Bay Area Sports Are Getting Good Again, and I Can't Stop Smiling

Eldridge at first base. Lendeborg next to Steph. Purdy at 6 and 1 with a defense that's actually hitting the quarterback. I've been a miserable Bay Area fan for years and I'm having trouble staying that way.

Somebody in my group chat typed it Monday night, right after the Warriors came back on the Suns. "Is it just me or is everything kind of good right now?"

Nobody answered for a good ten minutes. That's how broken we are. A bunch of grown men raised on this stuff, and not one of us wanted to be the guy who said yes out loud.

I'll be the guy. Yes.

I know the Giants just lost 97 games. I watched most of them, which says more about me than it does about them. I know the A's are a Sacramento team on their way to Las Vegas, and I know the Kings just hung seven on the Sharks. Stay with me anyway, because for the first time in a long time I can look at every team I actually care about and find a young guy who makes me want to turn on the TV. Do you know how long it's been since I could say that? I don't either. I tried to figure it out and got depressed.

The kid at first base

Bryce Eldridge just turned 22, and he spent this whole season looking like somebody who'd been doing it for years. He hit .269 with a .364 on base, 17 homers and 23 doubles in 107 games. He walked 59 times, which means a 21 year old already knows what a strike is, and that's more than I can say for half the guys we've been paying.

Seventeen homers is the seventh most any Giant has ever hit at 21 or younger. This franchise has had a few hitters come through it, you may have heard.

Last year he got ten games and hit .107 and I told everybody he'd be fine while privately sweating through my shirt. Now I've stopped being careful about him altogether. Tony Vitello's coming back, the bullpen still makes me want to lie down on the garage floor, and I've got plenty more to say about all of it. Not today. Today I've got a 6 foot 7 first baseman who's going to hit in the middle of our order for a decade, and a farm system that finally gives me something to read in January.

Ten teams passed on this man

We were 0 and 3. I was already writing the Warriors off and blaming the front office for wasting Steph's last good years, and then Yaxel Lendeborg decided he wasn't having any of that.

Eleventh pick. Through eight games he's at 21.5 points, 7 rebounds and 3.9 assists on 50 percent shooting, 40 from three. He put 31 and 12 on Denver. He dropped 37 on the Clippers with Steph and Draymond both sitting, the most by a Warriors rookie since Steph had 42 back in 2010. We've won five straight. Every time I think he's about to hit the rookie wall he does something at 6 foot 9 that gets me off the couch.

Yeah, he's 24. He's no baby. I don't care.

Steph's 38, and for two years the thing that's kept me up at night is what the ending looks like, the greatest player we've ever had running out the clock with nobody to hand it to. Now there's a guy who can carry a night when Steph sits. I've stopped doing the math on how many years he has left. Okay, that's a lie, I still do the math. I just do it in a better mood.

Purdy, and a pass rush that finally shows up

Brock Purdy is 6 and 1 with 15 touchdowns, 4 picks and a 110.1 rating. He's getting 8.3 yards an attempt, and he's doing it with a receiver room that's looked like a triage tent since Melbourne. He's 26 years old. People out there still want to argue about him and honestly I hope they never stop, because it makes Sundays more fun.

What's got me giddy is the other side of the ball.

We had 20 sacks last year. Twenty, the whole season, dead last in the league. I watched quarterbacks stand back there and check their fantasy teams. Through seven games this year we've got 15, and Nick Bosa doesn't have a single one of them. He's been fighting the calf and now the knee, and the sacks are coming anyway. Keion White's got 3.5, and we basically got him for a late pick swap. Osa Odighizuwa has 2. Romello Height, a rookie who had surgery on a broken hand this season, has 1.5. Mykel Williams came all the way back from that knee and already got on the board.

And DeForest Buckner hasn't played a snap for us yet. He's 32, so he doesn't belong in a column about the kids, and I'm putting him in anyway because the Raiders are coming to our building Sunday and I've been waiting six years to see that man in red again.

You get Bosa right for January with Williams across from him and Buckner in the middle? I'm getting ahead of myself. I know. I'm doing it on purpose.

The rookie I can't stop thinking about

De'Zhaun Stribling has given us part of one regular season game, and he might be the player I'm most excited about on this whole list. I know how insane that sounds.

We took him 33rd, our first pick of the draft, and the internet laughed. Then he showed up to camp and looked like the best player on the field, day after day, to the point where I stopped reading the practice reports with one eye closed. Then the opener in Melbourne, the ankle, the surgery, injured reserve. I about threw my phone.

Shanahan says he's hoping for December. Think about what that means. A team that's 6 and 1 could get a rookie with fresh legs right when you want to be peaking, and I've seen enough of this kid to want the ball in his hands in a game that matters. He isn't even healthy and he already looks like one of ours for the next ten years.

Don't jinx it

I should mention Macklin Celebrini, too. He's 20, he's got 17 points in 15 games, the Sharks are 7, 9 and 1 and I'd still pay to watch him skate by himself.

I know how this goes, by the way. I've lived here my whole life. Somebody's hamstring goes in practice. The Giants sign a 34 year old. Some national guy writes a column about how the Warriors are overachieving and it turns out he's right. I've been burned by every one of these teams and I'll be burned again, probably by Thanksgiving.

But I've got the Raiders on Sunday, Miami next for the Warriors, and pitchers and catchers only a few months out, and when's the last time I was looking forward to all three of those at once?

I finally typed back in the group chat. "Don't jinx it."

Then I went and looked up Eldridge's spray chart. It's November.