rippleintime17

Sometimes baseball couldn't be scripted any better. The Giants are down by three, barely have a hit in the 7th inning against the Dodgers. Beloved former Giant/current Dodger Sergio Romo is in the game against 21yo Giants rookie Christian Arroyo. Boom! First MLB homer in only his third game in the majors and now it's a one-run game! Cut to the 8th. Pitcher's spot is up and who's back with the team? 2014 postseason hero Michael Morse. He hasn't gotten a hit in the majors since 2015 but he's here for one reason and basically one reason only. To hit dingers. And in an 0-2 count, he sends a baseball exactly where he was supposed to and exactly where everyone in that ballpark (in orange and black) wanted him to and couldn't help but expect him to. Game tied! And then in the 10th, with the bases loaded and no outs, Hunter Pence battles away at pitches at his chest. The pitch tracker looks like he's whacking away at a pinata, foul after foul of high pitches until he finally gets enough of a hold of one to send the Giants home happy! Baseball is pretty cool.

Ohhhhh, Madison. I suppose we're lucky that we had this much time without any kind of injury (it's his first DL stint EVER) but this still stings. I don't know. Bum is not your typical dude. He owns and runs a ranch, where he ropes cattle daily, rides horses, chops down trees and carries them around on his shoulders, etc. His potential for injury has always been high. It sucks that it happened on something he was doing for fun but I'd be surprised if that changes much. Just hoping he actually is able to fully come back from this.

A good example of why pitcher wins are a terrible way to assess how a pitcher is actually doing.

It's still SO early. I'm not just saying this because my team is having a slow start. It really is SO early. You don't want to see a team get too deep into a hole but right now, the team with the most wins is the Colorado Rockies. No offense to the Rockies, who have great players, or their fans, who hang on every season, but they do this every year. One year, they'll do it for good again but are the Reds and the Marlins and the Rockies going to win their divisions? Probably not. The beginning of the season is great because every team has a chance. The teams that aren't that great, the teams that start slow, the teams that are projected to do well! As for me specifically, I keep in mind that the Giants started 3-9 in 2015 and stayed competitive all season. The 2014 Pirates were 10 games under .500 in May and still ended the season 14 games over with a playoff spot! And there's plenty more like this. Breaaaathe everyone. It's early yet.

I went to that last year! Hideki Matsui hit a homer off of David Cone, it was great!

DL for Buster. With the Giants recent history with concussions, I'm actually relieved to see this. They've lost guys to concussions for significant amounts of time every season for the past few years, and many times, it's because they felt "fine" and played too soon. A DL trip for Buster means they can't be tempted to slide him into a game because he feels alright, only to have symptoms come on later. It also helps that the Giants actually have two backup catchers with NL West experience this season. Hopefully a week is enough and he comes back good as new!

Dammit, Buster Posey was just beaned in the head with a 93mph pitch and left the game. Be ok, Buster!

Same! Matt was one of my favorite Giants from the day he came up (I actually went to his first game) and I felt totally blindsided when he was traded. I've been keeping up with the Rays as well and am hoping he's healthy enough to play soon, though I worry about that turf on his ailing feet. It's a little crazy to feel like a win is a Big Win just seven games into the season but the Giants winning yesterday did feel big after an eventful first week where they wasted some pretty things (Belt hit a grand slam! And then another homer! And they still lost! And then Madison had another complete game loss! Stop doing that to him!). Glad they get to go into the home opener after a happy flight, away from a losing streak. Keep it together, bullpen!

The 2017 MLB season was released in mid-September. We knew before the postseason even began who would be starting where this year. They don't take postseason success into account.

Bumgarner is ridiculous. He just keeps coming up with ways to treat us! Perfect game through five, 11 strikeouts AND two homers?! Whyyyy did the Giants have to lose that game, ugh.

Didi hasn't played in a WBC game since Tuesday. Sounds like his shoulder is having some trouble, which isn't really something you can pin on playing baseball in a specific place. He'd have been playing baseball either way.

I am hoping for Puerto Rico vs. USA too. The Puerto Rican team is probably my favorite overall team, they are just so into it and having a great time, great camaraderie, lots of amazing players. But Team USA is putting up a fight this year and two of my most favorite ballplayers are on the team (Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford) and I'm rooting for them to keep doing well too! The Netherlands team is a lot of fun too, though I just saw that Didi is hurt! Which takes some of the fun out.

I keep seeing some baseball fans saying the World Baseball Classic doesn't matter or count. If there's anything that's been obvious in watching these games, it's that it DOES count. Watch the guys playing, pay attention to the crowd (especially the games in Miami, or whenever the host team is playing), see the joy and the passion and the excitement. These games may count differently than an MLB season game where the goal is to win a World Series, but these games certainly do count for something. I get and understand worrying about a favorite team's players playing the WBC. I greatly enjoy the WBC and I still worry, not just about my two favorites in the tournament but ANYONE, because no one wants to see a great player be injured, period, no matter where or how. But these games have been awesome. Dramatic, exciting, tense and full of a love of baseball and an illustration of how it's played, viewed and celebrated beyond MLB. I think that's awesome. I'd love to see MLB games take on a little more of this more often. Celebration is good, joy is good, the WBC is good, baseball is good.

Still no word on the fate of this show? I noticed that around the holidays, MPG had shaved but a recent pic shows him with the Mike Lawson beard back, so maybe that's a good sign?

Ok, first off, the baseball fan in me needs to sideye the fictional Dodgers for BUNTING during a no-hitter in the 8th inning! That's low. I felt for Al, Ginny, Oscar, everyone in that decision. At the beginning of this season, a Dodger pitcher named Ross Stripling was pretty deep into a no-hitter. It was early in the year though, and he was coming off an injury, and his manager pulled him in the 7th or 8th (can't remember which) after he walked a guy. They were not in LA and STILL Dave Roberts was booed by the crowd for the decision! The next pitcher promptly gave up a homer to tie the game, and then the Dodgers lost in extra innings. It's a tough kind of decision to make, because the individual accomplishment is so rare but looking to the future is also important, especially with young pitchers or pitchers late in the season. Similarly, a Giants pitcher was left IN his no-hitter to throw over 130 pitches and that was criticized for the OTHER side of it (he lost the no-hitter with one out to go). I really hope Ginny doesn't need surgery and a lengthy recovery. She has really found herself and her place and her confidence. Her speech on the mound was great, even if I think she needs a little more than she thinks she does. Man, do MPG and JoAnna Garcia Swisher have some nice chemistry. Was fun to revisit their relationship just to see that. Blip, don't be an idiot. Evelyn has loved and supported you for years, sacrificing her wants and needs so that you could shine. You can take a little out of yourself to give back to her and support her ambitions. It won't kill you. Get off that couch and stop playing with that wedding ring. Please don't let this be the last episode of this show we see! Don't let this be the note we go out on!

Now the Red Sox just traded Moncada and others for CHRIS SALE! Jeez!

Saw a recent pic of him and he looks great! I'll always root for him, I think he has a good chance of a bounceback season.

There are four pools, with four teams each. I believe US is in with DR, Canada and Colombia.

IMO, it makes more sense for the writers to put two characters that the viewers are invested in together than to put Ginny with one o the other players that have barely made an impact in nine episodes of the show. The only thing that I don't like about this is that they shoe-horned Ginny liking Mike when she was a kid into it. Other than that, I think it's a totally natural progression that she would fall for one of the first people who accepted her, who has helped through a big moment and who sees her for who she really is and not just what she represents.

I liked this episode a lot. One thing that really stood out to me is how much confidence Ginny has gained and how she shines. The stuff in this episode, from strutting into the clubhouse to find out who nailed her cleats, to ragging on Mike during BP, to getting the camera man's attention so that Mike could have a moment, just proved how comfortable she's become and it was cool to see. She's found her place. If anything, MPG has made me care about Mike Lawson as if he's a real ballplayer. I was yelling a lot, about all the things. Knowing he might be playing his last game, the possibility to have that huge moment, still getting the love from the fans. Even if it was unlikely he was actually going to be traded in this fictional world, I thought the show did a good job of ramping up the tension. Mike didn't really know how to handle it. But it's an awkward situation. Ginny had great chemistry with Noah. Ginny also has great chemistry with Mike. i wanted them to kiss as much as I didn't. This coming last episode is going to be interesting. I wish this show was going to hang around, I'm not ready for it to go away.

Man, I hope there is no lockout. It just sounds like it can snowball into a total mess, what with ballplayers losing their medical benefits and access to the team facilities (big, since this is around when guys start working out again), on top of everything else (no winter meetings, deals, signings, etc.). Figure it out before tonight, ya dolts!

They haven't said anything about an opt out yet and he has a no trade clause.

Cespedes is staying with the Mets! Four years, $110 million. He must really like being a Met!

I agree with this. I think this would have been a good "we miss baseball! let's watch Pitch!" show but instead it started in the heat of the postseason chase and what ended up being a thrilling World Series. I do hope that having MLB and Fox Sports so involved that there may be a chance that poor ratings don't mean doom for the show. There's enough ways to cross-promote that it may be valuable for them in other ways.

Yeah, while the show universe uses really MLB players, they have shifted little things here and there. Such as, they announced Brandon Crawford, the Giants shortstop, at the Pitch Universe All-Star Game, even though he didn't make the real All-Star team (though he should have, so thanks for righting that wrong, Pitch!). So maybe the Cubs in Pitch universe don't have David Ross and Mike would fill that kind of role (new old guy who becomes beloved despite the fact that he has no actual history with the team).