by Michael Duca

photo credit bing images Padres announcers Dick Enberg and Mark Grant

SAN FRANCISCO–If you watched Saturday’s game in which Giants pitcher Mike Leake was going you had to ask yourself if Leake was going to be able to outscore Mike Leake. Leake helped his own cause in the Giants victory 10-3 with his first home run of the season and his eighth hit in 62 at bats. He did serve up three runs to the Padres on Sunday and once Leake got the lead he settled down.

For Friday Giants starter Madison Bumgarner nearly pitched a perfecto going into it with two outs in the eighth inning. Mad Bum had faced 23 straight hitters before the no-no was broken up by the Padres Melvin Upton Jr with a single up the middle. BJ Upton was 0-10 against Bumgarner but Melvin Upton Jr is one for one. The name change served him well.

What’s unfortunate on this leg of this homestand is the Giants are losing so many players and I worked over the weekend covering the Padres and Giants series in the TV booth with Padres TV announcer the great Dick Enberg helping him provide stats for the Padres and Enberg said “after 50 years of the game you know that every team has injuries” but Enberg could not recall a club that has had as many significant injuries as the Giants have had.

Three fifths of the Giants starting rotation has been out at one point, all of their starting outfield, their starting double play combination and their third baseman who started the season Casey McGehee was off the roster for the rest of the year. It’s remarkable given what they’ve done all things considered.

Basically the Giants had the best road team in baseball to start the season but once they got out on the road with only three clubs in the bag but as of today the Giants road record is 34-41. Also with Hunter Pence who also has been hurt most of the year. With a Pence in the line up the Giants are 42-21 in two out of three game series that he plays.

That’s just an astonishing number for one guy to have that kind of impact and he’s basically five or six games over .500 right now to be 21 games over .500. That means their 14 games under .500 without him. It’s a huge difference with one player. It speaks to what he is on the field and what he could do in the outfield. What Pence could do with his arm and with his legs and what he could do with his bat.

Michael Duca does the Giants podcasts each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to Miguel below