And So It Goes for the Giants

Well.  In an exchange of e-mails with my friend in Colorado, I stated, “I predict the Giants will win one by a fluke.”  And they almost did!  But then, they didn’t.  Swept for their 6th consecutive loss, they lost to the Rockies, 7 – 5.  The Giants are 4 – 12 for the month of June.

Ty Blach pitched well.  Beautifully, in fact.  He went 6 2/3 and gave up 3 runs.  When your starter does that in Coors field, you want to give him a W.  Ty gave up 7 hits, 2 home runs (both with no one on) and struck out 5.  George Kontos took over and finished the 7th and held the Rockies scoreless in the 8th.  In spite of 18 runs in the previous 3 games, the Giants had only 2 going into the 9th and were down 3 to 2.  With 1 out,   Hernandez walked.  Then Hunter Pence, pinch hitting for Kontos, hit his first ever pinch hit home run (in few pinch hit opportunities).  That gave the Giants a rare 9th inning lead.  And, much to their credit, they added to it.  Joe Panik singled and somehow got caught on the basepath and wound up safe at second, and then Crawford doubled him home to take a 5 – 3 lead.

Finally, a chance to showcase Mark Melancon, who had not appeared in this series and who hails from just up the road in Arvada.  I think that at the end of the year, we might look at Melancon’s blown saves and conclude that it is not a terrible number.  But, man, the guy seems to pick the spots where it hurts.   One out, a single, another single, another single (5 – 4), and then a 3 run Nolan Arenado home run.  That gave him a cycle, the Rockies the sweep and left the Giants almost 20 games back well before the half-way mark.  The Giants are one of only two teams with less than a .400 win percentage.

After getting hit for 12 earned runs in his last 2 outings, Ty held the Rockies to 3. That’s good.  But on the whole, just as our offense has improved, our pitching has gone from pretty decent to crappy.  In the first game of the month, on June 2, Ty Blach threw a complete game shutout against the Phillies.  The Giants won 10 – 0.  Since then, the Giants have allowed 94 runs in 16 games (including June 2).  5.875/game.  Not fair to include Coors, you say?  Excluding Coors, the Giants have allowed 62 runs in 12 games.  5.169/game.  The offense has netted 82 runs in that time, 5.125/game.  5+ runs per game is an improvement for the Giants.   The league leader, the Nationals, are averaging just over 5.5 runs per game.  Yet, the Giants, this June, at 5.125 runs/game, have a .250 winning percentage.  After scoring 10 runs to beat the Phillies, they scored 7 and lost.  Then they beat the Brewers twice with scores of 7 and 9 runs.  They scored 13 to beat the Twins and then scored 9 and 8 in two losses to the Rockies.  They have only won 4 of 7 games where they have scored 7 or more runs, and only 1 game of 9 where they have scored less than 7.  That’s some bad pitching.  And so it goes.