Lowell Cohn: Giants a very bad team right now

SAN FRANCISCO

Bad.

The Giants are a bad baseball team. A very bad baseball team.

They lose games they used to win. The mark of a bad team. They have the worst record in the major leagues since the All-Star break - 9-21. Bad. They have won exactly one series since the All-Star break. Bad. They used to have a big lead in the National League West. Now, they’re behind the not-so-great Los Angeles Dodgers. Bad.

They have lost five of their last six games. Bad. They just got swept at home by the Pirates, losing on Wednesday 6-5. Bad. Down 6-4 in the bottom of the ninth, they had the bases loaded with no outs and could have - should have - won the game. But they scored only one run, mostly because Buster Posey hit into a double play.

They still had the tying run on third with two outs and couldn’t drive him home. Brandon Crawford flied out to center. End of game. Bad.

They can’t pitch when they hit well, and they can’t hit when they pitch well. Meaning they can’t put things together. The absolute mark of a bad team. Wednesday’s game continued the pattern of bad, the Giants doing just enough to lose. And there’s something mysterious about the whole thing.

The Giants are loaded with talent. They are not a?home run-hitting team, but they have a very good player at every position, a player who can hit. They have top-of-the-line starting pitching. And an excellent bullpen. All the pieces are there, but they keep losing.

Before the game, I asked Bruce Bochy about the mystery. “I’m perplexed about your team,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Well, we’re right now in a funk.” Stating the obvious. “Having a hard time winning a ballgame. Just giving you a fact there. It’s been a number of reasons. Could be timely hitting one day. Pitching one day. It’s not something we haven’t been in before, but we better find a way to get out of it pretty soon.

“We’re not getting that big timely hit like we did the first half. That’s what wins ballgames for you. We’re a very good ballclub. You don’t have a first half like we had unless you are. We plan on being right there. Trust me.”

In Bochy I trust. He’s the best. Doing all the right things. A mystery.

Like Matt Cain. Another mystery. Or a horror show.

Take what he did on Wednesday. Wonderful through four innings. Gave up no runs and one piddling hit to the pitcher that amounted to nothing. Looking at Cain so dashing you thought he was back. Matt Cain, instead of that stooge who regularly gets his brains beaten out.

And then came the top of the fifth when he cracked. Came apart. Total collapse is always terrible to see. Awesome in its way. And this was a collapse of the total variety.

Remember he had a four-run lead. So, what did he do? Hit the first batter, walked the next three. That’s four base runners without a base hit. Cain bouncing pitches all over the place. That’s extremely careless.

Along the way, the Pirates scored four runs and tied the game. Forget the four-run lead. But Cain wasn’t done yet. He still had to face Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates’ elite center fielder, with a man on base.

This is what’s called the sitting-duck situation. Cain being the sitting duck. The dead duck. You knew McCutchen would devour him because, by now, Cain was begging to be devoured - and Bochy allowed him to be devoured.

Cain offered a first-pitch fastball, the ball screaming “Hit me!” And McCutchen hit it. The thwack resounded around the ballpark. The ball took flight. Something elegant about it. A soaring eagle. The eagle flew and flew. Right into the left-field stands. And now the score was 6-4 Pirates. And the Giants never would come back. And Bochy trudged to the mound yet again to relieve Cain of his burden.

Afterward, Bochy looked perplexed. Mystified.

“He lost his release point,” Bochy said of Cain. “Looked like he was getting it back. I thought he had enough to get out of that. He faced his last hitter (McCutchen). I thought he had enough to get him. But it didn’t happen.”

Not on your life.

Bochy, looking sad now, said he stuck with Cain too long. “Being honest. It didn’t play out.”

And then came Cain in the silent morgue of a clubhouse to explain himself.

“The biggest thing,” he said, “I just tried to make too good of pitches instead of staying a little more aggressive. It just got me out of whack.”

“Out of whack” is a euphemism for what he was.

“When you walk four guys in a row it looks like it’s pretty far off,” he continued, “but it wasn’t that far. (Let’s be fair, it was only three walks plus the hit batsman.) Then just made a bad pitch to (McCutchen). Tried to throw a fastball away and left it right down the middle to him.”

Which means he thought his control was OK.

Someone asked Cain if it will be hard for him if the Giants skip his next turn in Los Angeles against the Dodgers?

“Yeah, it definitely would be. Those are big games in L.A.”

Get real. Matt Cain may be a very nice man, but he lost his release point long ago. It comes and goes like reception on a bad radio. His control comes and goes. It came and it went on Wednesday. And the Giants cannot depend on him. They’d be nuts to start him against the Dodgers, against the team in first place.

One other thing - and this you should know. In 2014, the Giants went 9-20 before the All-Star break. Were as bad as they are now. Then they won the World Series. So, there’s precedent for coming back from the dead.

Is this moribund bunch capable of a resurrection?

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.