The Giants finish this road trip 2-8, and have now returned to being tied for first place in the NL West, pending of course the outcome of the Dodger game tonight. This is a far cry from the last series against the St. Louis Cardinals, in which the Giants went three out of four and dominated some pretty tough pitching. Although the pitching looked good in the first two games, the offense did not look good in the last two.

On Tuesday night, Tim Lincecum came out following his no-hitter with good command of his pitches early. He managed to get into a rhythm for the first three innings. He got into a jam in the 4th after two straight hits and hit batsman, but two strikeouts and a groundout later and he was able to get out of it unscathed. He was able to establish his command out of the stretch, just like he did in his no-hitter. The Giants capitalized in the 4th, getting four straight hits including two doubles and a Pablo Sandoval home run, and they put up a 3-0 lead.

Marco Gonzales was unable to get out of the 5th as the Giants tacked another run on him and he proceeded to load the bases, and Hector Sanchez hit into a fielder’s choice, scoring another run making it 5-0 going into the 6th. Lincecum got some fantastic defense from both the infield and outfield to carry him through the 7th. This was a much better post no-hitter outing following the one last year, going eight innings and throwing 113 pitches. Machi shut the door on the Cardinals, Giants win 5-0.

Wednesday was a different tale for the starter, as Ryan Vogelsong gave up two runs on four hits in the 3rd inning, however for the rest of his start he looked fairly dominant. Those two runs were all the Cardinals would need. The Giants could not pick it up with hitting as Adam Wainwright dominated, hits seemed to be finding gloves, and when the Giants finally had something going it got crushed immediately. The good news was that Romo looked great in the 9th inning, especially a few days after being removed from the closer role. Giants dropped the second game 0-2.

Madison Bumgarner was set to go for the rubber match on Thursday; and hopefully he was the man to get the Giants a series win. Unfortunately he struggled again with command, giving up a two-run homerun to Jhonny Peralta in the 1st. Bumgarner gave up three more runs in the 4th, and he would only go five innings after throwing 100 pitches. The Giants could not get much done offensively, especially after the lineup had been mixed up to feature Pence in the leadoff role. The Giants lost the getaway game 2-7.

The one blaringly obvious drawback in the two losses was the lack of offense, especially with runners in scoring position. With a struggling Michael Morse out of the lineup in the last game of the series, the Giants would have to use their bench to help fill a spot. Brandon Belt will be returning on Friday, which will make their lineup more like their regular lineup. However, without their leadoff man Angel Pagan the Giants will have to continue to address the leadoff situation.

The Giants now go on the road to San Diego, where they will play the Padres for three games; then they will return to the Bay Area for a four game set against the Oakland A’s, two in Oakland and two in San Francisco. They finish out the pre-All Star Break homestand with a three game series against the Diamondbacks.

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About the author
Nick Vezmar
Graduated 2014 from California State University, East Bay with a B.A. in History Interests include the San Francisco Giants and all Bay Area Sports. My hobbies are wine collecting, music, computers, etc. Born and raised in the Bay Area