2011 MLB Midseason: Where the San Francisco Giants Stand

It feels like yesterday to us Giants fans: Brian Wilson’s strike out of Nelson Cruz delivers the San Francisco Giants their first World Championship in the team's history in San Francisco. It was pure euphoria, an impossible dream realized. What Willie Mays failed to do in San Francisco—not to mention Willie McCovey, Barry Bonds, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Vida Blue, Bobby Bonds, Jeff Kent and Will Clark—was accomplished instead by a cast of cast-offs to supplement our young and spectacular starting rotation.

With the Giants’ unexpected World Series victory, the team earned “capital” with the fanbase. This capital has allowed them to field a roster full of AAA talent and still manage to sell out every home game in the first half of the season. It has allowed the fans to be only mildly upset that the Giants have been neck-and-neck with the Padres in the battle for “least run productivity” in the majors. It has even allowed most fans to view the fact that our principle starting pitchers—Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, and Ryan Vogelsong—are a combined 27-25 despite an astonishingly low 3.18 ERA and 449 strikeouts as a “minor statistical anomaly.”

There is a statistical anomaly, but it certainly is not minor. Including today’s game, during which the Giants were ostensibly no-hit by the Cubs’ bullpen (10 innings without a hit against a pitching staff that had the highest ERA in baseball coming into the game), the Giants lead their division by led games and are ten games over .500 with a 46-36 record. The Giants have scored a paltry 287 runs and have yielded 286. The San Diego Padres, by comparison, have scored only two fewer runs—285—and yielded only 23 more (309 total). The Padres are nine games behind the Giants and eight games under .500.

Many writers and commentators have correctly attributed the Giants’ winning ways to their ability to win one-run games. Indeed, the Giants are 22-12 in such contests. The problem, however, is that now, halfway through the season, the “capital” from winning the World Series has been depleted, and this team may be headed for dire straits.

The Giants have not been winning one-run games because they “understand the nature of the pressure in such games due to their World Series run,” as some writers have posited. The Giants have been winning one-run games because their pitching has been extraordinary. The starting rotation has been dominant, even though not one of the starters has numbers that can reasonably match up against the Phillies’ Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee or Cole Hamels. The bullpen, however, has been arguably the best in the game. Sergio Romo’s “video game” numbers, Brian Wilson’s nigh-unflappability (a new word) and Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez’s stretches with sub-2.00 ERAs have kept the Giants in contention.

As we discovered today, however, with Wilson’s third blown save and Ramon Ramirez’s four-run outing, the bullpen is mortal. Brian Wilson’s WHIP is simply too high to sustain a 90 percent save conversion rate, and most middle relievers will go their entire career without sporting a sub-2.00 ERA for an entire season.

Make no mistake about it; the Giants’ bullpen is very strong. Their starting rotation, with the exception of the second coming of Shawn Estes (Jonathan Sanchez), has been dominant. The Buster Posey-less and Freddy Sanchez-less lineup that Bruce Bochy fields every day, however, closely resembles the AAA Fresno lineup. The Giants offense is not in a slump; it just was not very good to begin with.

Aubrey Huff is a smart player and a strong leader whose batting average of nearly .300 in June has helped the team tremendously to the few runs they have managed to score. Pablo Sandoval is well-loved and finally looks to be rebounding from his hamate bone injury. Cody Ross, the hero of the postseason, is a durable and competent player.

The praise ends there, however. Andres Torres proved that last year was a fluke. Nate Schierholtz is performing as well as a platoon outfielder can be expected. Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell, who round out the outfield, are plunging further into decline. Miguel Tejada has proven himself to be nothing more than a desperation move gone wrong. Darren Ford is fast, but not particularly skilled with the bat, not to mention injured. The same might be said for Manny Burriss.

Mike Fontenot and Mark DeRosa are also injured, although neither substantially contributed offensively even when healthy. Brandon Crawford’s .202 batting average proves that he is not ready to contribute consistently at the major league level, and Eli Whiteside and Chris Stewart are equally anemic offensively.

Offensive outbursts like the recent double header in Chicago should be treated as the anomalies they are. In June, the Giants outscored opponents 100-93 over 28 games. That is an offensive yield of 3.57 runs per game. Excluding the statistical outliers—a 13-7 win against Chicago and a 12-7 win against St. Louis—the Giants scored only 75 runs over 26 games, resulting in an offensive yield of only 2.88 runs per game. With a pitching staff as excellent as the Giants and a run production this paltry, it is easy to see why the Giants have been involved in a lot of one-run games.

With a team that produces at this low a level going into the second half of the season, the Giants will be hard-pressed to secure a playoff spot. Even if they do manage to sneak into the playoffs by virtue of their weak division, one could safely assume that the Giants will not be able to defeat either the Braves or the Phillies this postseason without more offensive production. Brian Sabean has added numerous stop-gaps to compensate for injuries: Bill Hall, Chris Stewart, Manny Burriss, etc. These players, however, are exactly that. They are stop-gaps and not long term—  or even season-term—solutions.

There are relatively few players on the trade market that would be attractive to San Francisco. Jose Reyes is, of course, the crown jewel, and, with the return of a seemingly healthy Barry Zito, the Giants now have a surplus of starting pitching. Reyes would be a “rental player,” of course, but he would be a rental player that could offer the Giants a terrific chance to enhance their offensive output. With the pitching staff performing at its present level, it would only take a minor offensive output increase to drastically improve the team’s playoff potential.

Mark Ellis has just gone to the Colorado Rockies. The Diamondbacks look like a legitimate contender. The writing is on the wall, and without a real offensive push (not another cast-off or reject) the Giants will not be in position to defend their crown come October. They are only a Jose Reyes (or comparable bat) away from a possible repeat, but they are nothing less and nothing more than precisely that.