Giants: Lineup Card Nightmare

Andrew Baggarly said it best a couple days ago...

When asked what he would do if he were given the pieces that Bochy has to plug into the lineup:

"I would exchange all my scrabble tiles"

In the Giants 4 straight losses, they have scored a total of 7 runs. But with runners in scoring position, they are 0 for 26 during that span.

Some blame the Giants having to fill the DH for 3 games, but besides Huff's 0 for 4 performance, Rowand filled in okay going 2 for 7 in the second 2 games.

Some blame the tough opposing pitchers, but if you think Graham Godfrey is even in the vicinity of "dominating" with his 10.38 ERA entering Friday's game, you have been mistaken. A minor leaguer making a spot start against Tim Lincecum should NOT be getting his first major league win of his career.

The problem is simply what I've stated earlier.. Hitting with Runners in Scoring POSITION.

Of course that means that guys need to first, get into scoring position which brings me to my first point. Why haven't the Giants been using some speed? We are not a fast team by far, but Torres and Burriss are both capable of stealing a bag, and both have not been sent in steal situations causing many to wonder, maybe Torres isn't 100% right now, but Burriss?

But even without using speed, did you see that number? 0 for 26! If we changed that to 2 for 26, we might've won 1 of those 4 games.

Secondly, we have the obvious problem at catcher. In case you didn't know, you cannot fill a hole with a hole. Stewart is hitting .174 and Whiteside is hitting .190. As far as I'm concerned, Whiteside has been playing himself out of a starting job. So far we've seen from Whiteside, that he can't hit, he can't throw guys out at second, but that he is comfortable with the pitching staff, although some may argue that our most important pitcher Timmy doesn't seem to comfortable with him yet.

Stewart on the other hand has only proven that he can throw guys out at second. Together they are one below mediocre catcher who help to give the Giants an 8-9 hole in the lineup to compliment the rest of our under performing hitters.

Third, Brandon Crawford has amazingly done worse than Miguel Tejada on offense now, and maybe the offensive spark he provided has been drained. On defense, I love the kid, its great having him there especially since all our games are so close. But its tough to keep him in when his average has dropped to .197.

To make things worse, there are no easy fixes on the horizon. Brandon Belt and Mike Fontenot are both out with injuries, but I don't see an offensive turn around when either of those guys come back. Huff moving to the outfield would kick out either Nate or Cody, both of whom are not the problems with this offense. Fontenot coming back might force the Giants to lose either Burriss or Crawford who have both shown some promise, and with Fontenot hitting .207 before he went down, its not a big deal anyway.

Bochy has his work cut out for him, in his game of Lineup Scrabble all he has are a bunch of vowels..

Day off today, so Giants can't lose, Twins tomorrow

Laws of the Day

Top 5 Giants hitters by batting average (with at least 100 at bats)

Freddy Sanchez .289
Pablo Sandoval .287
Buster Posey .284
Cody Ross .270
Nate Schierholtz .256