Friday BP: Parrots and cousins and Krukow, oh my!

The momentum is gaining for Shohei Ohtani, even if it’s almost surely manufactured.

Happy Friday, San Francisco Giants fans.

Tuesday and Wednesday were wild, if mostly uneventful days in the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes. We were treated to “news” galore, which feature unverified rumors, reports that Ohtani would likely pick a team by the end of the weekend, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts tripping over himself in admitting to a meeting with Ohtani, and countless attempts at moralistic whining about Ohtani’s completely reasonable secrecy.

And then Thursday was quiet. Very quiet. Oh so quiet. Eerily quiet.

It felt like the quiet before the storm, with barely a whisper — let alone report — about Ohtani. In all likelihood, that was just the fact that the Winter Meetings were over, people were traveling home, everyone was tired, and there was nothing to say. But it certainly felt like the buildup to one hell of a news drop.

The Giants Cinematic Universe, for its part, did everything possible to manufacture momentum in San Francisco’s direction as they chase a truly historic free agent.

We were treated to a bird in Japan — one that reportedly is sporting an .800 average on sports predictions — deciding that the Giants would land Ohtani.

Then we had one of my favorite forms of speculation: the random fan hopping on the internet with what is probably a true detail that probably doesn’t mean anything at all but damn it we’re going to hold on to it anyway.

And least silly of all, we had Mike Krukow — who may be full of optimism, but doesn’t usually speak with certainty when predicting things — saying he’s so confident that the Giants will land a star that he’ll quit his spot on KNBR’s show if they don’t.

It was a big day. Hopefully today is an even bigger one.