By Morris Phillips

Get mad. That, according to manager Bruce Bochy, is the solution to what ails the Giants.

“Get mad at what’s happened here and do something about it. You’ve got to do that. Do something yourself, including myself, everybody. That’s the best approach,” Bochy said, repeating his message to a group of team leaders in a closed door meeting after the Giants dropped a 7-2 decision to the Cardinals on Thursday, their 17th loss in their previous 22 games.

Get mad and get out of town. With the myriad of issues affecting the Giants’ play over the last month, playing at normally friendly AT&T Park may be the biggest one. Thursday’s sloppy effort resulted in the Giants’ 14th loss in their last 17 games at home. Whether it’s the cooler than normal weather with the heavier air keeping the better struck balls in the park, pitchers that can’t get loose, pesky seagulls or too many darn sellout crowds, something’s not working along the Bay.

So the Giants head to San Diego for the Fourth of July where they will get Brandon Belt back into the lineup after an extended run on the disabled list to heal the broken bone in his hand. The Giants will welcome the added punch Belt provides at the top of their lineup where normal leadoff man Angel Pagan is still out, and the preferred two-hole guy, Marco Scutaro has yet to make his season debut.

What’s certain is a fractured offensive attack won’t do. The Giants just scored 19 runs over the length of their 10-game home stand. That means a lot of fans sitting on their hands, Giants’ hitters headed back to the dugout after making outs, and little room for error for the team’s pitching staff.

On Thursday, Madison Bumgarner felt the pinch, allowing a pair of first inning-runs, three more in the fourth and the conclusion of his outing in the fifth with the Giants trailing 5-1. In many ways, Bumgarner’s in the midst of his finest season yet. In other ways, he’s just been dreadful pitching at home. Over his last four home starts, Bumgarner’s 0-3 and allowed a whopping 29 hits.

“You always want to play at home and I haven’t pitched very good here all year,” he said. “I don’t know what it is. You can’t give in, you have to keep grinding.”

The Dodgers won Thursday, 3-2 over the Rockies in Denver to retake first place in the NL West. If anything positive can be taken from the Giants’ month of poor play is that the race for the division is still in directly in front of them. Their 42-21 start—the best of any big league club in the last 10 seasons—is still keeping them afloat, but there’s no grace period left. They’ll need to play better immediately, starting in San Diego and continuing next week with the major league-best A’s on tap for four games.

“Things aren’t going our way at times and other times we’re making mistakes,” Bochy said. “It’s hard on the coaches, it’s hard on those guys. We have a lot of baseball left. We have time to get this right. This is a group that has learned from the past. We know how critical every series is now.”

The Giants turn to Matt Cain and his unsightly 1-6 record in the mid-afternoon series opener at Petco Park. The Padres will give the ball to Eric Stultz, who leads the majors with 11 losses. Stultz, who has pitched more effectively in his last three starts still has lost eight of his last nine starts.