A's beat Giants, expose glaring deficiencies for good measure

This is all you need to know about the way things have been going recently for the Giants offensively.

Giants drop opener, fall to A's 5-0 - McCovey Chronicles:

The Giants have been shutout in four of their last eight games. They were shut out four times in 2004.

'via Blog this'

Somnambulant is a good word to describe the Giants right now.  Morse HR late against the Padres was like a jolt of caffeine, but then it was right back to sleepy time for the G-men. 

The Giants offensive weaknesses were put on full display when contrasted with the A's offensive strengths. In one word, the difference is diversification. 


When the Giants hit HR's, they score runs. 

When the Giants don't hit HR's, they don't score many runs. 


They don't steal bases very much. 

They don't hit and run very much.

They don't move runners with productive outs very much. 

They don't hit very well with RISP. 


They simply don't manufacture runs very well. Part of that can be laid at the doorstep of injuries, particularly to Pagan and Scutaro.  But look at this lineup they threw out there for a big series. WITH THE DH!!! 


Thank God Belt was at .250 or there would have been six out of nine batters hitting .250 or under. You are not going to score many runs with that kind of anemic hitting in your lineup. 



from Yahoo Sports:

San Francisco

	AB	R	H	RBI	HR	BB	K	SB	LOB	AVG
Hunter PenceRF	3	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	2	.299
Joe Panik2B	4	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	3	.231
Brandon Belt1B	4	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	.250
Buster PoseyC	3	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	.287
Michael MorseDH	4	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	2	.271
Tyler ColvinLF	4	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	3	.223
Gregor BlancoCF	4	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	.225
Joaquín Árias3B	3	0	2	0	0	0	0	1	0	.183
Brandon CrawfordSS	3	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	2	.240
Totals	32	0	5	0	0	2	10	1	13

Batting

Runners left in scoring position, 2 out - J Panik 2

Team LOB - 7

Running

SB - J Arias (1, 2nd base off J Chavez/J Jaso)

Fielding

E - B Crawford (13, field, throw)

The Giants were hitting HR's at about a 3% rate per PA when they were winning ( before June 9th swoon ). That rate has been cut in half to about a 2.3% HR/PA rate since.  Runs per game have melted from about 4.4 RPG to 2.5 RPG during the same time frame. 

If you keep the Giants in the park, you have a very good chance of holding them under three runs. They just do not manufacture runs well at all and have dissolved into an old style American League offense that seemingly just sits back and waits for a three run homer. When they happen, it's good times. When they don't happen, life sucks. 

So the answer according to Brian seems to be to target the White Sox Viciedo (another bomber) and put everybody on the trading block, presumably including Posey, Bumgarner and the crown jewel Kyle Crick? 

And still nothing? What does that tell you? 

It's great to be a Giants fan.