Giants win a game you probably didn’t watch

Thanks, Peacock.

This isn’t a recap of the San Francisco Giants game, so please don’t mistake it for one. That means don’t get mad at me when it’s short and not comprehensive.

It’s just an article I’m putting up after the Giants game, telling you they beat the Cincinnati Reds 6-4, because I felt like it.

But not a recap.

I had no intentions of recapping the game because:

1. I’m not working today.
2. It’s the best day of the year for motorsports, and I like motorsports. And,
3. I’m not working today.

But as I switched my TV over from the Monaco Grand Prix to the Indianapolis 500, I decided to throw on the Giants game on my computer.

Sometimes I watch the Giants when I’m not working, because I like the Giants, and it’s nice to enjoy them without having to think about the narrative arc and how to capture it. Other times I don’t watch the Giants when I’m not working, because it makes it feel like I’m kind of working during the few precious hours when I’m not working.

With my ass already firmly planted on the couch to watch a few hours of sports, and with baseball starting at 8:35 a.m. for … reasons … it seemed like a good time to turn on the Giants game.

And that’s when I was informed that I could not throw on the Giants game, because it was on Peacock Premium.

Now I understand all the handwringing about MLB moving games to alternate platforms, but least they’re always watchable. Is the YouTube broadcast kinda bad? Sure, but it’s there. Is the Apple TV stream a pain in the butt since you have to create an account? Absolutely, but everyone can do that.

I innocently assumed that the Peacock stream would be the same.

Silly me.

No, the free version of Peacock didn’t suffice. You gotta hand over your sweet, hard-earned cash to watch breakfast baseball.

That’s on top of the cable subscription you pay for, and, if you live outside of the Bay Area, your pricy MLB TV subscription.

So I didn’t watch the game that I didn’t plan to recap.

And then I checked in on the box score and the Giants were getting no-hit in the seventh inning. And I thought, Giants get no-hit in game you couldn’t watch would be too good of a headline to not write. And then Thairo Estrada broke up the no-hitter with a double, and I thought Giants get one-hit in a game you couldn’t watch was still a pretty damn good headline.

And then they got a second hit, and then they scored a run, and then Evan Longoria hit a three-run home run to give them a lead they wouldn’t surrender.

This is the part of the job that I hate. I’m a lifelong Giants fan, but I’ll admit I felt a little conflicted when they finally woke up and scored some runs. How dare the team I root for do the thing I’m rooting for them to do and thus ruin my story.

But at this point I’d already invested ten minutes of mental energy into snarkily constructing a literary middle finger to Peacock and MLB, disguised in recap wrapping.

And so here it is. It’s not a recap, it’s just a proclamation: the Giants beat the Reds 6-4 in a game you probably didn’t — and probably couldn’t — watch.