Romo DFA'd (Yeah, I Know - That DOESN'T Make Any Sense!)

And this time, it wasn't even a knee-jerk response by the notoriously vindictive Brian Sabean.

He DFA'd a controllable young arm with nice upside because of that other thing he's known for: gross incompetence!

From Baggs:

The Giants probably put him on revocable waivers because a potential trade partner was interested in him. Or they wanted t ogauge the general the level of interest. No matter the reason, you cannot option someone when they are on revocable waivers. (I’m up on most roster rules, but that’s a new one for me.)

Anyway, and this is the important part, the Giants insist the oversight will not result in losing Romo to another club. When you designate a player, you take them off your 40-man roster and have 10 days to waive, release or outright him. Before those 10 days are up, the Giants will revoke Romo off waivers be able to option him at that point. He’ll remain on the 40-man roster. Romo said he expects to join Fresno in Salt Lake on Friday.

You know, the front office's insistence that nothing is wrong reminds me of a teenager insisting his dad's bottle of Black Label was always almost gone: I just don't buy it.

Oh, in case you were upset, the impetus for the botched Romo move (as well as swapping out Osiris Matos for Billy Sadler)?

Activating 39 year old never-will-be Keiichi Yabu.

Okay, now you can go punch yourself in the neck.

No Spin Zone

That was terrible. So terrible that I strayed from the OBnB policy of linking to the official site because AP didn't try to spin it.

Looks like the bullpen realized they weren't as good as they're numbers indicated. I'm looking at you, Lazarus Yabu.

Nickname Contest Winner

"Brian Wilson's gone servin', servin' U a K."
A 5-2 road trip after the boys salvage a win in a wild one at Coors.

Our favorite Beach Boy closer converts his 10th consecutive save in a 1-2-3 fashion, two outs being of the K variety. He's hasn't allowed a hit to his last 22 hitters and in the entire month of June.

It puts an exclamation mark on the terrific handiwork on the Giants bullpen, which goes 4 innings, allowing no runs and collecting 8 Ks. Extra kudos to Billy Sadler, who gets 4 of his 6 outs on swinging strikeouts and is settling in nicely at the big league level, as well as Keiichi Yabu, who bails Sadler and Taschner out of a basesloaded jam in the 7th. Yabusan secures redemption for last night in short order.

Fred Lewis's monster homer further proves the notion that he has no problems with high altitude.

The offense was very comfortable overall, as Bowker collects three hits, and a vintage Richie and Ray Durham collect two hits apiece.

As a hitter, Dirty liked Coors Field plenty. Unfortunately, the hitters he faced liked it just as much today. Tough outing for him, but in spite of allowing 7 runs in 5 innings, he gets the win. Somewhere, Matt Cain is stabbing himself with a fork.

And a (begrudging) congrats to Ray Durham, who gets his 2,000th career hit.

ThursdRay Discussion: If Ray keeps it up, what do you look for the Giants to fetch on the open market? Do you think they should trade him at all?

And how's that for a Wilson nickname?

A Tale of Two Catchers

We all just knew that Yorvit would go and screw us again, and he just barely gets it done in a 1-0 snorefest.

Special Agent Jack Taschner, who has very much turned the corner this season (and hasn't allowed an earned run in almost a month), nearly cleaned up a wild Keiichi Yabu's mess. Coming in with a bases loaded, no out situation in the bottom of the ninth, the wily lefty was only a Big Money catch and tag away from getting out of the jam.

Instead, Big Money had a rare miscue - Fred Lewis caught a one out Torrealba fly ball and threw an absolute seed to Molina, who appeared to tag out a streaking Garrett Atkins, only for replays to show that he never caught the ball in the first place.

But I'm not losing my lunch over that. I'm losing it because of the Felizitis that has become this team in Colorado, who have gone 0 for 18 this series with RISP.

And worst of all, Timmy gets nothing for putting up more donuts than even the corpulent Colorado crowd could consume because the Giants can't hit a heretofore mediocre Ribaldo Jimenez.

The Giants try to salvage the day game as Dirty goes against the even more mediocre Greg Reynolds.

Brian WilsOwn

The Giants need to play the Nationals more often.

The boys complete the four game sweep against a pitiful Nats team that's missing virtually every one of their decent players (Zimmerman, Johnson, Perez, Cordero).

The Giants are on a nice little run, having won 12 of 18 after their first four-game winning streak of the season. They're now just 5 games back of first-place Arizona in the NL Worst.

Plenty of credit to go around in yesterday's W, including a gutsy Matt Cain, an "I still don't get where this guy came from" performance from Keiichi Yabu, and the continued excellent hitting of Randy Winn.

But let me be the first to point out that Brian Wilson, our once maligned young closer, has put together a string of outings that are impressive by any measure. Really!

In recording his first four out save of the season, a tough task especially in the sweltering DC haze, Wilson extends his absolute run of dominance.

Dating back to his 15th save in Arizona on May 27, Wilson has not allowed a hit to the last 19 batters faced (and only one runner total via a walk).

As he has much of the year, he leads the NL in saves with 18, but, more importantly, the guy is starting to develop the dominance, that certain je ne sais quoi, necessary of a big-time stopper. He always had the look, the mentality, and the fastball, but we may be witnessing the birth of the closer we've sorely missed since Robb Nen, bless his heart, pitched til his arm fell off in the year that shall not be named.

Or maybe it's just a good run against a series of bad teams.

Either way, he looked very closerly (what - that's totally a word) in getting the last four outs of the Giants best series of the season.

Post or Die: Now that we may have a badass closer, what's the nickname? "Smile" or any derivation may be DQ'd for lameness.

Brian WilsOwn is currently leading, because my vote counts as two.

Party Like It's 2002

On the strength of back-to-back homers from their 4 and 5 hitters, a solo shot from their third baseman, and two doubles from Rich Aurilia, one of an RBI variety, the San Francisco Giants easily dispatched a hapless Florida Marlins team 8-2 for their third win in a row.

In other news, Barry Zito turned in a Cy Young performance to get an easy win.

Also, the New England Patriots upset the heavily favored St. Louis Rams in a completely fair and square Super Bowl XXXII, the reign of Kobe and Shaq has no end in sight, and the nation collectively shudders at the sight of Gary Condit.

Okay, that last paragraph didn't happen, but you would forgive me for thinking we entered a time warp last night.

Instead, Baked Zito has shed the Zit0-8 label (Zit1-8 doesn't quite have the same ring) with an encouraging performance in which he allowed only one hit after a allowing a first inning run in 6.1 strong innings.

Zito now has a 3.26 ERA following his paid leave of absence. Although he continues to walk way too many people, his command of the two-seamer, which he had put in mothballs years prior, seems to have made a difference.

An impressive win over arguably the best team in the NL with their de facto ace on the mound. Cainer faces the Burke Badenhop in the Saturday night game.

Gigantes Roundup:

- Vizquel should tie Aparicio tonight.

- An interesting (if slightly played out) "what-if" on what could have been if the Giants outsourced their ace position in 2006.

- Bruce Jenkins opines (in a way only BJ does) that, given our knowledge of Bill Neukom, Brian Sabean may not see the second year of his contract.

- Yabu san rocks.

Commentary Igniter: How many wins will Barry Zito get this season?

Yor-vit Is Better Than Ours

Among the nasty byproducts of the mercenaries otherwise known as the early 21st century Giants is that we seem to play a former Giant every freaking series. And every freaking series, no matter how much their skills eroded, if there were any in the first place, they kill us.

So in following in the May tradition of Pedro Feliz, Jose Cruz, Jr. and A.J. Pierzynski, Yorvit Torrealba was the hero last night with the go ahead 2 run double off Vinnie Chulk. And Pat (you drive me) Mischuga once again had his first W of the season ripped away.

In April, the Giants showed that a punch and judy team can, in fact, generate enough runs to win, particularly given the presence of a solid staff. I don't think I'm going out on a ledge in proclaiming that the bullpen has been fairly awful the past couple of weeks, but I believe this is more of a correction than a permanent decline. Did anyone really think that Tyler Walker was going to keep that minuscule ERA? Or that Vinnie Chulk would strand every single runner he inherited? Or that Keiichi Yabu was any kind of long-term answer?

Additionally, Merkin Valdez's absence has hurt this team more than we could have imagined. And that's a guy, who, if he stays healthy (which has always been the problem) could maintain a dominant pace given his stuff.

Here's the point: this team could, you know, come back sometimes. The Giants trailed by 1 for three full innings at Coors Field against a 26th ranked pitching staff and couldn't get it done.

This team, you know, could use a clutch hit with RISP (.196 with 2 outs/.224 overall), or even, perhaps, put the ball in play with a runner on third but less than two outs (purely empirical - who dares call me on this?)

Even the "clutch hitters" are not delivering in this regard. Bengie Molina, who has largely been hitting cleanup because of his clutch hitting, is only hitting .250 with RISP. Same stat for Aaron Rowand (who had an ugly AB with RISP yesterday) - and these guys are our leaders.

Granted, you can't put lipstick on a pig, so I don't put this all on Carney Lansford. But it would be helpful if the better looking pigs told the uglier, runtier pigs that their collective best shot at an extended lifespan is as a showpig.

Okay, I'm done. In other news:

- Remember when the Giants talked to Dallas McPherson before deciding they had no interest? Because we were happy with our options at third?

The former Angels über-prospect, whose career was derailed by back injuries, hit 3 homers for AAA Albuquerque yesterday and is otherwise absolutely destroying AAA pitching.

I guess there's a reason the Marlins are in first with a payroll about a quarter of ours.

Also ironic: the third man out of the three man duel at third between Jorge Cantu (now starting with the Marlins) and McPherson, who was optioned, was Jose Castillo.

- ESPN reports P.J. may hang it up after this year. Unfortunate that such a great pitcher had such an assorted injury history, and a prime reason why Giants fans soil themselves every time the similarly proportioned Timmy L throws over 100 pitches or comes in after an hour rain delay. For the record, I only soiled myself in the latter instance.

- Andruw Jones may have an excuse for his general suck. Not a good one mind you, particularly because his rotundity is probably the reason his knee's giving out.

- Props to Jon Lester, who throws a no-hitter last night. Besides the fact that this is the Red Sox 112th no-hitter in the past ten years, a great story because of the odds Mr. Lester has had to fight to get back to where he is today.

Where Have You Gone, Jack Thomas?

You just had to know that former mercenary Giant Jose Cruz, Jr., entering the series in a 3 for 37 slump, would hurt us before the series was over. He did, as did Sir Lance Berkman and Keiichi Yabu's throw to the ghost of J.T. Snow, leading to a late 7 runs for the Astros and a 7-3 margin.

Ugly loss in another game in which the Giants were in the driver's seat. Also disconcerting: after sitting for a week with forearm tightness, Merkin Valdez did not look like his dominant April self, setting the table for the decisive Houston rally in the eighth. Everyone send good vibes to the oft-injured Valdez.

Ugh.

Let's focus on the positives the rest of the way, shall we?

- By Zito's standards, a decent start: his first quality start of the year as well as his first no-decision - baby steps, people. As the 'Stros showed, Zito's a guy without an out pitch. To his credit, he's been a better pitcher in his last two starts. The Zit's heeding Rags' advice to pitch as if the extra 5 MPHs aren't coming back and in the process, he's looking eerily similar to Kirk Rueter: relying on changing speeds and location, throwing any pitch on any count from the arsenal of the 84MPH fastball, the change and the hook.

It's not pretty, but, as we are painfully aware, it could be much worse.

- Bowker's recent run of good hitting was lacking in much power until last night's fourth inning shot off Roy Oswalt. Most encouraging is that JB hit a pretty good curveball over the brick facade. And once again, man continues to show leather at his home of, oh, a few weeks at first. Guy's bounced back and is now looking like a big part of the future.

- As OBnB Godfather Jeremy pointed out, FLew lost the compact swing that served him well in April once he picked up a Splash Hit last homestand. Slump ensues as longswingitis sets in. Carney calls it, and Lewis started cooking again - another reason to like the new coach.

- And finally, I know I've been harping on his decline, but Vizquel has come back from the DL and has hit the ball hard. Even better, he's doing his best Jake Taylor as I spotted him giving pointers to Manny Burriss (who started at second) throughout the game. That's good stuff.