By Jeremy Walsh
The San Francisco Giants ended their title defense this week, finishing the 2011 regular season at 86-76 and outside the playoffs.
Coming into the season, I would”ve thought 10 games above .500 would have won the Giants the National League West because their division foes looked either too young or too inferior.
Then, the Arizona Diamondbacks came out of nowhere and dominated the second half of the season while the Giants began to falter after the All-Star break.
Though the Giants appeared to be in good position entering August, several season-long issues finally caught up with the defending champs and cost them a second consecutive postseason run.
Most evident of those problems was an inept offense.
As a team, the Giants finished in the bottom four in most offensive categories (29th in runs and on-base percentage, 28th in batting average and 27th in OPS).
Those horrible numbers cost the Giants a chance to capitalize on having on all-time pitching staff.
San Francisco finished with the best batting average against, second-best team ERA and third-best team WHIP in all of baseball but still lost their division by nearly 10 games ? so much for “pitching wins championships.”
With numbers like that, the story of the Giants” season should have been their dominating pitchers. Instead, the focus needs to be on their awful hitters.
By the end of the season, the Giants only had two hitters teams might fear: Carlos Beltran, who hit .323 with seven home runs and 18 RBI for San Francisco, and Pablo Sandoval, who ended the year with 23 home runs, 70 RBI and a .315 batting average.
Other than those two, no everyday Giant hit better than .260.
Returning heroes like Pat Burrell, Aubrey Huff and Cody Ross couldn”t come close to recapturing their 2010 mojo and the big offseason acquisition, Miguel Tejada, hit a measly .239 in 91 games (and was released).
So, despite having a core of four starting pitchers who each finished with 12 or more wins and a top-11 NL ERA, the Giants didn”t have the offensive depth needed to win enough games to reach the postseason.
Of course, depth became an issue because the Giants encountered a rash of injuries.
Not only did Sandoval and Beltran miss games because of injuries, but San Francisco also lost starting catcher Buster Posey and starting second baseman Freddy Sanchez (.284 and .289 hitters, respectively) for the season early in the year.
When you throw in disabled-list stints by fifth starter Jonathan Sanchez, setup man Sergio Romo and All-Star closer Brian Wilson, the Giants soon found they didn”t have enough talented, able-bodied players to stay afloat.
And it all caught up with them in a terrible August.
San Francisco went 11-18 in the month, hitting only .235 with a minus-26 run differential (Arizona, on the other hand, heated up in August, going 19-10). As a result, when the Giants put together an eight-game winning streak in early September, their hole in the division (and wild card) proved too deep.
Still, the Giants finished with a very decent record considering the injuries and offensive struggles, but being outside the playoffs after winning the World Series makes 2011 a disappointing year.
Look for the Giants” front office to be active this offseason, unloading deadweight and injecting new talents, because with halfway decent hitters, the Giants have the pitching to make a run in (a hopefully injury-free) 2012.
Here are a few yearend Giants” stats* to chew on:
? They went 43-29 against the NL West, but only 33-42 against the Central and East.
? They ranked 22nd in team home runs and dead last in RBI.
? Four positions killed the Giants at the plate (center fielders hit .228, catchers .224, left fielders .222 and shortstops just .210).
? The team hit less than .225 with runners in scoring position.
? For all the inadequacies, the Giants offense went 26-18 against left-handed pitching (the second-best NL mark).
? And for all the great numbers, Giants pitchers did have control problems, issuing nearly 560 walks (among the worst in baseball).
? Perhaps history just wasn”t on their side: the last NL team to defend a World Series title was the 1976 Cincinnati Reds.
? Stats from ESPN.com
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
