Author: jeremy2878

By Jeremy Harness

The good news that came out of Thursday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers is that center fielder Angel Pagan made his return to the lineup and looked good doing it.

The leadoff man collected two hits, including a bloop single into shallow right to start the game, as well as making a very nice sliding catch on the warning track in right center.

Not too shabby for a guy who has missed a total of 44 games this season because of a back injury.

Now with the bad news; the Giants dropped the rubber match of a three-game series by virtue of a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Brewers at Miller Park, while the division-leading Dodgers added one more game to their advantage over the second-place Giants.

As he did last week in New York, starter Jake Peavy pitched brilliantly but got no run support from his teammates (the one run the Giants mustered was scored by Peavy himself).

In the end, Peavy remained winless as a Giant and saw his overall season mark go to 1-12. That’s the type of thing that can happen when you have the worst run support in the majors, which Peavy has. He surrendered three runs on nine hits, walking three and striking out another three.

The Brewers got on the board first in the bottom of the first, when admitted PED user Ryan Braun doubled into the gap in right-center to score Jonathan Lucroy.

After the Giants tied the game at 1-1 in the fifth, Milwaukee scored two runs in the sixth, as Khris Davis and Mark Reynolds each drove in runs to effectively put the game away.

The Giants could not get anything going against Brewers starter Wily Peralta (14-6), which didn’t bode well for Peavy at all.

The Giants will head to Kansas City for a three-game series against the Royals, who are now in the hunt for the American League Central crown, something that has been completely out of the picture for decades until now.

Madison Bumgarner will attempt to get the Giants back on the right track when he takes the ball Friday against Kansas City lefty Jason Vargas.

By Jeremy Harness

Things are starting to get better for the Giants. Much better.

The Giants took the second of a three-game series from the Milwaukee Brewers Wednesday night in an offensive explosion that they are not used to experiencing. The team has had a very successful road trip that has them within striking distance of the division-leading Dodgers, something that was in serious doubt as recent as two weeks ago.

Their fortunes may be about to turn around even more.

That’s because center fielder Angel Pagan is set to make his return to the lineup for Thursday’s game. Pagan is considered the catalyst of this offense, and he was sorely missed, particularly for the better part of the past two months that saw the Giants fall dramatically from their perch atop the National League West.

Pagan had been out with a nagging back injury, a year after he missed most of the second half of the 2013 season with a hamstring ailment.

Hunter Pence, who went 2-for-6 Wednesday, has done an admirable job filling in at the stop of the lineup after the experiment with Gregor Blanco didn’t exactly work out. Pagan is expected to make a significant impact, barring any further setbacks.

As for the rest of the team, starter Ryan Vogelsong got plenty of run support in Wednesday’s 7-3 win over the Brewers, something that he hasn’t been accustomed to lately. Pablo Sandoval and Michael Morse each drove in three runs, with Sandoval nailing a crucial two-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to give Giants enough cushion to cruise the rest of the way to victory.

Vogelsong wasn’t too bad himself. He went six strong innings and gave up only a run on seven hits, walking one and striking out three in lowering his ERA to 3.77.

Juan Gutierrez, however, gave up a pair of runs in the seventh inning without retiring a single batter and allowed the Brewers to climb back into the game. Thankfully, the other relievers were able to pick up the slack, as Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo and closer Santiago Casilla each pitched scoreless innings in closing out Milwaukee.

By Jeremy Harness

Major League Baseball’s trade deadline came and went Thursday afternoon, but not without most of the playoff-contending teams making significant deals to bolster their lineups in time to make a second-half push.

The one team that was MIA on Thursday was, of course, the Giants, who judging by the way they conducted business near the deadline, look like they are pretty much conceding the National League West title to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Granted, the Giants got a nice addition to the rotation in Jake Peavy last week, but in order to catch the division-leading Dodgers, they had to do a lot better than that.

For starters, they did absolutely nothing about their long-standing issue at second base. Ehire Adrianza and Marco Scutaro are both on the disabled list with different injuries, and neither appears to be ready to come back any time soon.

As a result, the Giants will be forced to play Dan Uggla, a notorious butcher at the position whose only saving grace had been his bat, which has declined in the past few years to the point where no other teams would touch him after he was released by Atlanta a few weeks ago.

That is, of course, until general manager Brian Sabean went on a wing and a prayer that a simple change in scenery would make all the difference for a player who has really had only two solid big-league seasons to begin with.

It appears that all the Giants have been doing this season following their June collapse is playing the hope game, that all of their injured key players would magically come back and lead a major resurgence to catapult the team back into the postseason without having to make any real upgrades to do it.

In addition, Sabean failed to upgrade the team’s leadoff situation. This is especially important because Angel Pagan’s back injury is almost exactly the same as Scutaro’s, and the Giants are simply hopeful that Pagan will be able to return at some point and save their badly-struggling lineup.

The Dodgers have a bona fide leadoff man in Dee Gordon. The Giants, on the other hand, have been using Hunter Pence as their top-of-the-lineup guy. Even though Pence has been decent at that position, he is much better suited as a No.2 or even a No. 5.

This isn’t all Sabean’s fault, however. The main reason why the Giants could not pull the trigger on any significant moves is due to the fact that their farm system, once a reliable tool in situations like this, is not strong enough to entice other teams into giving up one of their key players.

So when you add it all up, the best move that the Giants were able to muster up was getting Peavy, who still a serviceable starter, is a few years past his prime and is ceiling at this point of his career is holding down the No.4 spot in the rotation.

Not exactly what you’re looking for when trying to catch a team that is gaining momentum and is already significantly better than you anyway. Now, it seems that the only question that remains is how long it will take the Dodgers to wrap up the division.

Meanwhile, that other Bay Area ballclub didn’t exactly half-step in the wheeling-and-dealing game.

By Jeremy Harness

In the month of June, the Giants went from having an 8 ½-game lead in the National league West to currently trailing the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers by a game heading into the second half of the season.

They don’t seem to have any kind of momentum going for them at this point. Well, with the exception of a familiar face but very recently had been the most unlikely of heroes. Two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum was once the catalyst around which the Giants’ rotation fed off of.

However, as the velocity on his fastball dropped, his ability to locate did not improve. Until recently, his ability to adjust was even worse, and it showed in his win-loss record as well as his ERA.

Two months ago, Curt Schilling listed in ESPN The Magazine a handful of pitchers who, like Lincecum, had lost a considerable amount of velocity and graded the manner in which they have adjusted to that. Felix Hernandez, who started Tuesday’s All-Star Game for the American League, got a well-deserved “A” grade.

Lincecum, on the other hand, was given an “F,” as he had struggled mightily with his control for the past two years as his velocity dropped from his accustomed 95-mph fastball to a more modest 90. In order to be successful as a major-league pitcher with less-than-overpowering stuff, hitting your spots becomes crucial.

For the better part of those two years, the control continued to be lacking, and that it didn’t appear that he would be able to grasp that any time soon.

But then, a funny thing happened: Lincecum seemed to figure it out. In his previous four starts combined, he gave up only one earned run in 30 1/3 innings, all of them resulting in Lincecum victories. Among them was the no-hitter that he tossed June 25 against San Diego, during which he only walked one batter and ended up kick-starting the hot streak that he is currently on going into the second half of the season.

The Giants need to find a way to ride that kind of momentum, such as when they went through the 2012 postseason despite falling behind in the first two rounds against Cincinnati and St. Louis, respectively.

Lincecum looks like he has figured it out. Starting Friday night in Miami as they begin a three-game series against the Marlins to begin the second half, the Giants need to recapture that feeling, just as their resurgent right-hander has.

By Jeremy Harness

If you look at any World Series-contending team in the majors, they all have similar categories: solid pitching, timely hitting, and one other major component. They also have a solid table-setter at the top of the order.

The Giants’ pitching has been hit-or-miss throughout the season, as has been their hitting in key situations. However, the area that has consistently hurt them thus far in the 2014 campaign

Pagan initially landed on the disabled list June 25 with a nagging back lower back injury that has had him out of action since June 14, but the team is hopeful that he will be back in the fold as they prepare to make their stand in the second half of the season.

The Giants originally expected Pagan to be ready to go in time for their three-game series against St. Louis, but he suffered a setback in his recovery while running, as he experienced a bulging disc in his back, forcing him to see a back specialist in Los Angeles following that.

Injuries are nothing new to the veteran center fielder. Pagan played in only 71 games last season before being sidelined for the remainder of the year with a hamstring injury in late June.

Without Pagan at the top of the order, the Giants have struggled in large part in that part of their game. Since he has been out of the lineup, the team has had to use Gregor Blanco, who has been virtually useless at the plate and hardly gets on base anyway.

Hunter Pence has checked out fairly well in that position, but he has his biggest impact in the fifth spot in the lineup behind Pablo Sandoval, with the purpose of driving in runs.

In other words, in order for the Giants to make a big run in the second half – and put the memory of a horrible month of June in the rearview mirror – they desperately need to get Pagan back on the field. Without him, they will likely continue to have a tough time getting things started in the right direction.

And that does not bode well at all for a team that figures to be in a tooth-and-nail battle with the team in the Los Angeles Dodgers that far exceeds the Giants in raw talent.

By Jeremy Harness

SAN FRANCISCO – When the Giants were bludgeoned by Washington exactly a month ago, not very many people treated it as a very big deal at the time.

That kicked off a major slump that lasted the entire month of June, however, and their 9 ½-game lead in the National League West disintegrated into a one-game deficit going into Wednesday night’s game.

The Giants desperately need any wins they can get at this point to get things back on track, and they got one Wednesday night against the best team in the major leagues in the form of the Oakland Athletics, 5-2, at AT&T Park before a crowd of 41,427 that seemed to be split down the middle.

This is just one win, but as crazy as this season has been already for them, this could prove to be the catapult that the Giants have been seeking for a month. It was a particularly-rewarding win because not only did it come at the expense of their cross-bay rivals, but that the A’s had held them to a single run in the first two games of this four-game series.

Starter Matt Cain got the Giants on the right path and kept them there while also getting the run support that has obviously been lacking for the better part of a week.

Cain went six solid innings and gave up only a pair of runs on five hits and held the lead throughout his outing. The win was his first since May 15, although he had pitched solidly in his previous two starts, giving up only two runs in 13 1/3 innings and being stuck with an 0-1 mark nonetheless.

The Giants took their first lead of the series in the second inning, as Joe Panik lined a single into left field following a one out-walk by Gregor Blanco. Blanco was getting ready to pull into third to put runners on the corners, but when A’s left fielder Yoenis Cespedes misplayed the ball and let it skip past him, Blanco turned the corner and made it home, giving the Giants a 1-0 lead.

The third inning was a clear indication that the bounces were going the Giants’ way this time. Center fielder Coco Crisp, who is considered one of the biggest All-Star snubs for the A’s this year, nearly came up with a spectacular diving catch of a shallow fly ball by Pablo Sandoval but had the ball pop out of his glove as he hit the ground.

The next batter, Buster Posey, skipped a single just past the outstretched glove of shortstop Jed Lowrie and allowed Brandon Belt to score.

In the fourth inning, Hunter Pence, who was named to his third career All-Star team on Sunday, launched one into the new vegetable garden beyond the center-field wall to boost the Giants’ lead to 3-1

After Oakland had cut the lead to one in the top of the sixth, the Giants again widened their advantage in the bottom half. Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford led off the inning with back-to-back singles against reliever Eric O’Flaherty.

With one out, Pence shot one up the middle just off the glove of second baseman Alberto Callaspo, which allowed Panik to motor home.

Two batters later, a wild pitch allowed Sandoval to come home and put the Giants ahead, 5-2.

From that point, the Giants bullpen, which was solid during the team’s hot start to the season, returned to form. Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo and new closer Santiago Casilla combined to not surrender a single baserunner to go along with three strikeouts.

By Jeremy Harness

SAN FRANCISCO – When your team gets shut out, as this one did Wednesday night, you ask whether the offense was lousy or if the pitcher was just really good. In this particular case, it was clearly the latter.

The Giants got stifled by a stellar Adam Wainwright, who kept the Giants off-balance for most of the night and forcing them into mostly weak groundouts, as the Giants suffered a 2-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at AT&T Park. They were shut out for the seventh time this season, twice by the Cardinals.

Despite the setback, however, the Giants remain atop the National League West, at least for one more day. The

The Giants knew that they were in for a battle against Wainwright, though, since the right-hander had given up only two runs over his previous three starts, during which he pitched 23 innings. He didn’t miss a beat on Wednesday, as he went 7 2/3 innings and gave up only four hits, walking two and striking out one in keeping the Giants from crossing the plate.

In the process, Wainwright now owns the lowest ERA in the majors, surpassing Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto (1.99) with a mark of 1.89.

Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong ripped through the first two innings on Wednesday but ran into big trouble in the third, during which the Cardinals scored a pair of runs. Oscar Taveras led off with a double down the right-field line, and Mark Ellis followed that with a single before Matt Carpenter singled to bring in Taveras.

Matt Holliday then singled in Ellis and gave St. Louis a 2-0 lead and, although Vogelsong settled down very nicely to go seven innings and surrender only one more hit the rest of the way.

Unfortunately for him, Vogelsong has started to get used to this. He has not gotten any run support for the second straight start, as he surrendered only three runs in 13 innings while allowing only one walk while striking out 15 batters in those two starts, both losses.

Meanwhile, the Giants were only able to mount a pair of scoring threats against Wainwright. Oddly enough, both of those rallies were started by a rookie and not considered a big star by any stretch.

Rookie second baseman Joe Panik led off the sixth with a single before Vogelsong put down a nice sac bunt to get him over to second while Gregor Blanco almost beat out a grounder but nonetheless moved Panik to third.

However, Hunter Pence could not bring him in, as his bouncer to short ended the inning and kept the Giants off the scoreboard.

The Giants put together a two-out rally against Wainwright, as Panik and Hector Sanchez strung together back-to-back hits to put runners on the corners as well as get Wainwright out of the game. However, after working the count full, Blanco, who has not given the Giants very much at the plate at all this season, popped out to end the inning and keep the shutout intact.

By Jeremy Harness

Two weeks ago, the Giants were the best team in baseball. Now, they can’t seem to get out of their own way.

Wednesday afternoon, not even Tim Hudson could get the Giants back on the right track.

Last week, Hudson was able to lead the Giants in avoiding a four-game sweep at the hands of the Washington Nationals. They have not won a game since that Thursday, and the Chicago White Sox pounded on him to beat them, 7-6, at US Cellular Field.

The hits came early and often against the right-hander, who has been known as the team’s stopper thus far. Hudson lasted only 4 2/3 innings and gave up seven runs on 12 hits, walking one batter and not recording a single strikeout.

The White Sox scored two runs in the very first inning, two more in the fourth and an additional three in the fifth to build a 7-2 lead.

The Giants, to their credit, built a comeback in the late innings. In the seventh, Buster Posey’s sac fly brought in a run.

The next inning, Gregor Blanco doubled in a run to further cut into the lead, and Hunter Pence immediately followed that by bringing in another one with a fielder’s choice.

The Giants have now lost five straight games as well as eight of their last nine contests. Besides all of that, they entered Wednesday’s game tied with Oakland for the best record in the major leagues.

There will likely be brighter days in the not-too-distant future. Their next game is on Friday, when they head to Arizona to start a three-game series with the Diamondbacks, who are 30-44 and stand 14 games behind them in the National League West.

By Jeremy Harness

The Giants continued to play great baseball on the road, as they gained the upper hand on the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1, at the Great American Ball Park Thursday afternoon.

They leave town having won two of the three-game series and are arguably the best team in baseball at this moment. It was also the first time in five seasons that the Giants have won a series in Cincinnati, with the exception of the 2012 Division Series during which the Giants roared back from a 2-0 deficit to win the final three games there to move to the next round.

In the process, the Giants surpassed the A’s for the top spot in Yahoo! Sports’s power rankings, a place that they haven’t been in quite some time.

Madison Bumgarner paced the Giants on Thursday, retiring the last 16 batters he faced en route to going eight dominant innings while giving up only one run on three hits, walking none and striking out five.

Well, it was another game, and another tape measure shot by Michael Morse, who doesn’t look like he’s coming down to earth any time soon. In the second, righty Mike Leake left a fastball on the inside part of the plate, and the big man smashed it 440 feet into the upper deck in left field to tie the game at 1-1.

Brandon Crawford gave the Giants the lead for good with a three-run homer off Leake. Buster Posey added just a little insurance in the seventh with his RBI single into shallow left to score Angel Pagan.

The Giants have now won 11 of their past 14 games and moved to a season-high 18 games over .500, which also gives them the best record in the majors at 39-21.

In the process, they moved to 8 ½ games ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West, and they get to celebrate by coming home for a three-game series that starts Friday against the New York Mets, a team that is currently four games under .500 and have lost their last three games.