Bob Howry to Arizona

Well Lurch, it was a halfway dece run at best. Your numbers weren't horrible, but we couldn't trust you all year. Plus, that damn homer you gave up in Cincinnati still bothers me. I can't say I'll miss you, but, I do like the fact that we'll be scoring a bunch of runs off you and your slithering snake teammates.

(Info from Nick Piecoro of the AZ Republic)

Another heart-attacker

Nothing comes easy with these guys!

Great to see Uribe and Ishikawa going deep. I really think that Travis has gotten a fire lit under his ass since the arrival of Garks. Unfortunately, that hasn't translated into too many hits. He's still pluggin away though, and his three run dong tonight was huge.

As for Lurch Howry... well, the guy is simply a disaster right now. He threw 7 pitches, and 6 of them were balls. He was removed in the middle of an at bat with a 2-0 count. I can't remember the last time that's happened to a Giants pitcher, except when injured. The guy has absolutely derailed!

It may be time to make up an injury for Lurchy like they do for Rich Aurilia and get him on the DL. Just call it swine flu or arm fatigue, or an anxiety disorder, or strike zone-itis. Whatever... just fix this guy! He cannot find the strike zone to save his life, and is seriously down on himself. Each game is too critical to have liabilities in the bullpen. This also includes Justin Miller and Merkin Valdez, who have derailed almost as severely as of late. These three guys have combined for some absolutely ghastly statistics.

Since August 20th, Miller, Valdez, and Howry have combined for 4.1 IP, 13 ER, 11 BB, and 9 Hits. That of course comes out to a 27.00 ERA and a 4.62 WHIP.

Us fantasy freaks just threw up in our collective mouth a little bit. Good Lord. When you can't trust 43% of your bullpen, you've gotta make a roster move.

-- Despite throwing 91 pitches in the last calendar week (including 41 last night), Brian Wilson trucked himself out there again. Things were looking okay, but you could tell he didn't have his best stuff. As Kruk and Kuip pointed out, his velocity was down, and when he did reach his normal speeds, the balls were wild. Bochy had little choice but to put him out there, but I think Romo for the 9th would've been a better choice from the get go. When closers are throwing 97-100 mph for over 100 pitches in 8 days and 41 pitches within 24 hours, you're looking at a disaster. With the back of the rotation coming up, the bullpen situation is looking scary.

God forbid this happens, but what if Sanchez and Martinez bomb out in 4 or 5 innings? Who will Boch cart out there? These guys seriously look like their arms are going to fall off all at once. The only guys I'd even want to throw tomorrow are Romo and Medders. Wilson is off limits, Affeldt is effective but exhausted, and How-Merk-iller is a trainwreck.

Right now in AAA Fresno, there are a few names that jump out at you, but none have been throwing particularly well lately. Despite decent ERA's on the year, Geno Espineli, Alex Hinshaw, and Osiris Matos have all been knocked since August 16th to the tune of a 9.53 ERA.

A better bet might be to call up Kevin Pucetas or Ryan Sadowski to move into a long reliever role, despite the fact that both have been working as starters. Obviously, I'd lean toward Pucetas because of Sadowski's last outings at in the bigs.

Anyway, let's hope The Spaniard shuts down the D-Bags tomorrow.

Keep the faith. We're still in this. Tuesday's win was a huge statement. It wasn't easy or pretty, but hey, we beat one of MLB's best pitchers and were able to reload after a 14 inning demoralizing disaster. That really says something.

Get well Freddy Sanchez and Kung Fu!

Why would you leave Howry in? C'mon Boch!

What a frustrating loss!

Cain throws an absolute gem, and we let the game get away in 10.

Of course the Gyros' continual lack of execution with runners on base killed us, but in the end, it was a foolish Dusty Baker-eque managerial decision that sealed the deal.

It's not all on Bochy of course, but all of us in Giants Nation feel like Bobby Howry is THE LEAST trustworthy arm in our pen.

Every time Lurch Howry manages to pitch a scoreless inning, we all breathe a sigh of relief. We don't feel that way with Affeldt, Miller, or even Romo and Medders.

I swear to you on my life, I groaned aloud and wondered why Howry was still in the game to pitch a second inning. I bet you all did too. I could feel the uncertainty and was talking to myself the whole time. It seemed inevitable. Then of course, wide-eyed rookie Drew Stubbs, who had a silver sombrero going, crushed a ball into left field.

I wanted to throw out a few musings on the last two games though...

-- Zito pitched one helluva game on Wednesday. I had my misgivings about it. All the signs were there for a less than stellar outing. As you may have read in this article by my colleague PJ, Zito's numbers when working with Bengie Molina are far worse than when he works with any other catcher. That was strike one. Strike two of course is the bandbox known as Great American Ballpark, where balls fly out toward the Ohio River constantly. But, Zeets bucked the trend and threw 6 strong shutout innings.

Perhaps if Zeets had been given the opportunity to work another inning, Howry wouldn't have been called upon to pitch two on Thursday.

-- Not sure why I never noticed this, but Bronson Arroyo's bizzare leg kick reminds me of a pirate. He literally kicks his erect leg straight up and out, like a 2x4 attached to his thorax. I almost pulled my hammy and butt muscles just thinking about doing it...

-- In the second inning on Wednesday, Arroyo struck out Edgar Renteria on three pitches. To call them offspeed is being generous. 66mph, 74, and 76 consecutively on the radar gun. Grab some pine, meat.

-- Bengie Molina walked TWICE on Tuesday... STOP THE PRESSES.

-- Despite Garko's ofer on Thursday, he seems to be heating up. We'll need that in Denver.

-- Oh yeah... great graphic on CSN on Wednesday... The Giants lead MLB in shutouts with 16. The next closest team? Cincy with 11. We're kicking ass.

-- Krukow was in rare form in this series. I'm seriously thinking of compiling a book of "Krukowisms" or "Krookisms". Don't steal my idea, I think this means its copyrighted.

On Matt Cain's multiple bloop hits allowed:

"(Cain) is leaving some of his brain on the broken bat singles"

and of course...

About Jonny Gomes's aggressive approach:

"That's a yank-hack... he's trying to lift and separate."

Love that guy!

-- This Denver series is huge, and will play a huge part in whether Los Gigantes can hang in the Wild Card race. We're currently back 2 games of the Rockpile...

A sweep of course would put us in the lead by two games, with 2 out of 4 bringing us keeping us at the status quo. (God I sound like Tim McCarver... sorry)

Of course if we get swept... we'd be back 6 games. Though not totally insurmountable... that would be absolutely devastating. This is where it counts, boys...

We've got The Spaniard, Money Martinez, and Timmy going against Colorado with Zeets pulling up the rear. Let's do this.

-- ESPN has decided to cover the NL West! Tim Kurkjian (my favorite Armenian sportswriter!) wrote an article about the SF/COL race. The headline is "Giants don't have the bats to keep up with the Rockies".

Well, that may be true on paper, but they don't have the arms to compete with us. We can shut them down in their own yard.

Jay Mariotti and Tim Cowlishaw were slobbering all over the Giants on Around the Horn yesterday. I like it.

Let's kick ass and take names.