The June Swoon

It is that time of year again. It's June. Historically that is when the Giants season usually hits a wall and it is hard to explain why they are losing the way they are. This year they have reached an all new low in the month of June. The Giants are currently on a 5 game losing streak and have lost 8 of their last 9 games. The biggest effect this drop has had is in the standings, while the Giants still maintain their first place mark, the lead over the Dodgers which was 9.5 games has now diminished down to 4 games heading into the weekend.

The Giants seem lost right now, and it all began last week when the Nationals came into town. The Giants were riding a 4 game winning streak and were 21 games over the .500 in their record. (42-21). Nothing could seemingly go wrong for the revitalized Giants team with their starting pitching on fire and an elite bullpen that was working at incredible pace. Even the offense which the Giants have had little of the past few years was scoring, and scoring a lot. But as baseball people always say, it all will even out.

Coming into the series against the Nationals, the Giants had only lost one series in the past 5 weeks. The Nationals made them come back to earth. They smashed the Giants in the first 3 games of the series behind incredible pitching done by Stephen Strasburg, Doug Fister and Tanner Roark. The Giants could barely score any runs and the Nationals were doing nothing but score runs and attacked the Giants starters. Tim Hudson (Mr. Consistant) put an end to this madness in the last game and the Giants avoided a rare home sweep.
But the Giants unfortunately cannot pitch Hudson everyday.

When the Rockies came into town for the weekend they had been struggling. They were once in the thick of the pack for the top spot in the NL West but tanked in the month of May dramatically. Now they were treading water and trying to get any wins they could. This began the worst series I have seen the Giants play in some time.
Friday: Giants were winning 4-2 in the 9th inning, Lincecum pitched well and the bullpen held up the two run advantage. Enter Sergio Romo, 20 for 22 in save situations, one of his blown saves had come against the Rockies. He gave up 2 straight singles, then a fly out by dangerous hitter Wilin Rosario, but Angel Pagan made an ill advised throw to third and both runners moved up. Later with the bases loaded DJ Lemahieu hit a base hit and for no reason Pagan threw home and the runner moved up to second. The amout of mental errors made by the Giants in this inning was astonishing. They went on to give up 5 runs and lose 7-4.
Saturday: Giants are winning 4-3 in the ninth inning thanks to a good comeback by the G-men and great bullpen stoppers to keep the them ahead. Enter Sergio Romo. I was at this game and was very surprised to see him come in again. HUGE MISTAKE. He got the first two outs easily, everyone was happy, then a harmless 2out single by Charlie Blackmon. Then on a ball left up by Romo to Brandon Barnes he hit a ball between Pagan and Pence that Pagan for some reason decided to dive for, which to this day I still do not understand, and he hit and inside the park home run and the Giants lost 5-4.
Sunday: Just when we thought it could not get worse, the Giants were up 7-4 in the 8th inning when the bullpen gave up 4 runs and the Giants lost 8-7.

After the insane weekend against the Rockies where the Giants had 3 wins in the bag but managed to squander the lead late, they headed to Chicago. It did not get better there. Matt Cain got smashed in game 1 and the offense was shut down by John Danks. Then the matchup that many people were looking for in game 2, Chris Sale against Tim Hudson. Two pitchers having amazing seasons so far. It did not go well. Hudson had his worst start of the year and got hit hard by the White Sox and the Giants were put to bed by Chris Sale.

So now the Giants head to Arizona to see if they can dig themselves out of this hole of losing. The only bright spot from this entire two weeks has been Jean Machi who has continued his amazing season. He has pitched 31 innings and has only given up 1 run. 5-0, 0.29ERA. Unreal.