Wednesday, August 31, 2011

San Francisco Giants - Pathetic

By Kalen Patrick

The San Francisco Giants won their first title in San Francisco not even 1 year ago after 52 years of suffering. You know who suffered too for those 50+ years? The fans. This team ended the suffering when Brian Wilson struck out Nelson Cruz and I have never seen a fan base so happy. Now fast forward to last night (August 30th 2011), the team has been struggling for a month and the fans were booing the team off the field.

A part of me is wondering if the fans are justified in booing the team that still are the defending world champs. However, when a team is struggling mightily against the likes of the Houston Astros and Cubs, that just spells bad news. The Giants often struggle to score more than 2 runs, and while the Giants lineup is far from lethal, they do have some capable hitters.

When you look at Jeff Keppinger, Carlos Beltran, Pablo Sandoval, Brandon Belt and Aubrey Huff, all of these guys can hit. And what is funny is they actually are hitting pretty well, Keppinger and Sandoval are hovering at or over .300, Beltran has been hitting over .300 with the Giants, and Belt and Huff both have pop and Belt has been hitting extremely well of late. The problem with the Giants is hitting with RISP (Runners In Scoring Position).

JEFF KEPPINGER HAS BEEN AN EXCELLENT ADDITION, EXPECT HIM TO STICK AROUND

As easy as it is to put all the blame on the hitting, the pitching has been pretty inconsistent too, even with the additions of Beltran and Keppinger, they don't even replace the loss of Posey and Freddy Sanchez. The strength of this team is the pitching and always will be. The losses of Brian Wilson and Sergio Romo certainly don't help, and Vogelsong has come right back down to Earth. To be honest, sometimes it just isn't a teams year, similarly to last year everything going right for the Giants, everything has gone wrong this year.

The future is still very bright for the Giants, young pitching staff, capable hitters, next year the 1st 4 hitters in the lineup should be Keppinger, Sanchez, Sandoval, Posey and possibly they bring back Beltran or sign another bat and with having an improved Brandon Belt. 2010 was the year of the Giants, it may be as simple to say that 2011 is not.

GOOD MEMORIES, SF GIANTS 2010 WORLD CHAMPS

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