Lowell Cohn: Giants may be in trouble if they can't hit for power

SAN FRANCISCO

The San Francisco Giants got off to a good start on the rest of the season, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-2 on Wednesday afternoon. The win was a happy sign for the home squad and may even indicate, after all their trials and tribulations since the All-Star Game, the Giants are a good team. But how good?

Remember, they only managed to split two games with the D-backs, even though Arizona, a gargantuan 21 games under .500, masquerades as a major-league club. Watching them, especially their bullpen, you wonder how Tony La Russa and Dave Stewart, two heroes around here - two high-achieving, high-IQ men - put together this sorry bunch.

Coming right up, the Giants play four games against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, which explains why Giants players actually showed up in their clubhouse after their win, as opposed to performing their usual vanishing act. They were dressing quickly to catch a flight, Buster Posey neatly putting things in boxes and packing his bags. It’s fair to say the Cubs, with the best record in the major leagues, pose a more formidable challenge than Arizona. They will tell us vastly more about the Giants than Arizona ever did.

I won’t bore you with details about the game - you can read them elsewhere. But I’d like to concentrate on the bottom of the seventh inning to make a point about the Giants’ power hitting, not top-of-the-line, or top-drawer, as they said in those black-and-white screwball comedies.

The bottom of the seventh was when the Diamondbacks bullpen got into the act, God help the Diamondbacks. Before that, Shelby Miller, Arizona’s starting pitcher, had gone six splendid innings, giving up two runs on six hits. Those numbers were astonishing when you consider Miller, something of a human sacrifice, came into the game with a 2-9 record and an earned run average of - get this - 7.14. In his previous three starts, he had given up a total of 18 earned runs.

The heavens weep for Shelby Miller.

The Giants should have murdered him, except they didn’t. And that meant the Giants led only 2-1 in the bottom of the seventh after Miller left and the Arizona relievers took over. The Giants scored two runs right off the bat. It was against some reliever guy. You don’t need to know the names of the Arizona relievers. That knowledge may destroy your brain pan.

Watching the damage the Giants inflicted, you thought the Giants would cash in, blow the game wide open. In fact, that’s what Bruce Bochy was thinking.

But even though the Giants loaded the bases with one out against assorted Arizona relievers, they couldn’t drive home any more runs. Brandon Belt struck out swinging with the bases loaded and one out, couldn’t even produce a sacrifice fly.

Have you noticed Belt strikes out a lot, often on high fastballs? Have you noticed when he strikes out he slumps back to the dugout with the saddest look on his face? He looks morally outraged. Before the game, he was batting .219 since the All Star break, ninth-lowest in the National League.

That leads to moral outrage.

Because the Giants didn’t blow open the game in the seventh, they ended up winning a close game that should not have been a close game, a game that ended with Arizona sending the tying run to the plate in the top of the ninth - something that never should have happened.

Which brings us squarely to Giants power hitting, such as it is. And to this assertion. The Giants need to blast shots into the seats the final month of the season, or the world may become a very hard place for them.

Here are a few relevant factoids, although any word with “oid” in it is a stinker. (Giants public relations supplied relevant factoids and statistics.) Coming into Wednesday’s games, all big-league teams hit a total of 1,015 home runs in August, a whopping number on the cusp of a record. The Giants are not partaking in the feast. Not even the hors d’oeuvres - those little cocktail wieners in mushy bread dough.

They hit 22 homers in August, next to last in baseball. At the start of play on Wednesday - a day in which they hit no homers - they ranked 28th of all 30 clubs in home runs for the season. They have hit 109. Baltimore, the leader, started the day with almost 100 more.

Which leads to the conclusion that the Giants do not hit with the necessary pop. Have trouble putting games away, even easy games like Wednesday’s. Which leads to the further conclusion they better get on the stick.

And that leads, finally, to Posey talking to the media after he finished packing. Everyone knows Posey is the Giants’ best player. Everyone knows he’s the best catcher in baseball. Everyone knows he’s an elite hitter.

But is he still a power hitter?

Used to be. Plenty of sock. He hit 22 home runs in 2014, 19 in 2015, only 12 so far this season. In decline. He has not hit a home run since July 16, possibly because of a possible bad back. He currently is a good singles-and-doubles hitter. Certainly worthwhile, but where’s the bust-out power, Buster?

I asked if he’s concerned about the Giants’ power outage. “As long as we win,” Posey said in a convincing tone, “I think, however we do it, it’s fine.”

It’s just that the Giants haven’t won so much lately, making things not entirely fine. Entering the game, they had the third-worst winning percentage in the National League for August.

Not saying the Giants are no good. Nothing like that. Plus the Dodgers are way overrated, and the Giants are better and ought to win the division. And avoid the wild-card game.

To be safe, though, the Giants should consider hitting homers, dingers, big flies, taters, moon shots, bombs, round-trippers, four-baggers. Should start going deep, going yard, going downtown.

The terminology varies. The idea remains the same.

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.