Oh, Armando

After games like last night, Sports Talk radio can kind of be essential listening. Misery loves company after all and there's a lot of misery out there in Giants Land. Yes, the baseball season is 162 games so one loss don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world but sometimes one game means more than others. Like last night's game.

Now part of it was because it was a hell of a game-- great pitching, stellar D, and enough nail-biting escapes from imminent danger (on both sides) to tear apart the insides of any fan. As we said earlier, it felt like a playoff game. Then there's the fact the Giants essentially threw out their B Team to face the best team in the NL and the kids played the Mets even throughout the 12 innings. They earned and deserved the win. They didn't get it.

And then there's Benitez. Benitez has earned the ire of Giants fans and us for the past few years for blown save after blown save. And he's drawn ire of his past employers as could be seen by the glee Mets fans had in booing him upon his entrance into the game. It's not just a matter of the blown saves either it's his demeanor. He has just awful body language. If somebody screws up on the field, he glowers. If the inning starts off badly, he starts having the "uh oh, here we go again" look. He also has a tendency to blame others for his mess ups, like after the game over the weekend in which he told everyone that he "did his job" after another blown opportunity. Whatever it is that makes closers have ice-cold veins and the cojones to deal with the pressure, Blownitez does not have it. On Murph & Mac on KNBR this morning, they started reading a list of "Top 10 Benitez Blown Saves" (can't find it online) which was a long list of f---- ups in a variety of playoffs and World Series games, including the "homerun" in the infamous Jeffrey Meier game. He also gave up the J.T. Snow homerun in the second game of the 2000 playoffs.

Picture by mdoeff on McCovey Chronicles