Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. Lots happened on the tracks! SF Giants: After two exciting come from behind wins in Pittsburgh, the Giants arrived at Citi Field in New York to take on the Mets. Kyle Harrison started for the Giants, and went five innings, and left the game trailing 5-2. The Mets had hit three homers to lead 6-2, going into the 8th, where the Giants exploded for five runs, capped off by a Patrick Bailey grand slam, to take the lead, 7-6, going into the 9th, where Yaz hit a solo shot to increase the lead to 8-6. Good thing Yaz did, because the Mets got a run in at the bottom of the inning, and had the bases loaded before Mr Cannon Arm, 3B Matt Chapman, for the 3rd straight game, snagged a liner and made a laser of a throw to 1B to get the final out and escape with an 8-7 victory! History was made, as the Giants are the first team to win three games on the road trailing by four runs and coming back to win since.....the year 1900!
Dropping a pic of the aforementioned Matt Chapman below!
Jordan Hicks took the mound for San Francisco on Saturday, and in five innings, only gave up 3 hits and one run before leaving the game. Giants tied it in the 6th, only for the Mets to take 1 2-1 lead in the seventh. But the Giants tied it in the 9th, and for the 4th consecutive game in a row, scored five runs (helped by a Yastrzemski based loaded triple) to win, 7-2, setting a lot of baseball team records for such a comeback streak!
Did not see Sunday's final game of this road trip, but Logan Webb started, pitched seven innings and allowed no runs, but this time it was the Mets turn to mount the comeback, as they scored three runs in the 9th off of Tyler Rogers to beat the Giants, 4-3.
Memorial Day welcomed the red hot Philadelphia Phillies to Oracle, with new dad Blake Snell as he took the mound for the Giants, and just like clockwork, after two scoreless innings, Snell gave up two runs in the 3rd and 4th innings, and was pulled after throwing 90 pitches (that's almost an entire game of pitches). The Giants came back though with some timely hitting, especially from Yaz, Ramos, and Wisely, to defeat the Phillies, 8-4. Bad news is that the Giants best overall player of the season up to this point, First baseman Lamonte Wade Jr, pulled his hamstring and I just learned he will be out for at least one month, so some new guy I've never heard of has been called up and will start at first base for Tuesday night's game. Good luck, Mr. Brooks!
Tuesday night's game with the Giants wearing their City Connect uniforms, played a "bullpen" game against the Phillies ace, Zach Wheeler, and boy, did that bullpen really step it up! Five relief pitchers combined to allow ZERO runs in 10 innings, a remarkable feat for any team. The offense, while only producing four hits, were able to scratch out the winning run in the 10th, to win the game, 1-0! Just an amazing performance by our bullpen this night! Wednesday saw Kyle Harrison take the mound, and he struggled with control, giving up four runs and 12 hits and was pulled in the fifth after throwing 103 pitches. The Giants bats were pretty quiet again, only scoring one run on six hits as the Giants fell to the Phillies, 6-1. Next up at Oracle, the New York Yankees. I just found the video from Human Cannon Arm/Gold Glover's Matt Chapman's jaw-dropping defensive play from last week-you will want to play this a couple of times to see Chapman's catch and throw to 1B Lamonte Wade Jr (who made a great play snagging the throw!) to believe your eyes!
Golf: Very sad news to report, as over the last weekend at the Colonial Penn championship in Palm Beach, Florida, golfer Grayson Murray, took his life shortly after pulling out earlier in the week from the tournament. Murray was only 30 years old and had already won two PGA tourneys. From the sources I've researched, Grayson had suffered from depression, which seems to be reason he took his own life. The PGA did a very good, emotional job of discussing Grayson's passing while still calling the golf game on Saturday. I'm sending healing vibes to Grayson's family and friends, and encourage anyone who is going through mental or emotional distress to reach out to the US National Crisis hotline, 588 for help and support.
French Open: The second jewel of four in tennis' Grand Slam started Sunday, and for simplicity's sake, this early, i'll just write about the upsets and a couple of wins during this first week. Naomi Osoka took to the clay courts at Roland-Garros and won her first match! Her next match though was against the #1 ranked women's player, Iga Swatick, who had to work hard to defeat Osaka, but from those in attendance and commentators, it was an entertaining match! England's favorite Brit, Andy Murray, sadly was defeated in his first match on Sunday. And Rafael Nadal, returning to Roland-Garros after a two-year absence, fell in his first match against Alexander Rublev in straight sets. The crowd and the Internet was most generous of seeing the winningest player on this court, and the accolades and standing ovations went on for a while- truly a legend at Roland-Garros. Carlos Alcaraz breezed thru his first match, but had to fight hard to avoid being upset by a long-shot player in the 2nd round, which is where we are at now heading toward the 3rd round this weekend. Other than that, ranked players on both sides are cruising through the first round; let’s see what shakes out in the remaining matches in the second round.
Just before publishing, we are now in the 3rd round, and the above names, including Novak Djokoivic and Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Jannick Sinner have moved on to the 4th round. Next week's Grab Bag will definitely have some of the ranked players knocking each other out to get to the final next weekend!
SF Niners: I'm very happy to report that one of my favorite players, wide receiver(WR) Jauan Jennings has signed a two-year contract valued at up to 15 million dollars. In my opinion, he is one of the best WR's in the NFL, and has the nickname of "third and Jauan", as he almost always gets that 3rd down, and sometimes more! OK, Now lets get Brandon Aiyuk signed, and we will be ready to roll for the upcoming season! Auto Racing: The other race held this weekend was the Indy 500. I do not follow NASCAR, but since it is the 2nd "jewel" of auto racing's triple crown, it only seems fair to mention that after hours of delay due to lightning, rain and other elements, blown engines, crashes, etc, that Josef Newgarden won his 2nd consecutive Indy 500! Congrats Josef!
Now a brief editorial on the other crown jewel, F1 Monaco. My first time watching this, and there is a write-up of the race, and some tasty pictures in my Zoom Zoom column from earlier, I know have some thoughts, spurred on by some F1 experts, on the race itself. Monaco is beautiful, the "millionaires playground" as it's referred to, and I did enjoy the shots of the city and the harbor, off the Mediterranean. That said, I too, am wondering what kind of changes can be made to improve this race, as the narrow streets make it almost impossible for overtakes, amongst other things. One thing I would suggest off the bat is to shorten the amount of laps (78), which seems way too long to watch F1 cars basically do a merry-go-round. As I am not a track engineer, that's all I have for now, but fans and race experts feel SOMETHING needs to be done to make this race more exciting. Example: Current Drivers Cup leader, Red Bull's Max Verstappen when on the radio at one point in the race and said " I should have brought a pillow!", as he was bored...as a driver! Not a good sign!
Locker Room Buzz: Lots of F1 news that does not involve Christian Horner! During Sunday's Monaco GP, teammates (and I use that word loosely) Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly had a crash incident just before the tunnel section; it looked like Gasly's car took the worst, but it was actually Ocon's car that had to be retired from the race. To say Alpine team principal Bruno Famin was furious would be an understatement! Ocon was penalized five grid spots for the next race in Montreal, and to say he is in hot water with his Alpine team is an understatement! Here is the exact language Famin used when speaking to Canal+ TV:
His team boss Bruno Famin was furious, telling French broadcaster Canal+: “It’s sad, this kind of incident. It’s exactly what we didn’t want to see. And there will be appropriate consequences.”
Esteban thinking, "Should I ram my teammate's rear.......on the race track?"
Will Ocon be pulled from the Canadian Grand Prix? Time will tell!
Movies: Which ALSO deals with F1! Brad Pitt's F1 movie, still untitled and without a distributor, is now among the most expensive movies ever made. As of this date, the costs have now clocked in at over 300 million! There are several reasons for this, which you can explore in the link below:
Television: Well, the last episode of Star Trek Discovery has now aired. After five seasons, "Disco" has completed its final mission. This will be my mini review of said finale, and may surprise some of my friends on my take! Overall, the treasure hunt, finding all the clues in previous episodes leading to "treasure" (basically saving the universe), was a massive letdown and disappointment for me. Starting with the location of the object the Disco crew, and the bad guys were searching for, was just so disappointing. The site itself could have been inspired by some of the Burning Man festival camps! Sure, the AR wall did its thing with the SFX background, but it was just so....LAME! Then when we find out what this "treasure" was all about, the explanation of its significance was as weak as the "emotions" that the gang on the Bravo hit reality show "Vanderpump Rules" had on the their reunion finale! So to sum up this part of the Disco finale, I think the meme below encapsulates my feelings:
As for the rest of the episode, The fight scenes between Discovery and the Breen had some excellent special effects (SFX), and Action Suru had one of the best scenes in the episode, I got chills! Once the treasure hunt story concluded, we had our crew saying their goodbyes, some of thse scenes were filmed AFTER production ceased due to the writer and actor strikes, but I still did enjoy them and the emotions they provoked. One WHOA twist involved David Cronenberg's character- that was a whopper; two snaps up for that "red directive". Overall, i regretfully have to give the series finale a 3.5 out of 5 Tribbles. The series itself, a 4 out of 5. I will miss this crew a lot, and love how the show embraced diversity, whether it was race, sexual orientation or just the "otherness". So, Star Trek: Discovery, live long and prosper, and may your "Disco ball" shine bright in the Star Trek pantheon!
Lets close with Leo the F1 puppy superstar who has taken the world by storm! If you read the Monaco GP zoom zoom, you already know who Leo's F1 driver papa is! Enjoy the weekend!
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