Giants fans starting to get crabby

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July 18, 10:13 PM

by David Bush, S.F. Baseball Examiner

 

 

It's almost as if Crazy Crab never left.

Crazy Crab came back to the Giants on Friday night and probably felt right at home.

The “anti-mascot” who had a one-year run with the team in 1984, was recognized – honored is too strong a word – at AT&T Park as the latest in a series of promotions tied to the team’s 50^th anniversary in San Francisco. The crab saw a lot of bad Giants baseball while he was around, the team lost 96 games in that season 24 years ago. And he was treated to more of the same Friday night.

The combination of mediocre starting pitching (Matt Cain was charged with four runs in 6 plus innings), poor relief (Keiichi Yabu hit the only man he faced, Jack Taschner and Sergio Romo gave up a three-run homer apiece)  and a generally impotent offense (one run and four hits) resulted in the predictable defeat the Crab grew to expect. It also should put to rest any thoughts of the Giants getting back into the N.L. West race. The Giants slipped percentage points behind the Rockies into fourth place and all that is keeping them out of last are the woeful Padres. Seven games behind does not seem insurmountable on the surface, but given the Giants’ performance level, the gap is imposing. Not only that, San Francisco has to vault three teams to assume first place. There is little chance of that.

So even though the string is 66 games long, the Giants are just playing it out. They very well might start dumping players, Randy Winn and Rich Aurilia being the most likely. And manager Bruce Bochy could make good on his announcement that Emmanuel Burris will get more starts as Omar Vizquel is eased out as the shortstop. Vizquel’s batting average is down to .156, and if he swings the rest of the year like he did against Milwaukee’s C.C. Sabathia on Friday, he may never get another hit.

How well the Giants fan base will tolerate a fifth straight season of no playoffs is an interesting question. Friday night’s crowd was announced as a sellout, but not all the seats were occupied. Either ticket holders sought the sanctuary of one of the stadium’s clubs or they never left their living rooms. And those who were in the stands got occasionally vocal with their displeasure at the home side’s effort.

Crazy Crab, whose ears probably still ring from the jeers in ’84, knows a boo when he hears one.

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