Giants Slipping Away After Loss to AZ

The Giants had their chance to get right back into the NL West race this weekend vs. Arizona at AT&T Park, and things couldn't have started off better Friday night with their new star going 4-4 and them winning in easy fashion. The next two games couldn't have been more opposite.

Instead of the Giants moving to within 3-4 games of the D-Backs, they will enter Monday a whopping 7 games down with slightly over 20 left. In essence, they'd need Arizona to pretty much tank in these last few weeks, and they themselves would need to go on an absolute tear, something they haven't done since the all-star break. A lot of people declared the season "un-officially" over Sunday after the lose, and while their backs are certainly against the wall, I'm waiting another week or so before I make any declarations myself. I still am not at all overly impressed by D-Backs roster, and I still think they could hit a hiccup. Sure, they have some young stud hitters like Justin Upton, Chris Young and Miguel Montero, not to mention Aaron Hill has regained his all-star form since he arrived in the desert, but their bullpen is average at best, and their rotation, save for Kennedy and Hudson, aint that special. I guess in comparison though, their offense blows the Giants out of the water, and right now, the Giants pitching staff isn't even at full strength, so they don't have that huge edge on Arizona there right now, and they just don't have any momentum. They're losing at home, they're losing on the road, they're getting injured left and right. I'm not going to make any excuses for this team, cause I don't need to, but I kind of knew the chance to repeat went down with Buster in May.

What's irritating to me though, was listening to Marty Lurie on KNBR today, a host who is absolutely starting to get on my nerves. All he cares to talk about are the guys they should look at for next year and refused to hold Hensley Muellens accountable for any of the Giants hitting woes. I'm not blaming all the Giants suffering on Hensley, the Giants simply don't have a lot of talent in their lineup, but I would like to see the Giants hitting coach more active in helping the veterans in big slumps like Aubrey Huff and Cody Ross. Surprisingly though, Cody Ross has taken off a bit since being inserted into the #1 hole in the lineup. Cody hit another homer to lead off the game against Daniel Hudson Sunday, but that was all the Giants would put on the board against the D-Backs #2. He narrowly out-pitched Ryan Vogelsong who took another tough luck loss despite throwing 7.2 innings of solid ball, allowing just 2 runs and 5 hits with 6 K's. Again, a Giants starter has to be left wondering what more he can possibly do to help this team win games.

The first thing I'd like to see done, is Hector Sanchez inserted into the lineup everyday at catcher for a week and see what he does. It's not like he'll hurt the pitching too much and the Giants could use the stick (remember Panda in '09). Then I'd try out Brett Pill at 2nd and move Kepp over to short. Maybe not the best defensive middle, but defense is not what's killing this team right now. Kepp' can't be that much worse than Cabrera or Tejada at short and Pill was supposedly serviceable at 2B in AAA and was ripping the snot out of the ball. The Giants don't need to make a whole youth movement makeover and give up on the year yet, but maybe a youth infusion could rejuvenate this squad.