San Francisco Giants: Is It Deja Vu All Over Again?

A few days ago I wrote a piece about the San Francisco Giants. The article was very forgiving of the team's average record so far in this young season.

Despite the Giants' record, the team was hitting and getting solid pitching, the wins just weren't coming at a pace the team would like.

The Giants beat the Padres that same day 4-2, then the struggling Miami Marlins came to town. Ozzie Guillen's crew entered AT&T park losing eight of their last nine games.

The Marlins swept the Giants and games weren't the only thing the black and orange lost.

In a blink of an eye, San Francisco has been transported back to 2011.  The Giants are squandering solid pitching performances and third baseman Pablo Sandoval is out for four to six weeks with the same injury that sidelined the slugger last year.

Sandoval will have surgery after breaking the hamate bone in his right hand (last year he suffered the same injury on the opposite hand). Like last season, Panda was enjoying a red-hot April, leading the team in home runs (five) and RBI (15) with a .316 batting average.

The Giants managed just five runs in the series against the Marlins.  With the exception of Barry Zito (1-0), the Giants' starters were solid and gave the team a chance to win.

Matt Cain (1-2) pitched eight solid innings in the series opener allowing two runs on six hits.

The second game of the three-game set saw Zito only last 3.2 innings giving up two runs on only two hits. The damage to Zito's outing came via seven walks and shoddy fielding by his defense.

Ryan Vogelsong (0-1) went seven innings in today's finale, giving up two runs on eight hits. Again, a performance good enough to get a win.

Giants catcher Buster Posey had a great April and is showing fans why he won the 2010 ROY.  In the Marlins series however, he went 1-for-9 and hit into a crucial double play in the late innings of Game 1.

Is it a bit premature to automatically assume that the Giants are falling into the same nightmare they went through in 2011? Probably so, but the injury to Sandoval is definitely going to be a problem, as Posey will no longer have the Panda in front of him in the lineup.

The sample size is small, but not being able to solve the Marlins at home and the injury to Sandoval will definitely have fans squirming in their seats a bit.

Actually, even while scoring more runs than usual and getting solid pitching, the Giants were not winning as many games as they should have even before the Marlins came to town.

The timing of the Giants' latest woes is awful. If they were red hot, these problems could be worked through.

But the reality is, the Giants are in fourth place in the National League West and trail the Los Angeles Dodgers by five games.

It's not time to panic yet Giants fans, but the last three games along with the news concerning Sandoval can't be reason to breathe easy in Giants land.