Why our local major league baseball franchise is struggling: an analysis

WARNING: This post is going to be heavily baseball-related.

Went to our first Giants game if the year on Saturday. They won! The first notable thing (apart from the fact that beers cost the same this year) was the resurgence and continued amazing pitching of one Barry William Zito, now toting an unfuckingbelievable 3-0 record and 1.32 ERA. Now, I may have been a tad hard on Mr. Zito occasionally in the past, but all is forgiven.

I've heard all kinds of weirdo psychological explanations for this, like he's somehow convinced himself it's the second half of the season or something and last night an astrologer on KNBR patiently explained that no, DUH, it's because Jupiter is in Scorpio or some shit like that but I DON'T CARE as long as this keeps up. We shouldn't even be talking about this. It feels like we're going to jinx it. Just smile and nod at Z when you see him at Tacolicious and that'll be fine. He banged Alyssa Milano! But I digress.

The second notable thing is the COMPLETE FUCKING LACK OF ANY MEANINGFUL OFFENSE. You see, the object of the game of baseball is to have your runners cross home plate in quantities greater than the opposing club's runners. THIS SIMPLE FACT HAS ESCAPED THE GIANTS.

In the past 7 games, the G's have scored 1, 2, 0, 2, 4, 2, and 0 runs. My old softball team, which was comprised mainly of moderately-functioning alcoholics and guys with hip replacements, regularly scored more runs than that. We had a guy who separated his shoulder sliding into third and HE scored more runs that that. Pathetic.

The weird thing is, the Giants rank 18th in the bigs in batting average with runners in scoring position (.231), which doesn't sound THAT bad, but I am so fucking sick of seeing guys stranded on second as someone (*cough*Bowker*cough) strikes out swinging at a pitch in the dirt.

Remember how the Giants brought in DeRosa and Huff to help with the offense? .235 and .238, respectively. Oh thanks that's a big help.

What's going on here? I can think of 4 possible explanations.

1. The Giants don't understand the rules of the game of baseball

i.e., the object of the game is to score runs (see above). I consider the likelihood of this fairly low because Randy Johnson was here last year and he's old and he's seen a lot of games and probably figured it out and told some of the other guys and they probably told the rest of the players, like when that one monkey figured out how to crack open nuts with a rock and told the other monkeys and now they're basically a simian version of Emerald Nuts.

2. Not enough steroids

Now we're onto something. More steroids=more home runs=more runs generally. I nominate Bowker to get on the juice. He'll look fine with a bigger head.

3. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and those liberals in Congress

Your one-size-fits-all explanation for anything that goes wrong in the country.

4. "We're having a tough time getting runs across the board"

Gee, thanks for the insight, Captain Obvious Bruce Bochy.