Rocky Outlook for the Giants

A series at Mile High Stadium can do so much for team--at least part of it. It can, for example, turn Neifi Perez into an 15 homer, 80 RBI man. It can negate forty games of paltry productivity with a glut of hits that turn victories into propagandas routs. Alas, don't be fooled. An RBI in a 1-1 game doesn't beat a grandslam when it's 10-1.

So it is, with the season a third in the drawer, that the Giants go into inter-league play marginally--even miraculously--outside the line of fire. That will change once teams with winning records (i.e. the BlueJays and the RedSox) roll into town. For now, they're stocking up on brownie points.

Before the series at Coors, where the team scored 53 runs on 51 hits with 9 HRs and 30 walks, the Giants offense was dwelling in the NL basement: As a team San Francisco was hitting .253, 11th in the league; had scored 203 runs, 15th in the league; had hit 46 home runs, 13th in the league, and so on.

Perhaps most ignominously of all, the Giants have ground into 54 double-plays, worst in the majors. They're on course to break the MLB record of 152 in a season. Yet incredibly, only the Padres have left more men on base than San Francisco (7.7 per game). The Giant's base-running exploits my help explain this. As of June 2nd, they had stolen just 13 bases in 49 games. In case you were wondering, that's also the worst in the majors.

Double plays and stolen bases however are one thing. Timely hitting is quite another. If failure is your standard, then the Giant's exel at all in three departments. With runners in scoring position San Francisco is hitting a ominous .230. Timely hitting eludes the Giants like a plague--without it, they won't make the post-season.