What you missed this weekend while trying… not to… giggle… like a… 12-year-old… boy… during… TEE-HEE!

• The Marlins won! Once. They also lost two of three to the Giants and nine of their last ten. Like the groundhog, the Marlins came out, saw their shadows and… OH NO! SIX MORE WEEKS OF JUNE!

• It’s almost like he never left. On Sunday, Chris Volstad played in his first game since being being called back up from Triple-A. And he didn’t disappoint, giving up 3 home runs in 6 innings. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he have?

• It’s my party and I’ll block your view if I want to. Sunday was also Billy the Marlin’s birthday, so the organization brought out all kinds of other mascots to stand directly in front of my seats and celebrate with the kids in attendance. Unfortunately, it was a 1:05pm start, so the kids had all melted.

• Jeff Passan wants you to hate Logan Morrison even more. At least, I think that’s what he’s suggesting when he writes that baseball needs more personalities:

No wonder baseball is so bereft of characters. It’s not a marketing problem. It’s not a lack of effort. It’s the game’s inherent stodginess – its remarkable ability to mute the outspoken – that keeps baseball from developing stars on par with the NFL and the NBA.

I agree. What baseball needs is a handful of players who think nothing of speaking their minds, who would be beloved by fans and media alike. Players like Mike Vanderjagt, Terrell Owens, Chad Ochocinco, Allen Iverson and LeBron James. So loved, those guys. So very loved.

Never mind all the current tabloids and news stations that talk about the world’s most intriguing and top news stories, we have a Giants/Marlins series on our hands! Should be exciting, don’t you think? To help preview this series, we called upon Julian Levine of Giants Nirvana to answer some questions, and here they are.

Q: Let’s just get this one out of the way: How much of a distraction will this series be for the players following the incident that occured the last time these two teams faced?

A: I don’t imagine it’ll be a huge distraction for them. They’re in the midst of a pennant race, and I think the Posey incident has pretty much blown over by now. Hopefully they can stay focused and just try to win baseball games without letting any of that drama get in the way.

Q: Should we expect any “flares for the dramatics”, considering the Giants are still semi-disgruntled about what Cousins did, albeit unintentional?

A: To be honest, I don’t know what to expect. The team’s had their frustrations of late — they just finished a 3-7 homestand — and as you probably remember, they had a bench-clearing brawl just the other night. Maybe there will be dramatics, though I don’t know that it should be expected.

Q: The Giants haven’t been doing that well over the last two weeks or so. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks have. What can the Giants do, or not do to stay afloat?

A: They can try to hit. Bottomline: this team is very bad at scoring runs, and that will be their downfall. Huff’s starting to get it together, which helps, and once Carlos Beltran returns from his wrist strain (he just received a cortisone injection), perhaps Sandoval/Beltran/Huff will make for a formidable middle-of-the-lineup.

Q: Can you talk about Aubrey Huff‘s primary struggles and why he seems to be good one season and then terrible the next?

A: I think it’s BABIP-related, partially. And partially just randomness. For example, I don’t expect him to have an excellent season in 2012. But who knows? Huff’s had a bad year, and I can’t put an exact finger on what the causes of his struggles are. He’s grounded out a lot to second base though…Anyway, as I mentioned, he’s starting to turn things around, so hopefully he can sustain decent production over the rest of the season.

Q: Amidst their struggles, the Giants pitching has remained top notch sans the return performance of Jonathan Sanchez. Should the Giants win the West, will it be a result of the pitching and nothing else?

A: Exactly. Their hitting is so awful, that their pitching staff is the only thing keeping them contending. It’s a fantastic staff — elite rotation and bullpen — and that’s why they’re a competitive team.

Q: Who is the biggest X-Factor of this upcoming series?

A: Dare I mention Aubrey Huff again? With Beltran potentially missing a couple games in this series, it could be huge for the Giants if Huff has a good series batting in the middle of the order.

Q: Can you give us a series prediction?

A: With Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Ryan Vogelsong starting in this series, I expect the Giants can win two of three. If their offense wasn’t so awful, I’d maybe feel confident saying they can sweep…but I’ll go with two of three.

A big thank you to Julian Levine for taking the time to answer some of my questions. You can find more of him over at Giants Nirvana. You can find even more of him on Twitter. And, of course, you can find me answering his questions about this Giants/Marlins series right around here.

What you missed this weekend while your favorite rapper was busted while planning one heckuva party…

• In baseball, consistency is key. And the Marlins were certainly that this weekend, losing to the Cardinals on Thursday, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday! It’s a good thing Jack McKeon saved that napkin he wrote his, “We just have to get back to .500″ speech on back in June.

• Logan Morrison‘s knee will disturb you. Last night, Morrison tweeted out a picture of his bloody knee, an injury that occurred after colliding with Emilio Bonifacio in the third inning of Sunday afternoon’s game. Oh, sure, this is cute and amusing when Bonifacio is the best hitter on the team, but just wait until this stuff starts happening when he’s batting .217 next year!

• With Omar Infante out; opposing right fielders won’t know what to do with themselves. There’s going to be a shortage of lazy fly balls to right field in the coming weeks as Omar Infante finds himself on the 15-day DL with a broken middle finger. After 111 mostly-disappointing games with the Marlins, I’m sure fans would be more than happy to offer their middle fingers to the second baseman.

• And finally, presented without context, my favorite photo of, well, ever…

(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

See that image up there, people? That’s your fault. I blame this all on you, on Jeff Conine and on a long-standing belief in the fallacy of giving 110%. You’re all at fault here. All of you.

A few weeks ago, Hanley would have turned around and jogged after that pop-up, letting it drop in for an uncontested single. There was no way he was getting to it anyway, so he’d have just let Logan Morrison pick it up, shrugged and walked back to his position, ready to half-heartedly chase after the next ball that might seem just a bit out of his reach. You’d probably have pursed your lips and shook your head, but Hanley would have doubled down the line in his next at-bat and your silent judgement would have been a distant memory for everyone involved.

That’s not what happened, though. No, what happened was that Jeff Conine eluded to Hanley being lazy. And sports talk radio got its monthly gasbag topic. (Seriously, if 790 The Ticket plays that Jorge Sedano, “Hanley’s gotta go!” rant one more time, I might stab my eardrums with a pair of rusty scissors. Stick to basketball, chief.) And frustrated fans took to Twitter to voice their displeasure. And so, last night, amidst this current avalanche of unnecessary scrutiny, Hanley found himself staring up at a pop-up and making the ill-fated decision to do something he wouldn’t have ever thought to do a month ago. He sprinted into left field.

Hustling is overrated; just ask Ken Griffey, Jr. For all of the highlight reel catches he made throughout his career, all anyone ever seems to want to talk about is the number of home runs he’d have… if he weren’t always on the DL. That’s the kind of thanks you get for going all out. Nobody would’ve faulted Jim Edmonds for not diving head first in the direction of a solid wall. Nobody would’ve blamed Carlos Beltran or Mike Cameron if either of them had thought to themselves, “You know, I don’t really want to bash my skull into my teammate’s skull to try and catch this ball.” They did it for you, though, because you demand that your athletes always try their hardest, that they always give 110%, even as you whine and roll your eyes when asked to walk two cubicles over to pass a coworker the stapler, you lazy, hypocritical sloth.

Fortunately, the news is that Hanley’s injury isn’t serious and that he’s day-to-day. You guys got lucky. But, let this serve as a constant reminder that some of the clichéd sports nonsense your 8th grade gym teacher tried drilling into your head all those years ago is better left in your middle school locker room, because it doesn’t necessarily have a place in the real world. 110% might have gotten you a Presidential Physical Fitness Award, but I’m guessing that your 13 chin-ups weren’t televised and that you weren’t risking millions of dollars and the future of an entire franchise in the process.

So, when Hanley does get back on the field, I’d like to be the first to urge him to not try hard, to not dive after pop-ups and not leg out routine ground balls to third. Walk. Mope. Give 43%. Show up late. I don’t care. Just, for the love of God, don’t ever listen to these silly people again.

(Screenshot via MLB.com)

What you missed this weekend while finding out that pet owners will fork over their hard earned cash for pretty much anything…

• Frustrating former Marlin picks up where frustrating current Marlin leaves off. After 26 games, Emilio Bonifacio’s hitting streak finally came to an end. Dan Uggla’s, on the other hand, reached 22 games on Sunday. You can expect Cameron Maybin to break Joe DiMaggio’s record sometimes next season.

• Emilio must really hate me. Not content with invalidating all of my arguments with a 26-game hitting streak, Bonifacio is now doing other inconceivable things, like putting the ball over the fence.

• Oh, hey, you’re still here! The MLB trade deadline came and went, but the only move the Marlins made was pretending that they traded Leo Nunez.

Imagine Nunez’s surprise when manager Jack McKeon summoned him into his office after the game, wished him luck, and told him he’d been traded to the Cubs.

“I said, ‘OK,’ then everybody was laughing and I realized it was a joke,” said Nunez, who joined Robb Nen as the only closers in club history with multiple 30-plus save seasons. “I’m here until the Marlins want. My desire is to stay here, but those are decisions the bosses make. I’d like to stay here. I feel good and have confidence with all my teammates.”

Added Nunez, “Plus, those guys now owe me like a gazillion-bazillion dollars!”