by Michael Duca

SAN FRANCISCO–In my opinion that last road trip that the Giants were on in St.Louis and Pittsburgh went to hell when Giants outfielder Hunter Pence went on the DL. You look at the Giants with Pence and you look at their record without him and look at what they did in St.Louis one run loss, another one run loss there were a lot of games there where the presence of an actual serious bat in the line up made all the difference in the world.

If you turn that one run loss around into a one run win all of a sudden you have a 3-4 road trip and the Pirates were one of the hottest home teams around. That’s how close this trip was being to being okay. Their record at this point in the season is identical to their record at this point last year.

They won 22 games from down the stretch last year to 88 wins and grabbed the second wild card, 88 wins will not be anywhere close to a wild card spot this season or 88 wins will be enough to win the west. Conversely you have to know what is going on in Dodgerland you have to look at the fact that they’ve been touting Zack Grienke.

The Dodgers were 12-3 in games that Grienke pitched after they had lost and they go out to Houston and he gets out pitched in Minute Maid. Then Clayton Kernshawn hands over the bullpen lead and immediately watches it ignite like a thermite bomb. They have major problems in the bullpen, they have major problems with chemistry.

The Dodgers who are in the middle of a five game losing streak have major leadership problems. Lets face it there have been two teams who have changed third base coaches in the last week, one of them seems to be in first place and doesn’t want to be and the other team seems to be in last place and doesn’t want to be.

Michael Duca does the Giants podcast each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com