We went away for a long weekend last week, all happy and satisfied over the state of les Noir et L'Orange. They had just taken two from the Fish with the Pirates coming into town for a four-game weekend series. Hello, Big Giants Run. Then we came back from Tahoe only to discover that the Giants wound up losing three out of four games to the Pirates. As in the last place, cellar dwelling Pirates. As in the well recognized worst franchise in the National League Pirates. At home. And suddenly a home series looking as easy as Lindsey Lohan at a party at Koi turned into one of those nightmare type weekends that make you want to never leave your apartment.
Yesterday's game was a complete study in frustrating suckitude. The Giants went into the eight inning with a 5-3 lead, only to see Tim Worrell-- aka the Guy Who Is Supposed to Hold Leads in the Eighth Inning--give up a Grand Slam home run to Jose Bautista-- aka Who?
The main culprit appears to be the offense, which could muster only feebleness against the lightly regarded Bucco pitching staff. If you're looking for people to throw the goat horns on, one doesn't have to look farther than Steve Finley (0-17) or Mark Sweeney (0-10). On other hand, you could pretty much tag everyone as the Giants went a combined .232 over the past five days.
It's easy to look at the obvious reasons for the lack of firepower, that being the non-playing of the Barry, but how much can a team really be thrown off by the presence of a batter hitting slightly over .250 and can't run? Yeah, he's got mad OBP but Barry wasn't providing that much bang. And if it's true that the loss of Barry is killing the team offensively, shouldn't that have been addressed in the off-season? It's not like a 42 year old with no knees being on the DL should be any surprise. Shouldn't that problem have been addressed?
Brian Sabaen is already squawking about unhappiness with the offense and, forgive us if you've heard this before, is getting twitchy with the trigger finger. Which has already gotten people drooling over the prospect of letting the door hit somebody on the way out. Most of the speculation seems to center on first base and, once again forgive us if you've heard this before, the lack of production gotten from that spot. Turns out Lance Niekro is yet another in a long line of Giants prospects who starts off great than can't hit for squat once pitchers figure out the huge hole in their swing. Meet the new Damon Minor, same as the old Damon Minor. Hell, meet the new Pedro Feliz.
Coming up this week is a series against the flailing D-Backs, loser of the series will have their main steroid guy subpoenaed first, followed by Inter League action against the Mariners. We shall see.
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The power outage is no surprise. Sabean built this team over the years around Barry. And when you build a team around one player, you run the risk of the shit hitting the fan when that player's skills decline.
This clusterf**k can be laid completely at Sabean's door.