Giants Baseball: The Agony of Defeat

Posted on May 24, 2010

Pablo Sandoval #48 of the San Francisco Giants reacts and squeezes his batting helmet after losing the game against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on May 22, 2010 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

I know it’s early. We haven’t even reached Memorial Day. However, the recent Bay Bridge Series in Oakland between the A’s and Giants this past weekend was a story of two teams going in opposite directions. On one hand the Oakland A’s did everything right. They pitched great, played wonderful defense, moved runners over and got key hits when they needed them. On the other hand the San Francisco Giants pitched well, but their anemic offense could only muster one run over 27 innings. The result? The A’s swept all three games by scores of 6-1, 1-0 and 3-0. It was ugly for us Giants fans, yet being able to photograph the day games on Saturday and Sunday was very therapeutic for me.

I was shooting stock pictures at both games for myself and Major League Baseball Photos. The weather was cool but nice, and I was excited to have a chance to shoot the Giants in their road grays. There was a great vibe at the old mausoleum in Oakland as the A’s sold out all of the games. The fans were into the action and with their home team playing well they had much to cheer about. There were also a number of Giants fans wearing their orange and black colors in the stands, but they never had a chance to make any noise as A’s pitchers shoved the Giants bats up their asses all weekend long.

The Giants horrible offense got off to a decent start early in the season and seemed to be an improvement over last season. However the games of late have been so painful to watch as the starting pitchers have done a nice job, only to get stuck with the losses because their teammates can’t score any runs for them. Look no further than Jonathan Sanchez who has started five games this season in which his team has been shut out. That is crazy! As the Giants sad story began to unfold in Oakland I found myself with nothing left to do but try and tell the story of their misery through my pictures. It became a game for me, and since it is easy to win at my own games I had a better chance at victory than the Giants did.

Everything came to a head on Sunday afternoon as both teams couldn’t get anything going with the bats. In the top of the 7th inning A’s manager Bob Geren got in a heated argument with first base umpire Greg Gibson and got tossed from the game (see above). This seemed to spark his club as they put three runs on the board over the last two innings to finish off the hapless Giants. The Giants continued to play flat and you could sense the frustration as they got down to their final outs.

The Giants weekend was capsulized in Aubrey Huff’s final at bat in the top of the 9th inning. He crushed a ball to deep center field that was caught for a harmless out. As I was shooting from the outside first base photo well near the Giants dugout I could see him seething as he slowly walked back to the dugout. Within minutes the game was over and I immediately looked into the dugout to see if any Giants were lingering after the game looking sad. There was Huff sitting on the dugout bench for a minute or so and I thought his frustration really told the story. On the other side of the field the guys in the green and gold were celebrating another fine win over their cross-bay rivals, but I chose to shoot the losers.

Yes, it is still early, and the Giants are still over .500 with a 22-21 record. But man are they hard to watch! As Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper likes to say, “Giants baseball: TORTURE!”