This game represented my day pretty darned well. Over the last few days I stayed at my wife’s aunt’s house while covering the Warriors in Los Angeles. She’s in France, so I was there alone with her dog. Taking care of the dog wasn’t that hard, except she clearly preferred to do her business inside instead of in the backyard.
I must’ve been sleeping pretty soundly (I got home after 2 am after one of the worst NBA games I’ve ever seen), and I woke up at 7 am to the dog rubbing her ass on the carpet next to the bed — always great news. I checked around the room, and the smell hit me before the sight of diarrhea in several different areas. The carpet is white in that room, as if you needed to ask.
Instead of going into any more detail, I’ll mention the truly terrible (and stupid) thing I did to myself this afternoon. I stuck my computer next to my seat during the descent on my return flight home … and left it there. So now I’m at the mercy of Virgin America, something I didn’t realize until the Giants were an inning away from losing 2-1 to the Rockies and I went over to my backpack to start writing a recap and discovered my computer wasn’t in there. So I’m waiting for Lost and Found to *hopefully* get back to me with some good news.
I’m writing this on my wife’s computer, which is a great solution until she heads to work tomorrow morning.
So that long, depressing preamble leads us to another game where the Giants lost by a run, scored one run on a solo homer, and went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. It seems like that’s the case every game, that they’re either 0-for-9 or 1-for-9 with RISP. This time one of the stranded runners in scoring position was Madison Bumgarner, who hit a double and tossed an eight-inning complete game … loss.
Franklin Morales was a little better than Bumgarner, who allowed two (gasp) solo shots. Actually, that isn’t true. Bumgarner was hitting his spots far more consistently than Morales, but the Giants (who are now 11-10, a half game behind the Rockies) couldn’t take advantage. An easy way to shut down the Giants these days is to keep Angel Pagan’s bat quiet (conversely, if he’s running his mouth it’s usually a good sign for the opposition), and Pagan’s 0-for-5 included three strikeouts against Morales. Other than that, Morales’ success was mostly due to the Giants being mired in a slump that’s as bad as the day I had.
The Giants have scored 15 runs in their last eight games. Here’s how the guys have been swinging (and missing, a lot of the time) since their home series against the Dodgers:
- Brandon Belt (.367, four strikeouts in 30 AB)
- Ehire Adrianza (.333, three strikeouts in 9 AB)
- Hunter Pence (.310, four strikeouts in 29 AB)
- Angel Pagan (.200, eight strikeouts in 30 AB)
- Joaquin Arias (.188, one strikeout in 16 AB)
- Brandon Crawford (.167, six strikeouts in 18 AB)
- Gregor Blanco (.154, two strikeouts in 13 AB)
- Pablo Sandoval (.148, six strikeouts in 27 AB)
- Buster Posey (.115, three strikeouts in 26 AB)
- Hector Sanchez (.100, six strikeouts in 10 AB)
- Michael Morse (.083, eight strikeouts in 24 AB)
- Brandon Hicks (.000, six strikeouts in 15 AB)
Team splits: .196/.284/.265 (51 hits, 62 strikeouts)
Eight games is a small sample size, but when six regulars (if we include Hicks) are hitting .200 or below, it’s not difficult to see what’s going on. These guys aren’t just pressing, they’re squashing, gripping and sphinctering. It’s not just one person, clearly. It’s easy to point at the double play Sandoval grounded into tonight, but Pagan, Arias and Adrianza left 11 guys on base combined.
Even with their hot start, they’re hitting .228 as a team this season. Their on-base percentage is .304 (which is a little higher than I assumed, sadly), and they’re slugging .370. It doesn’t matter if they’re at home or on the road, facing righties or lefties. You almost have to try to score three runs in two games at Coors, but the Giants are making offensive ineptitude look effortless these days.
