It was a rough day all around at Scottsdale Stadium as the Giants fall to the A’s 8-7. On the bright side, the SS in Peoria won their game 8-4 as Pucetas kept rolling with his 0ERA. 

Diamond Notes:

- Matt Cain had a bad outing, but it was only magnified even more by horrible fielding, and ducksnort bloops of hits. I would probably need to use both hands to count how many little dunkers the A’s dropped behind the infield. Of the 5R the credit Cain with 4ER on 8H 0BB. That’s what is really suspicious about the box score, the walks. Cain was keeping the ball in the strike zone, but leaving it in places where the A’s got contact. Like I said, 3-4 of the hits had one way tickets to no man’s land, and a couple check swing nubbers went for hits as well. The horrible fielding was a result of these uncommon hits. skying throws past 1B, not catching balls at 1B, late throws, off target throws. It’s remarkable that the Giants only had 2 errors on the board, and that Oakland had 3.

- Aubrey Huff, needs to take infield everyday. Seeing balls fly past him, or misfielding grounders to 1B, is getting a little too routine. Jt Snow hasn’t been in camp for a week. I think it’s time to give him a call and get him back to do some more discipling.

- Besides Cain, the only other pitcher that got lit up was Steve Johnson. Perhaps its because he closes his eyes on delivery? Just saying… Casilla made his spring debut today and looked pretty good to me. He only pitched to one batter, but made him look stupid on a change up. Runzler is out of control, 4IP, 7K’s, 1H, 1BB, 0ERA. It’s almost not fair. Maybe we need a special Runzler count for the hitters to have a chance like in a sim game. Hitters facing Runzler automatically get a 2-0 count while facing him. I doubt it would do much for them though, he is just that nasty.

- The kids came back to make it a 7-8 game though. Led by Conor Gillaspie and his 2 RBI 2B+E. It looked pretty promising when Kevin Frandsen got a single in the 9th with 1 out. Brandon Crawford popped up, which left us with 2 outs and Darren Ford at the plate. A guy named Eschelman came in to pinch run for Frandsen at 1B. I have no idea who this guy is, not on the roster and the name doesn’t ring a bell. For some reason, Decker or Bochy, whoever was managing this game, decides to give the new guy the green light and he is gunned down by a healthy margin at 2B. The game is over with Ford standing at the plate.

I know this is Spring Training and the games don’t count/you do stuff that you normally wouldn’t, yadda yadda yadda. But come on. Why do you put him in motion with 2 outs? If you were going to do that, you should have run him during Crawford’s AB, when you have an out as a safety. I got me heated because I’d much rather see Darren get an AB to keep us in the game than to see if this guy nobody knew could steal a base in a pressure situation. Even from the standpoint of evaluating guys, Ford’s AB with the tying run at 1B is more important to see, than a pinch runner trying to steal. I’m just venting because I like being able to watch the kids from San Jose do things in the late innings. In fact it’s the only reason I stayed today since we were getting manhandled by the A’s. Oh well, next time.

- Travis Ishikawa was taking more BP and grounders at 1B.

- Jeremy Affeldt is a funny guy, always keeping things in perspective.

A group of pitchers were doing some running and crunches over on the practice field as a crowd of fans gathered to watch through the fence. A little kid was asking Jeremy to sign a ball while he was working out. Jeremy stopped what he was doing and said, “Alright kid, show me that arm. Throw it over the net and I’ll sign it.” (The net is about as high as a foul pole) The kid steps back and chucks it over. Jeremy grabs it and says, “alright I’ll sign it while I’m doing crunches,” and he did. You rarely see players interact with fans like that and it was cool to see.

- Lastly, not a whole lot of photos for this game. I was having a “Bad Hair Day,” in which the people sitting in front of me kept moving their heads in to shots. Not to mention the fact the it was also “big hair day,” “stretch arms day,” “put feet up on rail day,” and “need to go to bathroom during bases loaded full count day.” In fact, if you go to the gallery you will see what I’m talking about.

CLICK HERE for full gallery