Bay Bridge - Lance Iversen - SF Chronicle

The Giants chatter up here slowed down a little this week. I think with Randy Johnson getting his 300 wins that people kind of settled back into reality of where the team is really at. ..way behind the Dodgers.

Actually the talk this last week was that the A’s won 7 in a row with just about all rookie pitchers. They seem to have recharged their bats, so maybe the A’s are off to something. The rumors still persist that the A’s are still too far back, and will try to trade off Matt Holliday before the trade deadline.

The buzz yesterday morning though for the Giants was that they are only 1/2 game out of the wild card race. They are playing pretty good ball, are above .500, and are in the race. The radio announcers were attributing it to a more lose clubhouse. They team is getting along, and apparently Pable Sandoval really keeps things loose.  More and more I think we are going to keep hearing his name.  He can really play.

They made a comment that the Giants haven’t been this loose in the clubhouse in years. Ironically, I recently wrote a post on how the Dodgers are now the same way. Can you already see where I’m going with this? There was only one common denominator between the teams in the last 10 years…Jeff Kent. He was a great competitor, but it sure seems like he made every clubhouse he was in – tense. He did with the Giants and Barry Bonds, and he did it with the Dodgers in the last few years.

It’s a harsh generalization, but I wonder if there is some truth to it. I do wonder how Jeff Kent feels this year with the Dodgers playing so well. He did want to win with the blue.

The Giants play the A’s at AT&T park this weekend. Rumor on the street is that this series will be attended by more A’s fans than Giants fans. Pretty sad for Giants fans in their own parks.  It does make sense though.  The bridge shown in the picture is how the fans in Oakland get to San Francisco, and it is definitely closer than Anaheim to L.A.

Until next week. What do you think – will the Giants snag the wild card?  I think that only happens if they trade for a bat in the next month.  We’ll see.

Manny Whiteboard

I had to include this picture as one of the posts.  This is the whiteboard of the cube across from mine at work.  He put this up yesterday, and has every intention of counting down the days and rubbing it in.  Yes, he’s a Giants fan.  He’s really more of a Sharks fan, but he’s from around here, so he’ll jump on anything anti-Dodgers he can.  It’s actually a pretty funny picture, but yes, life as a Dodgers fan living in Giants territory.

Great stories in the SF Chronicle about the Manny debacle.  One of the comments from my last post brought this up, but apparently what Manny took is a common drug used to recover from steroid use.  The story keeps getting worse and worse.  Here was my favorite comment from the SF Chronicle writer Scott Ostler (See article here):

“Manny Ramirez flunked a drug test because of meds he got from a Florida doctor. Ramirez isn’t providing any more info, so we’re all free to speculate on the nature of his “personal health issue.”

I’m going to go ahead and rule out dandruff.

From what drug experts say about HCG, the banned drug Ramirez used, there’s a good chance Manny used the stuff to boost his flagging testosterone production and head off embarrassing side effects.

So it wasn’t Manny being Manny, it was Manny not wanting to be Franny.

Let’s take a wild swing and speculate that Ramirez took the HCG to deal with the negative side effects of steroids. If so, Manny will no longer be known as simply a great hitter and fun-loving clubhouse guy who, by the way, quit on his team and roughed up an elderly team employee.

He will be asterisked forever.”

I’m sure every paper in the nation had stories on him today.  I guess I am just too trusting because I believed his original statement.  I’m convinced now that I was the only one in the country who did this.  He got ripped to shreds in the internet articles.  Testing is more strict now, and he still used the drugs.  We obviously have no idea of the pressure to be worth the money, but the drugs are obviously rampant.

The people thrilled right now are the Giants and their fans.  They did want Manny, but already dealt with steroids with Barry Bonds.  If they had signed him, and then this came out, it would be even more embarrassment for the organization and fans.  This also means the Giants fans will boast all the more that they made the right decision, when they really didn’t have a chance at Manny…but such it is.

I’m watching the Giants play the Dodgers tonight at Dodger Stadium.  Good pitchers duel.  I’m telling you, Barry Zito has figured something out with Pablo Sandoval, and he looks good again.  Billingsley looked good, and so did Pierre, but Martin should have never gone to second on his hit.  That really killed the rally with Casey Blake’s double.  Hopefully the Dodgers will turn it around, but we’ll see.  The bullpen blew it last night,  so hopefully they can get another chance tonight.

Until next time from anti-Manny land…