San Francisco Giants: As Bad as Atlanta Series Was, It Was Our 'Average' Offense

In my last article, which immediately followed the “Monday Night Massacre” in Atlanta, I was chastised by Andrew Ornelas for my harsh criticism of the San Francisco Giants.

He pointed out that no self-respecting Giants fan would proclaim the season to be over in mid-August, and he reminded me that the San Francisco Giants are only 2.5 games out of first place.

I stand by my words that the Giants face, to put it mildly, an uphill climb from here on out with the compounding injuries.

But, Andrew does have a point: There are plenty of games left. The next nine games are against teams that not only could but should be beaten.

The Houston Astros are pitiful, although it should be noted that their depleted roster is still a better hitting club than San Francisco. In fact their collective batting average is 18 points higher than ours.

To be fair, Houston’s team ERA is 4.64. Therefore, it stands to reason that the Giants should destroy their starting pitching.

Should.

The San Francisco Giants should destroy Houston’s pitching.

But then, last night happened.

Mike Minor of the Atlanta Braves came into Thursday night’s game with an ERA of over 4.50—that’s one run every two innings—yet he threw six innings of shutout baseball.

If we made that guy look like Sandy Koufax, the best we can hope for is making Houston’s worst starters look like A. J. Burnett.

And I don’t think these Giants could do much against A.J. Burnett.

The Atlanta Braves series was an obvious disappointment for a lot of reasons.

Thus far, the Giants have proven that they are outclassed, or at least match-classed, by the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies, and Milwaukee Brewers, all three of whom are likely postseason teams. These Giants will face odds far longer than last year’s if they hope to defeat any one of these teams in the playoffs.

Plus, despite looking dominant against Arizona early in the season, the Giants have struggled to match the pace of Kirk Gibson’s surging, young ballclub.

For those of you who were encouraged by San Francisco’s seven-run outburst in Wednesday night’s game, which still somehow managed to prove tortuous, despite eight innings of one-run ball by Matt Cain, consider this: The San Francisco Giants have scored 428 runs in 125 games.

That is 3.42 runs per game.

If you consider the Giants’ offensive outburst (and make no mistake about it: it was exactly that), which amounted to seven runs, and tonight’s shutout, which obviously amounted to zero runs, you get 3.50 runs per game.

That is the Giants’ season. So don’t be encouraged.

But it gets worse!

The Giants have been shut out 11 times this season, three of which have happened in August, which is barely half over.

Therefore, shutouts cannot even credibly be considered statistical outliers. If you do not factor in the games wherein the Giants scored 11 runs against the Rangers, 13 runs against the Cubs, and 15 runs against the Tigers (which, by the way, are the only times the Giants have scored over 10 runs this season), the San Francisco Giants are averaging:

3.19 runs per game.

To put this in perspective, nearly 10 percent of the entire Giants offense this year was produced in the three aforementioned games.

Small wonder that the Giants are only nine games over .500 with the second best ERA in baseball; a team simply cannot win enough ballgames with that type of scoring differential.

So, don’t get hopeful yet.

If the Giants manage to go into Houston and win three of four and score a total of 20 runs, there might be cause for hope.

If they go in and win fewer than three games against the feeble Astros or score anywhere near the 12 runs they scored against the Braves (which, incidentally, averages out to 3.00 runs per game, nearly their season average)… well, then no tunes will change.

So, to Andrew and all of the other Andrews of the world, God bless you.

Hope springs eternal, and the Giants will need all the fans they can get to rally behind them, no matter how steep the odds.

I maintain that, at their current level, our beloved Giants will not win the division.

But you never know… Arizona still might lose it.