Not much positive to say about the Colorado series. A few wasted starts, but that's nothing new. Saturday's game was a special embarrassment. Matt Morris had a good night, pitching well and driving in the only Giants run, but the rest of the team acted like it really wanted to be curled up on the couch with the cat.
Three games of bad baseball plus -- guess what -- a Ray Durham ouchie. Not that Ray has been hitting much anyhow.
I've pretty much laid off Armando Benitez this season. At times he's looked unhittable. Other times he's pitched in bad luck. Some other times he can't get the ball over the plate. He's hard to watch sometimes, and unfortunately right now he's on eggshells with Giants fans. The boos at the park start as soon as he gets to two balls on a batter. I'm not a fan of the guy, but he's the best option the Giants have at closer. I want the Giants to win, and I don't think making the home park a living hell for your closer helps anything.
But Benitez doesn't do anything to help the matter. He makes it worse with comments like the ones he made after Friday's loss. Basically, he said it was everyone else's fault that the Giants lost. No personal accountability. It's always like this with Benitez. It's Armando and the Giants. Listen to him when he talks about the team. It's always "them" or "they." It's tough to take as a fan, and I just can't imagine what it must be like to be his teammate.
After the Colorado debacle, you have to go back to the Houston series and re-evaluate. The sweep of the Astros gave the Giants a 4-game winning streak. Things were looking good after consecutive strong outings by Morris, Lowry, Lincecum and Zito. The Giants announcers on the post-game wrap (Krukow, mostly) expressed relief that the Giants wouldn't have to face the Astros any more this season. The reasoning was that the Astros hitters would come around and eventually put the hurt on some teams.
Here's the deal: the Astros stink. Outside of a few exceptions -- Oswalt, Wheeler and now Lidge -- the pitching is terrible. Their best hitter, Lance Berkman, is in a slump, Craig Biggio is simply chasing a number, and Carlos Lee isn't as frightening when there aren't any Crawford Boxes. The rest of the lineup has been dreadful, with the exception of Hunter Pence, a kid who had a great spring and a good rep yet was shipped out in favor of Luke Scott and Jason Lane. Astros management doesn't seem too interested in winning.
Once the Astros got out of San Francisco, they headed to Arizona and got swept in four games: 9-1, 13-3, 5-4 and 8-4. Since May 15, they are 3-10. Two of those wins were against the Giants.
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