At Least the Offense is Not Horrible

Here's the (obvious) bad news: after losing 7-6 to the Diamondbacks on Sunday, the Giants are 0-3 to start the season for the first time since 1984 and just got swept by their chief division rival.

That is very bad -- not good news. But there's a silver lining here: the offense in these three losses has been good. Dare we say ... pretty good?

The Giants scored four runs in the first two games and six runs in the series finale: that's an impressive offensive output to start the season for a team that was historically terrible at the plate in 2011.

The Giants record when scoring four runs or more in 2011? 55-9. You know why? Because, for the most part, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Matt Cain pitched like champs. 

They had rough patches, of course, but it was pretty rare for them all to post non-quality starts in back-to-back-to-back fashion. 

And the Giants scored their runs off of good pitchers too. They looked sharp against Ian Kennedy on Friday night, roughed up Daniel Hudson on Saturday and, well, OK, they might actually wish Josh Collmenter pitched better. Trevor Bauer's going to steal his spot sooner rather than later. 

Here's another bright spot: of the 17 runs allowed, only two were allowed by the bullpen. Danny Otero and Jeremy Affeldt each coughed up one, otherwise all the runs were given up by the starting pitching. 

That is, oddly, a good thing: the starting pitching will correct itself, eventually. 

Meanwhile, Buster Posey looks like he's already back -- he'll sit on Monday for Hector Sanchez, but that was expected. Thus far, he's got a home run on his statline and hasn't looked remotely tentative at the plate. 

Pablo Sandoval appears in line for a big season. It would be nice to see Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford get going, but it's quite pleasing to see Melky Cabrera (four of 14 with a line-drive homer) raking early. He appears to be a real-deal addition.

The larger point? These guys should keep hitting. And the pitching will come around. So three games is nothing to panic about. 

Contact Us