Baseball is back, starting on Thursday July 23rd in LA before Cardboard Fans, and The Czar has his Fingers Crossed that the 60-game Season will be completed.
The baseball season marks the days of our lives and the rhythm of the year. Spring training is the beginning of the year, the exhibition season is spring, and the 162-game season (the real year) starts in the first week of April. There is a reason they call ball players the “Boys of Summer.” That is now truer than ever that we are into a 60-game race to the playoffs in empty stadiums all over the country.
Czar’s blog #1 came out sometime in the last century and our good friend and retired college pitcher Sean Kiley ably explored the details of the sign stealing nature of the game and the scandals of last year – how to get an advantage was his theme. Need I say that Sean’s next stop will be law school?
The G-Men just took two pre-season games from the A’s, giving us a taste of what they are capable of over a 60-game season. It was exciting to see them play (our cutouts are already in our seats – channeling our Giants emotions). Seeing ballplayers in an empty stadium with recorded crowd sounds as background noise was weird but getting into the game was easier than I expected.
An interesting note to playing in empty stadiums is that the traditional home field advantage of screaming fans will be abated this year. What kind of difference will it make to the players? It’s hard to say but as a veteran of 30 years of Lawyers League softball, playing in front of no one but my teammates and the other team, the players will tune it out and play for themselves and for the fun of baseball. The game will be pure.
The 60-Game Season – What will it Be Like, and what will the Giants Be Like?
Every game of the 60-game season (unless there is a COVID flareup that shuts everything down again) will be a playoff game. Extrapolating the value of a victory, and the cost of a loss, every game is worth 2.5 games of a regular season. A three-game losing streak is deadly. The G-Men have told us, and rightfully so, they are treating the season as a long playoff series. that means short leashes on the pitchers, quick hooks for slumping players and lots of relievers.
The biggest question going into the season is the new manager – Gabe Kapler – will he be capable of managing a new group of players in the hectic environment of this unusual baseball year? He and Farhan are both new wave metrics fans and believe in mixing and matching to the moment so we will see but as with the start of every new season, hope runs high.
Regardless, the Giants may be the most “woke” team in the major leagues. We have the first female base coach (Alyssa Nakken) and the only team with the manager (and many players) who kneeled for the National Anthem in recognition of BLM. Call it a San Francisco thing but I was proud to see our team criticized by the President. Gabe gets my vote.
What will the Line-up’s be like and what players should we be watching?
The Giants are picked to finish either last in the NL West, or close to it. This would be a rebuilding year regardless but starting on a note of being dissed by every professional writer in baseball simply means there is nothing to lose.
Buster is sitting out the year because of new babies (and good for him – he need not prove anything to anyone) so senior leadership is left to the Brandon’s, Panda, Pence and Longoria. The rest of the team is a mix of good-looking young players (Dickerson, now healthy, Yaz with a homer in his first exhibition AB, Solano, Flores and Slater – with a 5 RBI 3-hit game against the A’s) all with something to prove. It’s going to be fun to watch these guys.
The opening series against the Dodgers
The G-Men start with 4 away games against the team that shall not be named in LA. Cueto faces Kershaw to start things off. The Dodgers are picked to be the best team in baseball this year with talent out the yin-yang and a bench that could be starters on every other team in baseball. So, I (and every Giants fan), say “bring it on!” its baseball 2020!
GO GIANTS!
Ciao,
The Czar
For nostalgia, the usual admonition. “The available games, dates and number of tickets will be shown at the end of the blog before the rules. Remember when you email me back to identify the game, the date and the number of tickets you want. Please whitelist my email so you get the blog posts and ticket offers all season long.”