Joe Fleming

Most Giants fans are concerned with the recent struggles their team has been going through offensively. It’s hard to accept the fact that the team hasn’t lived up to its previous years of success. For most of this season I’ve said, “Just be patient and they’ll get the bats going.”

Now I find myself less optimistic and here’s why: The Buster Posey injury was more damaging to the team than I thought at the time. Carlos Beltran was more of a Band-aid than a solution and he couldn’t stop the bleeding.

As for Aubrey Huff, I just want to walk up and shake him around a bit, smack him on the face and say, “Stop swinging at the slider off the plate.”

It’s not just the offense, although it’s about 80 percent offensive struggles; the pitching has also been spotty. Jonathan Sanchez looks like he has a war raging between his ears half the time – and Barry Zito, don’t even get me started. I like the guy, but it’s time Zito rides a unicorn out of town and opens his own egg white and avocado restaurant in Beijing.

Giants fans, it’s time to bring our expectations back down to earth and start looking to next year for a return to the fall classic.

Joe Fleming can be reached at [email protected].

 

Mitchell Wilson

When the worst team in baseball gets mathematically eliminated in August and beats the Giants consistently, it shows the Giants aren’t going to defend their title. They’re not even going to make the playoffs.

Pitching wins games but not when they need a shutout every game. The Giants were a weak offense team last year and now they are even worse this year.

Career years by Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff won key games for the Giants last year.  They would be bench players on nearly any other team this year as they have regressed below their career averages.

Cody Ross has gone from being a boss to an automatic pop-up machine. Pablo Sandoval rose up from the dinner table and Buster Posey went down on a freak injury.

The pitching is still stellar, but it has to be frustrating to know giving up one solo home run means you’re probably going to end up with a no decision.

No National League team has successfully defended a title since the 1976 Cincinnati Reds and it’s not happening this year. Hopefully the Giants’ management won’t prepare for 2012 with a team full of overpaid, veterans hitters who are far past their prime.

Mitchell Wilson can be reached at [email protected].

 

AJ Taylor

The team’s ultimate competitor, closer Brian Wilson, is out with a sore arm. Combine that with pitcher Sergio Romo’s injury and you have a Giants pitching staff that lacks the hard-nosed bullpen that took it through the World Series last season.

But these injuries couldn’t have come at a better time. Just when the Giants were getting complacent, making errors they hadn’t since 2007, losing games to historically bad teams, their man with no limits falls.

The Diamondbacks’ grip hasn’t slipped once and Colorado is breathing down Bruce Bochy’s neck.

These are the struggles that are needed to inspire the Giants to get going. This is where we see what the defending champions are made of and if they will overcome the hurdles of a long season.

Will they galvanize in the face of adversity? Or will they collapse under the pressure of catching a team they never thought they would have to – the surging Diamondbacks?

The Giants were trailing Arizona by five games as of Monday night, but with six games against the division rival left in the season, anything is still possible.

A couple bats could recapture their 2010 form and catapult the Giants to the division title.

What team will we see down the stretch? Champs or chumps?

AJ Taylor can be reached at [email protected].