Get used to it. Every fifth game for the rest of the season is against the Padres. For 20% of the games left in the season, Mike Adams and Heath Bell will each pitch against the Giants.
So what's more annoying, the red holiday hats, or the Padres? Let's hear it, science:
| Holiday hats | Padres |
| Games with them almost always correspond with a loss | Games with them almost always correspond with a loss |
| Don't want to look at them | Don't want to look at them |
| See way more of them than we should because of some stupid Bud Selig idea | See way more of them than we should because of some stupid Bud Selig idea |
| Suck the offense from every Giants' hitter like a vampire, just like bats, pine tar, and batting helmets do. | Suck the offense from every Giants' hitter like a vampire, just like bats, pine tar, and batting helmets do. |
Yeah. Both of them need to just kind of slide into the sea. The second I saw Lincecum in the red-and-white abomination, I could feel the anger of the baseball gods beating down on my neck. Could have roasted a marshmallow. Just hideous.
Lincecum will give up seven hits in five innings. The bullpen will give up two runs in four innings. Those two units are allowed that sort of leeway because the rest of the time they're magnificent. But a lineup that features a Stewart-Crawford-pitcher-Rowand-Burriss roundabout is going to score three runs on a good day. That sequence doesn't feature Huff or Schierholtz (who has looked better lately), so it's not like the problem is a woefully unbalanced offense.
The problem is that -- wait for it -- the Giants sure have a lot of bad hitters. Not below-average, but bad. Bad, bad, bad. It should be an open question if most of the players who start should be on a 25-man roster, much less in a starting lineup. Most. Not a couple. Most. Usually more than half.
The difference between this team and previous wretched offenses is that there actually was a plan. Freddy Sanchez and Buster Posey are broken, and even if the Huff re-signing was a bad gamble, he shouldn't be this bad. Brandon Belt was expected to contribute. Andres Torres wasn't supposed to return to Never Never Land for another year, at least. That doesn't all add up to the 2000 Giants, but it would have helped prevent this monstrosity.
And there's nothing you can do about it. There isn't a magic trade coming. There just isn't. I'll furiously rosterbate with the rest of you for the next month, but there isn't a magic trade or three coming. Even when Belt is healthy, there's no guarantee that a) he'll play over Huff and b) he'll produce. This is the offense. Wear it. Try to look proud in front of other people.
Oh, and Cody Ross came up a little gimpy after catching a pop-up down the line today. Of course he did. Maybe Darren Ford will finish his rehab soon so he can come up and hit in the middle of the order to replace Ross.
I like that the good Pablo seems to be back. That's the only nice thing to say about today.