I got about halfway through a blog post last week, in which I detailed the Giants’ four consecutive series wins, surprising offense, excellent pitching, lights-out bullpen, and optimistic prospects on the young season.
Well, suffice it to say that a bit has changed between then and now.
Getting swept by the Braves hurt. Not as much as it would hurt to get beaten so soundly by the Padres or the Dodgers, but seeing each and every part of what made your team good break down in systematic fashion can have something of a deflating effect. The pitching staff, which was supposed to prevent losing streaks, collapsed. The bullpen, which was supposed to preserve the leads that seem so few and far between, imploded. The offense, which so far this season has looked like a TV set on loud with some kid playing with the mute button, basically forgot what game they were playing. On the rare instance that they got a lead, well, see above for what happened.
That sucked, and now it’s over, and there’s a lot of baseball left.