“It’s not always gonna be sunshine and roses,” said Ryan Vogelsong after today’s game – was it a game, though, – against the Blue Jays.  (So I was like, well it’s not always gonna be, but how about it is right now?)

The Giants are probably turning in their passports right now and hoping that they never ever have to go to Canada again, because I know Giants fans are feeling that way.  Yesterday and today’s game were, in combination, some of the worst in recent Giants history, but if you can’t laugh… then you’re the Astros, or something.

Onwards to a four game series in Colorado, where there will hopefully be more sunshine and roses.  (And maybe the humidor!  Too much to hope for?)

Diamond Girl

Back to the point: an uncomfortable number of people walked off against the Giants last June or thereabouts.   (I’m trusting my blog on this one.  I have the memory of goldfish and can’t distinctly remember much of anything about last June.  But still.)  So now here it is, May 2013 and the Giants have turned that on its head and walked off about a million times so far this season.  5, to be exact.

Not bad, eh?

There’s a lot of panic – not the neon hairdye manic kind, get your mind out of the hipster gutter – about the starting pitching because it hasn’t been that good at all.  But I mean, while there’s Hunter Pence and hopefully more of his kind on whatever alien planet he came from who are just waiting for the right alignment of the stars to come down to earth and help us, things should be okay.

Speaking of more Hunter Pences, was I the only person who was dead convinced that Chewbecca was the only/last of his kind until all the wookiees appeared… at some point in the series?  (Er, can’t say I remember when that is, exactly.)  Anyway, I like to think Hunter Pence is the same way.  We’re all resigned to the fact he’s the only one and then in the nick of time a whole bunch of them descend.

Well, that’s probably enough for now.  If I missed some important news, apologies, but there are like thousands of little baseball sites here on the internet so we’ll probably all survive.

Diamond Girl

Anyhow, baseball.  5 Things You Probably Don’t Have to Worry About Right this Minute.

5.  Tim Lincecum.  I think I’ve actually heard a few people say Happy Lincecum Day lately, which might point to the direction he seems to be heading.  He’s not back in form, necessarily, but he’s getting there.

4.  Matt Cain… who is decidedly not in form, but give it a little while you silly impatient people.  Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that.

3.  Jeremy Affeldt who’s coming back from the DL soon hopefully back in old Jeremy Affeldt form and hopefully with a large staff of minions to make sure that he doesn’t do anything other than walk on and off the field.  Affeldt obviously once taught humans how to use fire and getting injured all the time is the baseball gods answer to the Greek gods making Prometheus get his liver eaten out daily.  Not entirely sure which punishment is worse.

2. Bruce Bochy’s Temper.  Things got a little heated a lot of times in Arizona these past few days between Bochy and the umpires but I mean, wouldn’t you act that way if you had to hang out in Arizona for an extended period of time (more than, oh, half an hour)?

1.  Actually anything to do with the Giants?  After a claw-eyes-out-worthy rough patch there they finished April with a record of 15-12 and seem to be playing like they won’t make us cry all season, so stop worrying and start like enjoying life.

One thing worth worrying about might be that Brandon Belt has only ever been to two concerts in his life, both by the same band.  People who give out free things to celebrities, you might want to get on that.  (The Stones are coming to town!  Or, you know, Joshua Radin, if that’s more his thing.)

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It happened.

He even starred in a cool psychedelic poster a couple years later after they, uh, invented color photography.

Probably the only hippie ever to wear a bowtie.  He also wasn’t exactly a longhair, but don’t judge a book by its cover.

Anyhows, after the 60s were over he wised up and George Lucas helped him into this carbon-freeze technology that he was testing Star Wars, so Matt’s youth was preserved for his great comeback to humanity as a baseball player and boyfriend to pop stars everywhere in 2003.

There you have it.  The completely true and previously untold story of Matt Kemp.

Diamond Girl

Speaking of Zito… er, what happened?  Zito’s story with the Giants has truly been a bizarre one up to this point, but right now, there are few people the orange and black fans love more than him.  His tale of redemption is not a classic one, but it’s been ridiculously fun to follow all the same.

When the fall comes – and it’s bound to, if only for a short time – I just hope we all use our brains and give him the benefit of the doubt.  He’s earned it.

Also, I credit all of this to the golden calf tattoo, even though I’m pretty sure he got that this offseason after the whole #RallyZito hullabaloo.  It was preemptively helping him, you know?

The series didn’t feel like the second week in April, it had the feeling of summer, and the way so many players on the team kicked into gear during it was exciting to watch.  As I said before, I hate the whole talk of “slow starts” because, seriously, it just started.  But it has started now and everyone seems to be waking up.  A very good series, overall.

Okay.  Done with summer now.  Where’s that fog?

Diamond Girl

Let me put it this way: I would not let Bruce Bochy go near the design ideas for my bath rug, as much adoration as I have for him.  He helped design the rings.  Go figure.

Anyhow, I’ll stop sticking my foot in my mouth now.  The game was on the ugly side, too.  I think the Cardinals were probably pretty sick and tired of all the ceremonies and they channeled it into their baseball-ing.  They shelled Cain for nine runs in the fourth inning and ended up winning 14-3.  In a bright moment, Angel Pagan did hit a booming triple but he was left stranded, which kind of took away from the boomingness.

I’ve heard talks about a few people’s slow starts, but I think it’s really still too early to call them slow starts.  Like, slow first five seconds would maybe be more appropriate?

I was sitting outside in my garden today and suddenly looked up to see a cat sitting about ten feet away and staring straight at me, completely still.  I assume this means I’m destined for an imminent and terrible death, so if I don’t blog again, hugs and kisses, you guys were great.

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I learned this the hard way.

Anyway, the point of this is just to say that I understand the wrong end of food snobbery.  I’ve experienced it.  Been scarred by it, even.  So while all the San Franciscans went crazy when the baby giraffe guy said his favorite restaurant is Olive Garden I sort of thought, eh, whatever.

Since then, my feelings have changed.

Olive Garden sounds magical and I am not being sarcastic when I say that.  I’m kinda sorta extremely tempted to go there because I’m picturing unicorns – maybe it’s Zeets’ favorite restaurant too! – and enchanted forests and food that will make your dreams come true and things like that.

Or maybe I read too much terrible teen fiction?

Happy home opener, everyone!

Diamond Girl

“Yu has better hair this spring,” said Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux.  (In fairness, he didn’t say this after the near-perfect game.  But I will never let that quote die.)

The really exciting part about all of this, to me, is that this was Darvish’s first start of the season.  We get to watch Darvish for a whole entire year!  This is just the beginning.  This is what he was like when he was fatigued, because of a short Spring Training.  There are a lot of reasons to be excited about this guy.

Plus we get to watch Alexi Ogando, who started today and struck out 10 before coming out of the game in the seventh.  This Rangers rotation is making this upcoming season look pretty peachy, from this really teeny sample size of games.

Speaking of rotations… er, Madison Bumgarner.  Need I really say more?  He’s still ridiculously good, in case there was any doubt about that.  He led the Giants to their first win of the season last night and he did it in rather spectacular fashion.  Joaquin Arias drove in the Giants first run of the season – don’t say you saw that coming, you didn’t – which was good, because it means we don’t have to write off this season just yet.  (Probably still going to finish in last place though.  I mean, we’re at .500.  Pretty dire, people.)

Tim Lincecum starts tonight in the final game of this series and I think it’s one we’ll all be watching intently.  Lincecum is driving a turquoise Mini Cooper while in LA and also this is his first start of the regular season after all the rockiness last year, so it should be interesting, no matter what happens.   Let’s just be positive until we have reason not to be, m’kay?  He’s Tim Lincecum.  He’s probably earned a bit of benefit of the doubt.  Still, cream colored Minis are where it’s at.

Look how pretty and chic.

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I mean, baseball’s great and all.  But I want some cinnamon roasted walnuts.

I like all cinnamon things, actually.  Also, I seem to have cut my hair sometime in between the time these two pictures were taken.

Diamond Girl

(Via @CarmenKiew on Twitter.)

It wasn’t exactly the Opening Day we were all hoping for, but it was OPENING DAY so that pretty much made up for it, at least to me.  The Giants opened against Clayton Kershaw and those Los Angeles Dodgers and Kershaw was very Superman-y and pitched a shutout and also hit a homerun – the first of his career – to break the scoreless tie.

Oh, did I forget to mention that he helped build an orphanage in Zambia in the offseason?

Seriously, though, Kershaw is good stuff to watch and the rivalry is more fun when both teams are doing well and all that.  Which is to say, the Giants have to do well too.  But they have 161 more games to do that, so Mayans, back off.  And they’ll probably only face Kershaw a few more times, so that’s good news.

Baseball is back and just in time for April Fool’s Day, no less.  I’d don’t mean to be antagonistic, Bud Selig, seeing as this is a new season with a clean slate between us (right?) but that was sort of bad planning on your part.  Like, maybe if there were fewer Interleague Play games we could have started the season on a day other than Annual Prank Unsuspecting Emilys Day? 

Forget it.  Antagonistic it is.

Diamond Girl