From the Porch: Wookiees

May 16, 2012

Cardinals 4, Giants 1 at AT&T Park

Cardinals (22-15): 100 000 120  4 9 0

Giants (18-19): 000 001 000  1 10 0

WP: Garcia (3-2)

LP: Bumgarner (5-3)

SV: Motte (7)

HR: Freese (8)

Garcia: 7.1ip 9h 1er 0bb 9k 3.68era

Bumgarner: 7.1ip 7h 4er 0bb 3k 3.10era

In the NL West: SD beat LA, COL beat ARI. Giants perpetually 6 games behind LA.

Comments: Wowie, way, way, way too many Wookiees in the lineup after SO many injuries and such. Actually, it might be interesting to start Wookiees instead of rookies (starting infield -- Pill, Culberson, Crawford, Burrris, ouch. I'm not sure of the baseball skills of Wookiees (two e's, remember, because George Lucas is from the year 2200 on technology but an 11-year-old on writing). Could Wookiees hit with power? Could they charge the mound and tear off the pitcher's throwing arm? Might be interesting.

But this is getting unbelievable, with Melky Cabrera, perhaps one of 2 or 3 actual major leaguers on the Giants, out tonight with a toe something. Imagine the starting lineup trying to compete in any MLB division: Blanco, Culberston, Pagan, Posey, Pill, Schierholtz, Crawford, Bumgarner batting 8th and Burriss 9th. Bruce Bochy is the master psychologist, the king of building confidence -- "Manny, you're batting behind my .143 batless pitcher." "Cool! Thanks, Skip, I won't let you down!" Any wonder why he haplessly made the last out? No.

Pitching: Bumgarner was fine; on any competent team would have had an easy win. Edlefsen was an interesting guy to bring into the game. I mean, if you have a batting lineup of guys who don't have a chance of starting for the AA Richmond Flying Squirrels, why not add a pitcher who should be at high-A San Jose? Brilliant! What would fans of a team with 100-plus sellouts and a $130 million payroll expect?

Defense: Zero errors does not mean good defense.

Offense: Nuthin. Nuthin at all. Less and less and less every day. Well, it seemed like Aubrey Huff flied out a little deeper than usual, and Emmanuel Burriss at least swung lazily at the last pitch of the game instead of staring it at like Schierholtz last night.

Future Pirates Report: Culberson 1/3; Pill 0/3; Schierholtz 1/4; Crawford 0/4; Edlefsen 1.2ip 2h.

Baseball Quote of the Day: "Too many kids today are playing major league ball and don't belong there." -- Joe DiMaggio

Next game: St. Louis Cardinals at San Francisco Giants, 12:45 p.m. Thursday, May 17 at AT&T Park. Adam Wainwright (2-4, 6.16) vs. Matt Cain (2-2, 2.28). TV: CSN: BA.