By Jack Loder
There are countless reasons that the Giants are 10 games under .500 at the ⅓ mark of the season. To name a few, the club has suffered from lackluster starting pitching, a bad bullpen, and an offense that has, aside from a couple of fruitful weeks, vastly underperformed. An underrated culprit has been the Giants’ inability to gain or maintain any shred of positive momentum to offset painful slides. You can’t secure a playoff spot in May, but you can certainly lose one.
The Giants are the only team in Major League Baseball that has yet to sweep a series. Their longest win streak of three has happened twice, and they haven’t threatened a fourth straight on either of those occasions. The abysmal stretches far outweigh the euphoric ones, and that’s a recipe for a 22-32 record.
The Giants have lost about five games they absolutely should have won. Every fanbase can point to those handful of losses and fantasize about what their record could be if they hadn’t slipped away. The rational train of thought then remembers the wins that should have been losses. Generally, it all evens out. The problem for the Giants is that they haven’t won a single game they truly should have lost. There’s no buoyancy offsetting a handful of blown saves and late leads squandered. Will there be? Very likely. But will wins that should have been losses equal losses that should have been wins. Very probably not. That’s another recipe for a season that ends with 70 or fewer wins.
The Giants have been a bad late inning team, and especially so when trailing in the middle innings. They’ve yet to win a game in which they’ve trailed through six innings. They have one walk-off win, and it came in a game that they already led late before falling behind. The club desperately needs more galvanizing wins like those ones.
Kruk and Kuip both joined the morning show on Tuesday. The legendary duo discussed the White Sox series, another rough loss against the Dbacks, and everything that’s gone wrong through the season’s first third.
Check out those interviews on the KNBR YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.
