Brandon Belt

After playing past midnight in Atlanta on Thursday night (well, Friday morning), Bruce Bochy’s ballclub endured a five-hour cross country flight back to San Francisco and didn’t land until the sun was rising. So when San Francisco fell behind 7-1 on Friday evening against the New York Mets, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that the team looked as if it was sleepwalking. For as well as ballplayers have it, that travel schedule is brutal.

Brooks Conrad is out of professional baseball, and the San Francisco Giants aren’t in the midst of a title hunt, but on Tuesday evening, the Atlanta Braves’ defense did its best Conrad impression to help the Giants score a come-from-behind win. Back in 2010, it was Conrad, a fill-in second baseman, who made a trio of errors in Game 3 of the NLDS that helped the Giants capture a narrow 3-2 victory over Atlanta. That win helped Bruce Bochy’s ballclub take control of the series en route to the franchise’s first World Series title in the San Francisco era, so understandably, Tuesday’s victory didn’t take on the same type of historical significance.

Kevin Frandsen from KNBR 1050’s The Audible joins the digital lab to call out the MLB’s replay review system for it’s two missed calls last night.

Monday night’s matchup between the Braves and the Giants was the first time the National League foes squared off in Atlanta’s recently constructed SunTrust Park, but the shimmying, shaking, floating and fluttering that took place on the new playing surface were familiar sights for both clubs. The outcome? That too was familiar. For the Giants at least.

The Colorado Rockies are in first place in the National League West, and after the weekend, there should be a large pile of thank you notes mailed back to 24 Willie Mays Plaza in San Francisco. The upstart Rockies lead the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks by 1.0 game in the division, and they have the Giants’ struggles to thank for their current status as the front-runners.

After back-to-back subpar offensive outings against the Minnesota Twins, the San Francisco Giants are shaking up their lineup for Sunday’s series finale. But even though the Giants managed just two runs in the first two games of their series with the Twins, manager Bruce Bochy said the team’s struggles at the plate aren’t the reason he’s giving some of his regulars a day off.

After San Francisco dropped its second straight contest against the American League Central-leading Minnesota Twins by a score of 3-2, manager Bruce Bochy expressed frustration at the fact so many of his team’s key players are producing well below their career averages.

Giants’ right-hander Jeff Samardzija entered his Saturday start in the midst of a historic run. The man the Giants affectionately call “Shark” became the first pitcher since 1900 to record over 50 strikeouts while issuing just one walk or fewer in a span of seven starts dating back to the first week of May.

After a four and a half hour flight back to the west coast on Thursday evening, the San Francisco Giants return home at a crossroads. At 25-37 and 13.5 games back of the Colorado Rockies in the National League West, the Giants have underperformed relative to nearly every possible expectation this season.

Johnny Cueto had one of his best outings of the season and the Giants continued to swing the bats well en route to a 7-1 victory Sunday over the visiting Atlanta Braves.