San Francisco Giants: Losing to a Lousy Team Just Isn't Fun

The Braves aren’t a very good baseball team. The Giants found that out last year in the NLDS and in the bottom of the seventh inning Sunday during a timid afternoon at AT&T Park. Their most talented player is batting .247 for the season and their cleanup hitter is hitting .182. They have one descent starter in their rotation and he turns 64 next week. Their bullpen walks the tightrope every time the Braves have a lead in the ninth inning by trotting out a middle inning reliever to close the game.

But with all their troubles they had little difficulty beating the team that kicked them to the curb in last year’s division series. At times the Giants were so bad that you half expected Felipe Alou to come hobbling out on the field to make a pitching change. For one scary moment, fans thought they saw Matt Morris leaning on the dugout railing. Then they realized Barry Zito still hadn’t shaved his “lucky” goatee.   

The Giants beat themselves three times in front of three sellout crowds over the weekend.  On Sunday, the bullpen blew the game after abysmal hitting and horrific defense led to the first two losses. The late-inning collapse was especially mind-blowing after the offense finally broke through with their biggest inning of the series.

After  the Braves took the lead on a three run home-run by Jason Heyward in the top of the seventh, the Giants answered with  a four-run rally of their own. After three singles and a sacrifice grounder, Aaron Rowand broke out of his 1 for 14 “slump” with a base-clearing double that fell just beyond the reach of Martin Prado at the 382 mark in left field.

The crowd which had been silent after Heyward’s blast, suddenly sprang to life. Their team had just scored twice as many runs than in their last two games combined, and it was the first ball the Giants hit in the air that actually caused an outfielder to break a sweat.

Sergio Romo then came in to face Dan Uggla in the eighth. One pitch later and the game was tied.

The Braves had only four hits through nine innings, FOUR! but they still managed to score six runs.

How?

The Giants walked seven batters. Six of them ended up crossing home plate. Throughout the series, Giants pitchers issued a ludicrous 16 walks.

By comparison, the Giants only walked twice in three games and scored eight runs.

You have to give credit to the Braves. As bad a team as they are offensively, they figured out you don’t need to swing the bat to score a lot of runs against awful, erratic pitching.  

Ironically, the only time Giants pitchers threw the ball over the plate was when they were ahead in the count.

In the second game of the series Lincecum gave up an RBI single to Nate McLouth on an 0-2 fastball.

On Sunday, Jeremey Affeldt was ahead of Jason Heyward 1-2 when he threw his third curve in the at bat. Same location same pitch. Heyward sent it about about twenty rows into the right-field bleachers.

Guh.

The Giants faced three starters that make opposing pitchers happy that there isn’t a DH in the National League. But each pitcher made it past the sixth without allowing more than two runs and never threw more than 26 pitches in an inning.

As awful as they were, the Giants also weren’t getting any breaks. Every groundball the Braves hit seemed to be right at a hole in the infield, and no one seemed able to adjust to Derryl Cousins’ mobile strike zone in Game 1.

Madison Bumgarner lost his third straight game of the season, and he may have been the one responsible for slipping a bag of dog poop into Cousins' gray Ford Taurus that had a Fresno State bumper sticker and a golden retriever in the backseat.

The bullpen also deserves their share of the blame.  

Just like in Game 3 of the NLDS, Sergio was summoned to protect an eighth inning lead and again he blew it by giving up a home run. It was the first run allowed by Romo this season, and it came at the worst possible time.

Brian Wilson wasn’t terrible as he worked out of a jam in the ninth, but he also struggled to find the plate and gave up the game-winning single to Nate McLouth (yeah I don't know who either) after falling behind in the count 3-0

So what to do?

The Giants biggest liability on offense is at leadoff. Rowand has no speed, no power, and can’t get on base. With that said, he’s the best they have!

Freddy Sanchez might be a viable option, but his career .336 OBS and 13 stolen bases don’t exactly make him an ideal candidate. A lot of talk has centered around Nate Schierholtz, but Bruce Bochy might have finally figured that Nate’s main weakness is the same one as Travis Ishikawa’s.

He’s not very good at playing baseball.

Mike Fontenot jumps to mind because leadoff hitters usually aren’t that tall. But I’m sure the Giants could easily find another 5’1” infielder able to pump one out of the yard who could actually leg out an infield hit from time to time. 

I know I can’t keep telling myself that the Giants will get Jose Reyes because it's not going to happen. But if there’s someone out there that can bat leadoff and get Miguel Tejada off the field, isn't that something worth getting misty-eyed about?

The Giants still have very good depth in the bullpen. But they’re missing a set-up man to consistently get the game to Wilson in the ninth. Affeldt was everything the Giants wanted in a set up role in 2009, but he’s regressed into an early inning reliever that mainly specializes in facing left-handed power hitters.

The best option the Giants have is left hander Javier Lopez, who reminds fans a lot of Scott Eyre, except he’s fit and doesn’t mind jogging a few laps in the early morning. Lopez has become reliable pitching to any hitter for an inning or two out of the bullpen this year, so the Giants might want to experiment with him in the set-up position until Brian Sabean can find a more permanent solution.

It’s too early to start panicking, but the Giants need to make a few upgrades if they want to prove that last year wasn’t a fluke. I still like their chances against the Braves in the first round.

And by the way, where was Brooks Conrad last weekend?

Dawgonit.