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Giants need to pick it up, especially against the NL West
By Morris Phillips July 12, 2010 |
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Timing is everything. Poor timing goes a long way to explaining how the Giants have dropped into fourth place in the NL West. And good timing could be the key to the Giants’ quest to make up ground in the NL West and attempt to make the playoffs this year. Throughout the first half, much has been said and written about the Giants’ lack of speed and their lack of power. But in reality, the team’s shortcomings are more subtle than that. Hitting into too many double plays, especially early in at-bats, walking too many batters and not stopping opposing base stealers are the three areas where the Giants have been woefully deficient. Other more esoteric areas were the team has failed thus far: advancing base runners, hitting with runners in scoring position, hitting with the bases loaded, and defensively, not turning enough double plays. In all of these areas the Giants are in the bottom quarter of either the National League or in all of Major League Baseball. They rank last in the NL in hitting into double plays (92) and last in both leagues, by a relatively large margin, in allowing walks (362). Timing figures into all of these categories, as the Giants, in a lot of big situations have come up short. More directly, a team with excellent pitching and above average hitting has had its effectiveness negated to a great extent in both areas because of these deficiencies. But without a doubt, none of these things are the Giants’ biggest problem. At 47-41, San Francisco sits in fourth place in the NL West because they can’t seem to beat the teams in their division. And a four game gap between the Giants and first-place San Diego doesn’t seem like that big of a deficit, but when you factor in that the Giants are 9-20 versus other NL West teams thus far, you can’t gain any confidence that they’ll be able to make up ground on the Padres, Dodgers and Rockies, especially after August 27, when they play 28 of the final 34 games within the division. Nothing illustrates the Giants dilemma better than their critical run over the last week with wins in six their last seven games at Milwaukee and Washington. While the Giants cut significantly into the distance between themselves and the Padres, they couldn’t get out of fourth place, and only got a half-game closer to third place. If they can’t get beat the Dodgers, Padres and Rockies straight up, it’s unlikely they can pass at least two or all three of them. And chasing three teams as opposed to one already provides a set of unique challenges. Matt Cain is 0-8 against the Dodgers, and his record against the Padres--especially in the last three years—is abysmal. The Dodgers have routinely come into AT&T Park and picked up critical wins. Just last month, they had dropped 11 of 15, including a heartbreaker to the Yankees, and they rebounded with a sweep of the Giants. Coors Field continues to be a field of nightmares for the Giants and they have five more contests there. And the Padres have won seven of eight against the Giants, and ten more meetings remain, including a four-game series at Petco Park in mid-September. The best case scenario for the Giants would be a 43-31 record over the final months of the season, which would give them a 90-win season. But timing is everything. They better make sure they get those wins at the right time and in the right places. |
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