No matter how painful it is to lose a 1 run game, one that your team could have, maybe should have, won, a much more disturbing trend is to start losing a bunch of blowouts. The difference? Teams are going to win a percentage of close games on luck alone. Teams on the losing end of blow outs never had a chance. For another excellent take on what's going on with the Giants, I would recommend El Lefty Malo's current post on his blog. The link can be found over in the column on the left hand side of this page. A key error by newcomer Mike Fontenot led to a crushing 3 run HR by Jimmy Rollins turning a game that could have been tied at 2-2 in the late innings into a route for the Phillies. Key lines:
Andres Torres- 1 for 4, HR(12). BA= .287. Torres continues to be a bright spot.
Pat Burrell- 1 for 4, HR(14). BA= .257. Not sure if Burrell is part of the problem on defense, but at least he is making a huge contribution offensively.
Matt Cain- 6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 3.11. I know you can't expect a team go errorless all season. Pitchers need to be able to pick up their team mates who make occasional errors. I looked up Mike Fontenot's UZR rating on fangraphs.com and he's actually a plus fielder at 2B over his career. I also know this one hurt....a lot! Cain dug himself a hole, but could have been out of the inning with a 2-2 tie. That gets him to the later innings where a better set of relievers could have kept it close and the GIants might have had a chance. instead, the route was on.
With a loss, the Giants fall 6 games behind the Padres who beat up on the Cubs 5-1. They also dropped 2 games behind the Phillies in the Wild Card race. It's starting to slip away, folks.
Jonathan Sanchez would not seem to be a very good bet to stop the bleeding tomorrow against Cole Hamels.
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