Molina, Renteria, Winn, Nate… jeez this team is hot as hell right now. Not even Chris Carpenter has a chance…If the season were to end today…if the season were to end today…ahh.

Game Notes:
Carpenter bids Rowand a three-pitch c-ya, prompting Kruk’s prophetic quote…

Winn singles. When he’s hot the Giants O always seems to heat up with him. He’s some sort of keystone…

Pablo rakes a first pitch breaking ball, which amazes Kruk. “I don’t think anybody in the history of the game has ever gone up there against a quality pitcher like Carpenter and looked first pitch breaking ball, come on!...Guy can just flat out hit.”

Ya think?…

First and third. Benji is finding his way back by going oppo. He slaps a low and away breaking ball to plate Randy and send Pab to third.

Carpenter has to be like, "Wtf is up with these slop hackers?...They’re raking anything and everything!”

RETURN OF THE SLOPHACKERS: WELCOME TO CHRIS CARPENTER’S NIGHTMARE directed by John Carpenter (no relation…that I know of).

Nate gets punched looking…fancy that...

Carpenter really pitches smart. He obviously has a plan and tailors it to each individual hitter… He’s good, but not good enough on this day…

Renteria sweeps a hanger to left for a two-out knock…huge! 2-0, top1.

Bot1: Unit walks lead off dude… no worries, he induces a 5-4-3 DP. Pretty decent infield arms out there for SF…

Now, Unit can face Pujols with a clear conscious. Unit brings out his best and gets a swing through strike out! Molina dropped the ball, literally, making it look like a foul tip. Nope, K, end of the inning.

Unit gives Benji a wry “You freakin’ kidding me?” face all the way off the field. Unit was rofl’ing in the dugout.

Top2: Unit picks up a base hit... Carp came into the game having allowed only 37 hits in 65.2 innings! And yet, the Giants come out raking him like so many leaves in the fall… baseball!

Unit doesn’t run into any trouble he can’t handle until Albert in the fourth.

I don't know if Randy was trying to paint, but on 0-2 he makes an unforgivable mistake up that Pujols blasts into the seats (surprise!).

What was that? I say pitch around the guy, that’s what I say. I’m not saying 4 fingers…just pitch around him, that’s all.

Top5: A-Row bloops one to start it off. Not a good sign as he’s one of the guys Carp has owned so far… Winner rips 94 at the knees to right for a double, second and third…no outs.

Sandoval rips a cutter off his hands for a broken bat bloop to right, plating ARow... Molina, already 2-for-2 with a dub, gets the sac fly as he is apt to do…

Ankiel airmails a throw trying to catch Sandoval off first and Pablo advances to second… little bit in love with the old arm and he has a cannon…as he should, ex-pitcher and all.

Renteria picks up a broken bat doink…5-1. Carpenter hardly deserved such a fate, but I guess he was due.

Ishikawa pours on a double off the wall to center and Renteria motors around to score. As Kruk points out, that’s 11 hits for the Giants in 4 2/3 off the great former Cy Young Chris Carpenter.

Unit follows up with a huge shutdown 1-2-3 inning in the 5th. Colby Rasmus…shades of Cody Ransom. That didn’t need to be said, did it? Or did it?

Bot6, Unit juuust misses on a full count and walks Duncan…in front of No. 5. Another huuuuge mistake pitch, a feeble 84mph slider with naan bite, gets crushed for Albert’s ML-leading 30th round-tripper. …

After a Ludwick triple and YMolina walk, Bochy made as inspired move as he makes. Sensing the game in the balance, the skip decided to bring his best reliever in right there in the 6th. Randy got a nice standing ovation from the savvy STL crowd.

Jeremy Affeldt relieves Unit like a big leak after looong car ride, inducing a glove slapping 4-6-3 GIDP with runners on the corners to close the book on Unit and end the sixth… big-time work.

Kruk mentions what I’ve been saying, Affeldt: totally deserving of an All-Star roster spot. They give ‘em to bullpen guys besides closers sometimes and he’s got that type of resume this season.

Take this game: He comes in gets GIDPs to end the 6th and 7th and Ks Duncan to start

Bot8… (Which reminds me: LaRussa Pods… more to come…)
Kruk after Affeldt Ks Thurston in bot7, “He kinda paints himself into a fastball count. When he throws a fastball, he don’t come naked.”

Red Schoendienst reference from Kuip…nice! Back when I collected cards as a kid, I only had a couple super-OG cards and one was Red Schoendienst… the other was Robin Roberts.

On another note (and I digress)…

I know a lot of cats are going to laugh and scoff at this (if I’m lucky), but Twitter has really made me come around on some dudes out there in the sporting world.

Artest, Dwight Howard, and our very own @BarryZito and @JeremyAffeldt.

I would even give Brian Wilson the benefit of the doubt on his infamous account, because it’s hard not to come off douchey when commenting, especially facebook and forum commenting, or tweeting, whatever short form internet krap you wanna talk, it’s just easy to sound like a total prick… you know what I’m talking about… Now, having seen “The Life of Brian”, well, that’s another story…

Zito, either he’s stopped tweeting or he “blocked” me and I’m ok with it…either way. He did what he had to do…either way.

Cuz, look—Coming into this season, I didn’t know if I could be brought back or if maybe I hadn’t crossed the point of no return with Barry. Nothing personal, I hate that I have to even use names...

Okay, so 75 was in my doghouse, see? I just saw a more sensitive side on twitter, essentially, what the chics see. A lonelier side… he just wants to be cool, ok? Just not with Giant Homer…And I’m cool with it. He’s a SoCal kid…done…all good.

And that brings me to Affeldt. I admit, when I first saw him and his curious soul-patch, I was like “ok, baseball guy… the facial hair thing. Hmm… kinda old school, I guess.” Well, now I get it.

All his tweets are inspirational quotes, a little on the MMA side, but dope none-the-less. Just a fair use of platform. Now I see him more as he may see himself, a “Kung Fu: Legend Continues” kind-off-dude… Walking the earth…his pitching arm at his side…battling club-wielding warriors…amirite?

Romo Ks Duncan swinging at an absolute Frisbee. It was like a windy day at the beach.

He walked Pujols when he came in and had to be talked down by Raggs. Kuip joked about this earlier, but I’m convinced Benji was feeding his brother location and pitch…"Pinche Giants don’t wanna extend me, huh?”

Yadaidmean doubles to right. Luckily, it ground-rules, saving a run… that’s only right, what with Benji totally betraying his pitcher. Hey, he’s trying to push lil’ bro, lil’ Yaddy…trying to help him make an All-Star push, I get it...

He goes out to say something to Romo, who’s having none of it. I can’t read lips and his back was turned but I believe Benji said (en Espanol) “Sorry, man, but you know I couldn’t watch my lil’ brother strike out.” Serg just turned away like, “Whatever, punto.”

Bochy continued to make bold moves, bringing Wilson in for the 4-out save. Willy was relatively well behaved in picking up save No. 21 and locking down Unit’s 303rd career win (8-5 on the season).