San Francisco Giants: Losing Continues; Time to Worry?

A six-game losing streak at any point of the season is unwelcome. Fortunately for the San Francisco Giants, as they endure such a slide, they built up enough cache in the first half of the season to absorb these losses. Plus, as we explored on Friday, the Giants don’t have much competition in the division.

That said, this is losing streak worrisome. It’s the Giants’ longest of the season, and it’s pretty much the worst way to start the second half of the season. The only thing that could have made it worse was if the X-rays taken on Buster Posey’s foot Friday night, after he fouled a ball off of it, had come back positive for a fracture. (They didn’t, and Posey is back in the lineup today.)

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The losing could continue, but there was something about the Friday loss to the Yankees that felt like a bottoming out from which the Giants can only trend upward. Madison Bumgarner pitched well, but the team for the second time in a row with him on the mound. Brandon Crawford, who’s a wizard at shortstop, committed three errors. The Giants, as a team, committed four.

If the Giants are going to reverse course, they’ll have to do so with the current, depleted roster. Joe Panik, who has been out since late June with concussion symptoms, was expected to be back for the Yankees series this weekend. But he had a setback the other day that has derailed his comeback. It wasn’t specified what he had, but it is presumed to be concussion-related. Hunter Pence’s return from a hamstring injury was also delayed this week.

However, Pence went 2-for-3 with a home run on Thursday during a rehab game with Triple-A Sacramento. He took Friday off, but is back in the Sacramento lineup today and could be back in San Francisco very soon.

But it’s not like all hope is lost or anything. The Giants lost five straight earlier in the season, and they still headed into the all-star break with the Majors’ best record. And now, after losing six in a row, they have still have the second-best record in MLB.

Plus, they have Johnny Cueto on the mound today, facing off against the Yankees’ Ivan Nova, whose 4.92 ERA leaves much to be desired.

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So they have a good chance of ending that streak today, and once it’s over, it’ll be forgotten. And the Giants can move forward, free of carrying the burden of an ugly losing streak as they work to get back to their winning ways.