Giants Lose NL West Lead – Score Negative Runs

Interesting fact of the day? With a hat tip to Andrew Baggerly, the Giants are 74-22 when they score three runs or more in a game. 74-22. Three runs. That’s all.

We all know this team isn’t a murderer’s row, but is it asking too much to have professional baseball players do the simple things, such as move the runners over? You’ve got a team like the Padres, far less talented than the Giants offensively who succeeds because of their ability to do the small things. The Giants are simply trying to get by via the longball, much like an NBA team trying to get by on the three point shot. When it works, it’s beautiful. But when it doesn’t, you get run out of the building. And that’s been the case recently for the G-men who have been held to one run or less in 8 of 13 games, with four of those being shutouts. Anyway you slice that, it’s awful. Anemic. Pitiful. And the Giants haven’t been facing too many big gun pitchers in this stretch. Offense is contagious, no doubt – and right now the Giants have the swine flu to put it gingerly.

Far too many times last night the Giants had opportunities to make a good out. That’s all we’re asking. It’s not a lot, but with the way the Giants have performed on the offensive side of the ball you’d think we were asking for a King’s ransom. It’s unreasonable to continually expect them to string together four…five hits in a row. It’s not who they are. But if you have a lead off double and you don’t move a base, something’s seriously wrong – not only with the players, but, the coaching staff as well. And this situation happens almost nightly for the Giants, which is the most frustrating part. A manufactured run or two could and would make a world of difference with this pitching staff who I feel incredibly sorry for. They’ve yet again put together another dominating season and a currently historic run in which they’ve held their opponents to three runs or fewer in 16 straight contents.

It’s sad, yet, amazing to see just how far the Giants could go if they could scratch together even three runs a game.

With all that said, the Giants still have the chance to win the series, thanks to Buster Posey and the pitching staff.

The Giants have 10 games remaining including today’s series finale with the Cubbies, six at home and four on the road. They’ll travel to Colorado for what should be a season swinging series for somebody and finish up the season with six straight at home – three versus Arizona, the final three with San Diego.

They currently sit .5 games back in the NL West, having played one more game than the first place Padres whom they’re equal with in the win column. They sit .5 games back of the Atlanta Braves in the NL Wild Card race, with the Braves having played one more game than the Giants (Braves have 9 games left, Giants 10). Both the Braves and Giants are identical in the loss column entering play today.

After 162 games, it comes down to a 10 game run.

That Met game sure burns a bit, eh?