SF Giants offense looks to be feast or famine early in season

The SF Giants have scored the fourth-most runs in all of Major League Baseball this season, but they were also shut out for the third time this season on Friday against the Los Angeles Angels. Perhaps this offense is going to be feast or famine.

Friday's game was the first time the team was shut out since the first two games of their series against the Cincinnati Reds at Oracle Park on April 7th and 8th. It was a shame that the team wasted a great outing by ace Logan Webb. The runs that scored against Webb were because of a ball that was misplayed by shortstop Willy Adames and then an error by third baseman Matt Chapman, two players who are typically defensive stalwarts on the left side of the infield.

SF Giants offense seems to be very streaky early in the season

This was far from the first time that Webb has struggled getting run support. He may not be on the same level Matt Cain was at in terms of the offense not giving him much help, but it is fair to say that Logan got Webbed on Friday night.

What accounts for the streakiness on offense for the Giants? They did just put 11 runs on the board a few days prior against a very good team in the Philadelphia Phillies, so their offense is far from inept.

While the Giants are among the league-leaders in runs scored, they rank 18th in MLB when it comes to team batting average with the team collectively batting .226. The Giants also have the fourth-highest strikeout total in MLB with 194 thus far.

Yet, the teaam is still finding ways to score runs. A big part of that may be the fact that the team has been very good with runners in scoring position. The team has a .280 batting average with runners in scoring position which is fourth-best in MLB and they have 10 home runs with runners in scoring position which is the best in all of baseball.

The Giants are coming up with the goods when runners are in scoring position which aligns with the organizational philosophy under president of baseball operations Buster Posey to be better at situational hitting.

In a funny way, the team's success thus far is reminiscent of their success during the championship years in that it does not make complete sense by looking at the numbers, yet they just find ways to win.

Perhaps that is a result of Posey's leadership where his desire to win has trickled down throughout the entire organization and his presence motivates the team to play better.

Giants fans are more than used to seeing the bats run cold at times, so this should come as nothing new. The offense may end up being fairly streaky for the Giants this season which is not ideal but it is better than them being straight up bad. Let's hope they streak in the direction of scoring a lot of runs for a little bit after Friday's poor performance.