Chad visited the Giants clubhouse and interviewed reliever Hunter Strickland before the Giants beat the Nationals 8-5. Hunter discusses his lack of love for an automated strike zone, the confidence it takes to pitch in the majors, touts the camaraderie of the clubhouse, and being a southern boy, his favorite food is fried chicken, because of course you should know that. Be sure to check out Bonusode 93.1 that was recorded after the game at Zeke’s!
The boys are back after a vacation break to bring you some heartache, but silver linings. The Giants were swept by the Cubs, but thanks to the Pirates and Nats, sit only 2.5 games back of the Dodgers. We talk starting rotation, injuries, who we love and hate, and basically sing a huge kumbaya.
The Giants went 4-2 for the week, which is something amazing considering they were under.500 at home. Despite a 12-13 June (ok, they can still be .500 with a win tonight), the Giants are only 1/2 game back of the Dodgers. Chad and Ben discuss the month of June, the All Star game voting, Duffy and more!
Before I joined TortureCast in August 2011, I regularly contributed a segment on the show called, “Out of Left Field.” It was usually a short 60 seconds of me rambling on about some esoteric stat, streak, or oddity of the Giants’ season.
I’ve decided to resurrect it, and potentially in audio format once again. Because, who doesn’t like listening to themselves? Ok, I don’t, so here it is in digital print. At least most fonts aren’t embarrassing. Except for Comic Sans, of course.
The Giants finally broke their 9 game skid at home, which was the longest losing streak since 1940 at the Polo Grounds. I mean, that’s when gas was 18 cents a gallon and my grandmother was still in France about to hide from the Nazis.
Despite tonight’s 2-0 loss, MadBum pitched well and was perfect for 4 2/3 until a cleat-made divot caused a ball to bounce at Crawford’s insured face, necessitating the scorekeeper to laugh diabolically and mark it as a hit. Maybe that had a butterfly effect on the Giants’ offense. No, wait, no, that had about as much affect on their offense as I do screaming at the TV while I tear the wings off of a butterfly.
The Giants are 5-12 since their high-water mark of 30-20. After starting the season 4-10, that means the “meat” of the season sandwich was 26-10.
Giants are 8 GB of last year’s record after 67 games. In fact, they haven’t been worse at this point over the last 5 seasons: 2013: 0 GB, 2012: 2 GB, 2011: 3 GB, 2010: 2 GB
Marco Scutaro was symbolically re-signed by the Giants and immediately placed on the 60-day DL. He can now retire a Giant. And to think that I truly believed (last year) that he would certainly come back at some point to relive his glory days in 2012 and 2013. Sadly, he’s rehabbing his 2 fused vertebrae and hoping to “live a normal life, pain free” with his family. Egad. He might not ever play even beer league softball. I’ll stop my bitching about my injured wrist that prevents me from cleaning and jerking in my CrossFit sessions. And jerking.
Matt Cain and Jake Peavy are close to coming back into the rotation, but the Giants have stated that they will not go to a six man rotation, which begs the obvious, “who’s out?” I’d say take out Mike Murphy. There are no alternatives.
As of today, the Royals would have 8 starters in the All Star Game. If this holds, it’ll be the National League vs. the Royals, plus Mike Trout. I “kind of” want this to happen, if only to force MLB into changing this ridiculous ASG voting by the fans. Ok, well, Aoki is currently slated to start for the NL (being a former Royal), so maybe just this year…. In fact, wouldn’t it be something if Giants fans propelled 8 Giants starters to the final ballot? Man, the Royals could get their revenge…
Don’t look now, but Arizona is only two games back of the Giants. I thought Diamondbacks were not allowed to pray to their snake goddess.
Chris Heston was named NL player of the week. I wonder if anyone HASN’T been named that after a no-hitter. Glad someone else didn’t throw a perfect game that week, I suppose.
Maybe the Warriors can win every odd year championship.
Javier Lopez: 0.96 ERA, 0.64 WHIP. Dayum.
Giants are hitting .284 as a team on the road, which leads all MLB, 12 points higher than the next team. Can haz hitting at home? (.249)
Despite the last few downturns, they’re only 2.5 games back of the Bums. Could be worse. Let’s get back to that meat I mentioned earlier. Maybe it was grand salame?
Hunter Pence is back. And not just on Twitch, but like hitting homeruns and throwing awkwardly from right field. Yes, all is right with the world.
Back when the Giants were 4-10, we didn’t panic. We said let’s wait until they have played 40 games, and if they’re at .500 and Hunter is back, they’ll be fine. Welp, they’re 20-18 now, so guaranteed to be at .500 after 40, and Hunter IS back, and had a huge hand in the last two wins, going 4-8 with a homerun and scoring five runs. The Giants have the best record in the NL since their bad start at 16-8, and have a great stretch of games coming to balloon that record.
Join Chad and Eric as they discuss the Giants’ recent success as they delve deep into numbers, including Casilla’s immaculate inning, only the 79th in recorded history. Belt is hitting .321 and shutting up his haters, Pagan’s back is acting up, and Bochy names coaches for the All Star Game. Plus, Jeff Loria named his cat as manager of the Marlins.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have the Tigers’ record (11-2) right now? Although the Giants have gotten off to one of the worst starts ever for a World Series champion, it’s not quite yet time to panic.
Chad and Eric discuss the highlight of the week, which, yes, was the only win in the last 10 games, but it was also the World Series Ring ceremony. Chad was in attendance, and he strolls down memory lane and recounts his experience in the clubhouse, seeing all five living Hall of Famers, and actually handled the ring of Bochy himself. All pictures of the night are on our Facebook page.
We cover McGehee, Peavy on the DL, “Tweet at me, Bruh,” our new favorite and least favorite guys, and of course, “Why We Will Win it All.”
Spring Training has not been kind to the Giants. They own the worst record, by far, in all of MLB. Hunter Pence got broke, and Bochy is actually worried about his team’s performance.
Chad, Ben and Eric try and talk each other down from the ledge, and bring some levity to the foreboding results from the Giants’ practice games thus far.
Yes, Jerry is a 49er, but we covered him at the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach this month, so it sort of, by proxy, regionally counts to fit our jersey-number-title-thing that is dying. So, here’s a video of Jerry leading the group “Buster Hug” that we caught on film earlier this month.
The boys are back in Arizona! Timmy reunites with his dad, Pablo is still fat, Cain is throwing wild and free, Ben and Chad review their experience and interviews at Media Day, Bochy’s heart had a scare, Sheilds rejected a larger offer from the Giants, Moncada signed with Boston, and the first radio broadcast of a spring training game is next week, March 3.
Can’t you just smell the fresh cut grass through your media player of choice?
You can follow us on Twitter @TortureCast and like us on Facebook! All of our podcasts and video and audio San Francisco Giants player interviews can be found here or YouTube.com/TortureCast.
Matt Cain tees off on the third hole at Pebble Beach on 2/10/15.
Yesterday exceeded my own expectations. Pebble Beach was gracious enough to let our non-golf-covering outfit cover the shootout yesterday, as we do cover the Giants. The PGA also threw in a “behind the ropes” pass, which enabled me to essentially mingle and walk with the players during their five hole shootout, which gave me the opportunity to capture some great photos of all of the Giants and 49ers playing in the event, which included Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Bruce Bochy, Javier Lopez, Duane Kuiper, Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Brent Jones, Dwight Clark and Harris Barton.
My favorite moment of the day was the group “Buster Hug.” As KNBR’s Brian Murphy roasted all of the players, he had nothing bad to say about Buster, so he just happened to mention that he might be best known for the “Buster Hug.” Following that, Jerry Rice and eventually most of the Giants and 49ers embraced him. The video is below:
The weather was as impeccable as the jovial attitude along the course. I was able to interview Steve Young and chat with Cain, Bochy, Rice and others. Most of the questions by all the media were light and engaging to match the atmosphere. Probably the most engaging personality out there was Jerry Rice. The Hall of Famer danced, smoked a cigar, and mingled with fans all day long. Buster was his usual reserved self and really didn’t talk that much, even to his partner, Matt Cain.
You can view the initial photo gallery over on our Facebook page. No, you don’t need a Facebook account to view them, but if you have one, would you give us a “like” while you’re there?
Here’s a video of Buster teeing off with an iron at 17, just because
Speaking of the tournament, Cain and Posey took the first hole (there were four teams of two), but the 49ers won it in the end during a chip-off at the 18th hole courtesy of Dwight Clark’s chip that ended up closest to the hole. Serendipity helped out as the chip off happened to occur right in front of where I had been standing, so below is a video of Cain and Posey’s chips. There are more videos and photos to come.
-Chad
Bruce Bochy puts for par on the second hole at Pebble Beach
Javier Lopez uses an iron to drive towards the green at Pebble Beach
Buster Posey tees off on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach.
Today we were able to snag interviews with eight Giants at Media Day at AT&T Park, including Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Matt Cain, Brandon Crawford, Travis Ishikawa, Joe Panik and Casey McGehee. Some of the players we had exclusive time with, others we shared questions with other reporters.
We’ll also be covering the Giants vs. 49ers charity shootout at Pebble Beach on Tuesday, 2/10!
All 8 interviews are below separately, the first one however, is the master playlist, and here is the playlist directly on YouTube.
The TortureCast 