By Jeremy Harness

AP photo: San Francisco pitcher Johnny Cueto hopes that giving up two homers in the All Star game including this one to the Kansas City Royals Salvador Perez in the second inning will not shake is confidence going into the second half of the season

SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants finished the first half of the season with the best record in the major leagues. And for those who have followed this team, there is no real shock what the main factor is.

The starting rotation, the Giants’ strength for the past seven years, is once again at the forefront of the success.

To point the way to the Giants’ 57-33 mark, there are two starters who already have gotten double-digit wins. Johnny Cueto, whom the Giants picked up as a free agent in the offseason, leads the way with a 13-1 record to go along with a 2.47 earned-run average and was selected as the National League’s starter in the All-Star Game.

Of the five regular starters, he has the fewest amount of walks (24) while striking out 115 batters. He has done an outstanding job of keeping the ball in the park, as he has also surrendered only six home runs, which is the fewest of the rotation.

Madison Bumgarner (10-4) is the other double-digit winner, and he also owned the lowest ERA with a mark of 1.94. He has struck out 146 hitters thus far in 2016, which is by far the highest number of the entire rotation, and his performance Sunday in throwing a complete-game one-hitter against Arizona etched in a lot of minds that he is still arguably the most dominant pitcher in baseball.

He has not limited his dominance to just the pitching mound, however. Bumgarner has showed the league that he swings a big bat as well. Even though he owns just a .160 batting average as the second half gets ready to kick off, he has uncorked a pair of home runs, including one off Dodgers star Clayton Kershaw.

This grabbed enough attention to warrant talks of Bumgarner possibly becoming a participant in this year’s Home Run Derby, to which the Giants ultimately said no.

Jeff Samardzija has also proved to be a stellar free-agent pickup, amassing a 9-5 record at the All-Star break, striking out 90 hitters against 27 walks, to go along with a 3.91 ERA. Meanwhile, Jake Peavy has overcome a bad start to end the first half with a respectable 5-7 mark with an ERA of 5.09 and carries a nice amount of momentum with him.

However, Matt Cain has struggled to get on track this season, as he carries a 1-5 record into the second half after winning his first decision of the year.