Giants in Trouble

After last night’s loss to the Padres and the Rockies’ win over the Reds, the Giants find themselves three games back with 23 games to play.  That’s certainly not an insurmountable deficit, but you’d certainly rather be in the Rockies’ position than the Giants.

We got to see top prospect Madison Bumgarner make a terrific first major league start, but, of course, the Giants wasted his effort by their failure to score enough runs.

The Giants’ offense is disfunctional, both in terms of the team’s inability to get on base or hit with power, but also in terms of the team’s management.  Boche manages the Giants’ on offense as if he were managing the Phillies: i.e., playing for the big inning at all times.

On the Phillies, a team with the highest team OPS in the league after Colorado, playing for the big inning makes sense.  For the Giants, a team with the worst OPS in the league after Cincinnati, playing for the big inning is often a mistake.

Given the number of one-run decisions the Giants win and lose, they need to learn how to consistently score runs from third with less than two outs and score runs from second with nobody out.

Some of this is the fault of the players, who aren’t as a team good at advancing runners.   However, some of it also the fault of management, which should be ordering the players to hit behind base runners and make other small-ball plays, at least in the late innings of close games.

This late in the season, when management has seen what kind of offense the 2009 Giants have, the failure not to play to for one run when the circumstances dictate (particularly, the last four or five innings of close games) is inexcusable.  The Giants need to win the vast majority of their 4-3, 3-2 and 2-1 games, if they are going to make the post-season.  Right now, they aren’t doing it.

Another comment on the Giants’ decision to promote Bumgarner due to Lincecum’s (hopefully) temporary back problem — the Giants had to designate Osiris Matos for assignment to make room for Bumgarner on the 40-man roster.  I would be very surprised if another team does not claim Matos.

Matos took a step backwards this year from where he was at the end of 2008, when he rocketed through the Giants’ system and posted a 4.79 ERA in twenty relief appearances for the major league team as a 23 year old rookie.  However, Matos still had a pretty good year for a 24 year old, posting a 3.48 ERA in 45 relief appearances in AAA Fresno with a line of 56 hits, 13 walks and 48 Ks in 54.1 IP.

It’s hard to imagine that a team that needs bullpen help, like the Nationals or the Pirates, wouldn’t put in a claim for Matos, either if he has to pass through waivers as part of his removal from the 40-man roster or in the Rule 5 Draft this off-season if the Giants can’t find someone else to drop from the 40-man roster by November 20.