Just how frustrated is Bruce Bochy with the Giants offensive output?
Well, frustrated enough that he skipped his post-game press conference (or canceled it, if you prefer) after the Giants hit "rock bottom" in their 7-0 loss to the Cubs Monday, and instructed reporters to seek out the hitters and see if they could provide any information as to why they're so terrible at hitting the ball.
Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury-News, who writes that even he's "tired of watching bad baseball" told Bochy it was "as hard to come up with questions" to ask the manager as it was for the manager to provide answers to the questions at this point.
“Yeah,” Bochy said. “That’s why you might want to ask them. Get a different answer."
Well, the answer wasn't that different either.
Carlos Beltran dropped two of the bigger cliches in the book, offering up that "you can't explain it" and "it is what it is."
At this point, even "the water here is terrible and it makes me hit bad" would have been more acceptable, but, um, it is what it is I guess.
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Tim Lincecum, the guy who took his seventh loss with either one or zero runs in support (!) on Monday, pointed out that things aren't that different from 2010, except that the Giants weren't gaining momentum this time around, instead falling further behind the Diamondbacks in the race.
"At this time last year we were in a similar spot but we were gaining ground, not going backward," Lincecum said. "It's hard to keep your head up when things aren’t really going our way."
Everything's harder when a season with so much promise is slipping through your grasp as the 2011 rendition is for the Giants.
And it's impossibly harder when the problem -- the inability to hit the ball -- has a simple solution -- hit the ball -- with no clear-cut answer.
