SF Giants: Giants Offense Nonexistent
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by user Trecole696
Giants Offense Nonexistent
The season isn't even a week old yet, and things are already going about as bad as they can for the Giants. In my last post I pointed out that the only positive at that point was the play of Barry Bonds. Now the only positive thing I can say about watching the last few games is that everybody is healthy. Say what you want about the bullpen, or the questionable outfield defense, but the real reason behind the Giants 1-4 start is because they have scored only 10 runs through five games. If you take away the botched pop up that Kevin Kouzmanoff and Termel Sledge fell all over each other on, we would be looking at an 0-5 team. If that play was made, it also would have wiped another 3 runs off of the Giants season total. I thought inserting Ryan Klesko into the lineup would have had some effect, but this team looks just as stale with him in there as they do without. They are going to struggle even with Barry Bonds in the lineup, but when he needs to take his weekly day of rest like he did on Saturday, this team has very little chance winning. This has to be discouraging to the Giants. Early or not, this team looks pretty darn bad, and if they don't watch out, they are going to drop too far below .500 to have a chance at making it back. If the Giants get down early, they do not have the offense to battle back into games, especially against teams with any kind of bullpen.
One area in which you cannot blame for the Giants' early struggles is their starting pitching. Coming into the year, the Giants starters were supposed to be the strength of their team and they have been so far. All five starters have had one start now, and all starters allowed 3 or less runs in at least 5 innings pitched. Some of those outings could have been longer if Bruce Bochy wasn't forced to pinch hit in order to try and ignite some offense. I'm not saying the starting pitching has been brilliant, but it has been good enough to win, and that's all you ask it to be. Matt Morris' win on Thursday was huge for him. After that bad year last season and a horrible early spring, a victory in his first start should help his confidence. Many people, including myself, expected better out of Morris this year and were going to get it. Some people are concerned with Matt Cains' knack for giving up the long ball after his first start, but I am not worried at all. If you look around the league and check out some of the first stars other pitchers came up with, you have to be feeling good about the Giants' rotation. I don't think I have ever seen such a good rotation surrounded by such a bad cast.
The San Francisco Giants Blog-http://giantsbaseballblog.blogspot.com/
