Heading Into The Twilight

Sitting here at the Mos Eisley Cantina, the Colonel, Boz, Bandit, and I prepare for the final Giants night game of the season. The season is in the twilight stage of the season and the Giants will go into the long offseason not even reaching the postseason to defend their championship. We're still trying to figure out what went wrong.

"I hate blaming injuries," I say. "But I hate using that as an excuse for why the Giants missed the playoffs. What do you guys think went wrong?"

Both the Colonel and Bandit stare at their beers and burgers before coming up with an explanation. Sometimes it's difficult knowing what the right explanation is for a collapse, but it usually involves multiple answers.

"Torres and Huff not producing one bit definitely hurt," says the Colonel. "They were both huge for the Giants in 2010 and then this season they gave them nothing. Now Torres has been hurt but when he has played he's basically done nothing. Huff doesn't have an injury excuse. He stunk the entire year."

"We should have known during the beginning of the season when the Giants were winning games on walk-offs this wasn't going to be their year," says the Bandit. "You can't win every game like that and not eventually run out of steam."

The hitting, like it has been since Bonds left, was the problem for the Giants. They have way too many undisciplined hitters, way too many guys who don't walk enough or hit enough home runs to compensate walking enough, way too many guys with bad OBPs. And then there is management.

"What role did management have in the Giants stinking this year?" I ask.

"I hated how Bochy kept fucking around with Brandon Belt," says the Colonel. "Belt starts the year in the majors, gets sent down, called back up, breaks his wrist, gets sent down again, called back up only to sit behind a 27-year old rookie named Brett Pill who swings at every pitch thrown to him. I despised how Bochy toyed with that kid."

"I hated the Orlando Cabrera trade," says the Bandit. "They didn't need Cabrera, let alone trade a prospect for him. I believe that trade fucked up the chemistry of this team. They collapsed as soon as he walked into the clubhouse."

Giants fans will remember this season for a long time. The joy of watching the championship banner being raised. The agony of watching Buster Posey being taken out by a scrub you'll never hear of again. The comfort of actually leading the division late in July. The pain of watching the Giants collapse in August and never recovering. The sadness watching the pitching staff receive zero run support while they pitched their guts out.

Yeah, this will be a season I'll always remember.