Results tagged “jeffkent”

Tomorrow, ESPN will take a break determining whether Tom Brady is more Now than LeBron is and feature a town hall type thingy in San Francisco on the issue of Barry Bonds and the Hallowed Record. Despite ESPN's increasing descent into annoying shtick and hype, this should be pretty interesting as it's being hosted by "Outside the Lines" host Bob Ley, one of the few ESPN "personalities" with any integrity left. It's supposed to be a discussion on all things Barry, including race, Bud Selig's complicitness in the mess, how tainted the record is, and a whole bunch of other things. The panel will feature a bunch of writers including ESPN's excellent Buster Olney and "Game of Shadows" Lance Williams as well as Barry's ex teammates Kirk Rueter and Ellis Burks as well as Dusty. Jeff Kent will not be participating.

Alright, let's take a look at this Zito signing after we've all had a day to absorb everything. First, more details of the deal has been released. The key thing is that Zito will make only $10 million this year as he agreed to backload some of his salary to help the Giants and their budget. Which is another way of saying "have money left over for the other Barry." The signing should come soon. The Giants budget this year will be $92 million, their highest yet and about $12 million more than their standard $80 million. This all sounds well and good-- we like teams that spend to win, but one wonders what would have happened if they decided to break the bank earlier. Like, oh, resigning Jeff Kent. Or going after Vlade. Or another good starter to back up Jason Schmidt.

As this disheartening, dispiriting, and disillusioning Giants' baseball season comes to a close, it is quite possible that there is still a chance that this season could be saved, redeemed even. For all could be forgiven, all forgotten, with just one act, one thing, one simple, simple thing-- knocking the Dodgers out of the playoffs.

Last week, we did something we never thought we'd do: a Giants game was on and we didn't watch. Oh, we knew the game was on and even felt a twinge of desire to watch it, but we didn't. Then the next night, another game was on and we didn't watch that either. And over the weekend, when the Giants played three normally Must See TV games against the hated Dodgers, we didn't watch those games either. That's right. We are now officially over the Giants.

After an unproductive week at the MLB winter meetings, the A's heated up the winter stove again: they traded minor league OF Andre Ethier to the Dodgers for major league OF Milton "Insert Game-Based Nickname Here" Bradley and major league IF Antonio Perez. That is: they traded a bird in the bush for two in the hand. Ethier was the AA Texas League player of the year--Bradley, the prize for the A's in this deal is 27 years old, and he hit .290/.350/.484 for the Dodgers last season. As is often the case when the A's acquire a player, Billy Beane is rumored to have coveted him for quite some time.

We spent the past few months obsessing over the Giants' offseason moves and the past few weeks wondering if all of our worst fears about the team's collective age were coming true. We spent Tuesday afternoon at opening day at the ballpark and, looking down on the diamond as the Giants soundly beat the hated Dodgers 4-2, we came to this simple conclusion: the 2005 Giants are a really good team and we're really looking forward to watching them play for the next six or, hopefully, seven months. Sure, they're going to miss Barry Bonds, BALCO scandal and all, while he's out recuperating from his third minor knee surgery of the past three months (and if he's out for much more than the fifteen days he's slated to be on the disabled list, they're going to struggle mightily stay in the NL West race), but Brian Sabean has built a team that's so solid on the mound, at the plate, and in the field that they can withstand the absence of even the best player in the game, at least for a while. And yesterday's game displayed that perfectly. With the perfect weather, beautiful park, and great baseball, Giants fans couldn't have asked for too much more from the team (and they had a lovely time booing Jeff Kent all day long).

After this weekend, it's going to get harder for us Giants' fans to try and live in our shiny, happy denial land in regards to Barry Bonds and this whole BALCO mess. While most of the blared out to the world that they actually have a tape from 2003 purportedly of Barry's trainer and friend, Greg Anderson, bragging to several people on the phone about all the drugs they've been giving the Big Guy. And no, there's no hard evidence that Barry took any steroids, but the story did have most Giants fans scrambling for some sort of way to explain away the story (like how, on the tape, Anderson comes off as a major-league schmuck). The story got the usual hand-wringing from Commissioner Bud and the usual snide comment from one-time teammate Jeff Kent.

Five games left, three back of the Dodgers, tied with the Cubs, a half game up on the Astros, and Milton Bradley losing his mind in LA. Does that say it all? Not if you're an A's fan. Then it's five games left, tied with the Angels, three distant games ahead of the Rangers, and Ichiro getting ready set a major record on the home turf.

SFist had high hopes for a series sweep for the Giants throughout last night's game against the Astros, but the bullpen had different ideas. Taking a three-to-two lead into the ninth inning, the San Francisco relievers did their best early-August impression by allowing five ugly runs, costing Jason Schmidt a well-deserved victory and chipping away at his fading Cy Young chances.