The San Francisco Giants have had a fluttering start to the season, yet they managed to take two of four games from the Dodgers. We look back to the confusing start of their season, including Joe Panik and… nobody.
For starters, Joe Panik is off to a magnificent start. The 27-year-old second baseman has come out firing on all cylinders in 2018. He’s put up a batting average of .400 and already blasted three home runs, two of which against Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen.
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This isn’t a great stat to be proud of, but Panik’s two home runs are the only runs the Giants scored in the series. The Giants have basically put their feet up and relaxed while watching Joe Panik do all the work for them, and it only worked twice. The Giants fall dead last in runs because of this “strategy” that they’ve tried thus far.
Panik’s start is historic. He becomes the first ever player to hit back-to-back solo home runs in back-to-back 1-0 wins for a team. I’m not sure if we should be chanting for Joe Panik, or yelling at the other seven hitters for doing… well, nothing.
Joe Panik does it again, giving the #SFGiants the lead tonight with the solo shot off of Kenley Jansen https://t.co/aNcfDTEmkO
— Around The Bases POD (@AroundBasesPOD) March 31, 2018
Panik’s six hits so far are nearly a quarter of the teams 25 hits. So you’re telling me you have nine guys batting and one guy has nearly 25% of your hits and your only runs? Seriously? Actually?
The Giants “hot” start didn’t last very long. The Dodgers finally started swinging their bats and it got ugly from there. Joe Panik ran out of home runs to hit and the Giants fell completely silent. From there, it was an embarrassment. The Dodgers tore up the Giants pitching staff once Ty Blach and Johnny Cueto were out of their way. The Giants were outscored 14-0 over the final 18 innings of the series.
Small sample size. Yes. But somebody had to add 'em up. So far:
-Longoria 0 for 15
-McCutchen 1 for 16
-Jackson 1 for 12
Combined: 2 for 42 (.047)— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) April 2, 2018
Let’s appreciate how bad the Giants offense has been. For starters, their team average was a whopping .192, and they only had two runs on 25 hits. Individually, Evan Longoria hasn’t stepped foot on a base yet. Andrew McCutchen is 1-16. Their two offseason splashes, Cutch and Longoria, combine for one hit in 31 at-bats. That is a .032 batting average. An actual, legitimate .032 batting average. It hurts to write that.
The Giants have a .239 OBP (On Base Percentage), which is the second worst in the MLB. They basically fall in the bottom four of every hitting category other than hits (which doesn’t make any sense). The only team playing worse than them offensively is the Orioles, who honestly might not even be playing baseball at this point. The crazy thing is that the Orioles have more runs than the Giants! The Orioles are batting .117, have 11 hits, and yet have managed to score more than the Giants.
The fact that this Giants team managed to take two games from the Dodgers is astonishing. Giants fans should all be writing thank you letters to Joe Panik for his offensive production because he’s the only bit of it. Let’s all pray and hope that the rest of the team steps up offensively, or things could get ugly very, very quickly.
