Giants Start Road Trip On Sour Note

I don’t know why but these things continually seem to happen on the road. The Giants, offensively, played some pretty blah baseball. They continued to struggle with runners in scoring position (worst in the league and dropping…) and every hard ball they hit seemed to land in a Blue Jays glove.

The base running in particular was awful. Aubrey Huff hit what he assumed was a homerun and started his trot right out of the box. Problem being – it wasn’t a homer. And Huff only managed to get to second base. He most likely would have got to third on the play had he ran it out (though not a given), but the lack of hustle really isn’t excusable. The next batter Juan Uribe reached first on a hit by pitch. Pat Burrell then promptly smacked a double down the right field line that should have been an easy score for Huff who was on second. Huff’s angle on the ball was pretty suspect, so his initial reaction was to tag-up, but the best move would have been to pick up Tim Flannery soon as the ball was hit since he was halfway down the third base line, watching the flight of the ball. Huff wasn’t halfway to third when Jose Bautista fielded the ball off the wall and for some unexplainable reason, with no outs in the inning, Huff was sent all the way home. The ball beat him by about five steps and he was easily out. Flannery, who I watched in person for so many years in San Diego is well known for his questionable tactics when it comes to sending runners – this time no different. It was evident that Huff was going to be out by a large amount when he was only a few feet past third base as Aaron Hill threw the cut-off home. Just a really piss-poor sequence of base running and coaching.

Zito pitched another solid game but might have been left out there one inning too many as he gave up the eventual game winning homer in the bottom of the 8th to Edwin Encarnation.

Losing the first game of a road trip never sets a good tone, especially when the team you’re playing is just as good as you or possibly better. Giants have to hope they can get out of Toronto with at worst a win in one of the next two – no easy task with Marcum and Listch finishing out the series for the Jays.

Sack it up boys – time to get your heads out of your ass.