From the Porch by Paterfamilias

Since Pun's House is so well represented with the Mets and Cubs, we felt it was time to give West Coast baseball a little love.  So, today, we have a new (hopefully) regular feature - "From the Porch" by Paterfamilias. ~Nate

Welcome to From the Porch, a Giants blog rising literally from the ashes of the 2009 season. For many years I filled out a scorecard for every Giants game, even the ones I didn't see (for those I'd use online batter-by-batter reports). On the back of each 8 1/2 x 11 sheet I'd cut out the box score, game story and that day's standings from the newspaper and glue them to the backand keep all these in a giant (no pun intended) three-ring notebook.

From that notebook I'd write a little report after each game and send it to a bunch of people on what was called "email" decades ago. It only had a couple of dozen readers, but did have a global reach. One guy was in Papua New Guinea and one was in the Navy in the Persian Gulf. Since they were usually written "from the porch," where I listened to Jon Miller do Giants games on the radio (TV hadn't been invented yet), the name of the little report was "From the Porch."

Well, I forget the exact debacle of a game in the middle of the '09 season, but the Giants played so poorly (pretty sure Aaron Rowand was to blame) that I threw my notebook outside poured charcoal starter all over it and burned it to ashes. Haven't kept a Giants scorecard or written about them since, till now. And partially because the rant worked! Who had San Francisco penciled in as World Champs for 2010? Nobody.

So on to 2012! First month of the season had some ups and downs but overall OK at 12-10, now 3 games back of damn Dodgers. Barry Zito, Buster Posey, Hector Sanchez are huge surprises, Brian Wilson out, but, meh; Aubrey Huff having an unexpected breakdown due to anxiety. Timmy started out sucking and Bumgarner is suddenly the biggest stud in the majors. I'm liking a lot of the young guys and loving Melky and Pagan. Those trades are looking VERY Giants-friendly right now.

So going into Marlins series Tuesday, it'll be Cain vs. Nolasco; then Zito vs. Zambrano Wednesday and Vogelsong vs. Anibel Sanchez in Thursday day game.

Follow along as we find out whether a younger (and remarkably sloppy so far) Giants team can do some damage in the NL West. Giants baseball is weird now; winning it all ended decades of frustration but also kind flipped us upside-down. Most of the people we love to hate are gone -- Rowand particularly (recall that he was picked up by the Marlins after SF released him, but the Marlins cut him, too). You can't hate Huff right now; he's dealing with serious stuff (Aubrey, nothing ends anxiety like retirement, dude). Zito leads the team in ERA? Can't hate him. Even Scott Cousins for the Marlins, who blew up Posey last year, is at AAA in New Orleans. You know, the Zephyrs.  Serious desert winds in New Orleans, in case you didn't know.