The San Francisco Giants have lost three straight and 6 of their past 10. The Giants sit five games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West and hold just a ½ game lead over two teams in the race for a NL wildcard spot.
This is a far cry from where the Giants were on June 26, when the club held down first place in the NL West by eight games over the Dodgers. At the All-Star break, the Giants held the best record in baseball at 57-33.
However, since then the Giants are 20-35 which has included losing streaks of six straight games, five straight games and four straight games.
The bullpen for the Giants has not helped the club of late. In their past 10 chances for a save, they bullpen has blow six, which is six additional games posted in the Giants loss column that likely should have been wins. Just converting half of the blown saves could have helped prevent their current freefall.
The Giants pen has blown saves on 27 occasions this season, which is a large number for any team. Santiago Casilla alone has eight blown saves, which leads baseball.
The Giants offense has one big thing that jumps off the page. Buster Posey does not seem like himself. He is definitely not the center of the Giants hitting problems, but this year he is not hitting as well as the past.
He is hitting .288, which is not bad but it is not what Giants fans have learned to expect from the talented catcher. He is homerless in the past 47 games with the last one back on July 16.
It appeared the Giants may have turned things around last weekend with a swept of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but they have lost three straight to a poor San Diego team to see their wildcard lead shrink to a half game.
The Giants could only score five runs during their three game series with San Diego. It was the first sweep by San Diego in San Francisco since May of 2010. The team batting average for the first half of the month is a paltry .217, with Posey, Brandon Crawford, Denard Span and Angel Pagan all batting under .200 for the month.
If the Giants miss the playoffs, if could be considered an historic fail on the part of the franchise comparable to the 2014 A’s, the 2012 Rangers and the 2011 Red Sox.
