At Oakland's Mercy

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle(SFGate)

Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words. For the Giants right now, the numbers are screaming for help.

Over a weekend that ended with Sunday's 5-3 loss, the Giants scored four runs in 27 innings against Oakland, and only three when a 41-year-old shortstop was not stealing home. Those are the only four runs they have scored in their last 48 innings against the A's, who have swept their last two series in San Francisco and won 10 of the last 12 meetings.

With their fifth straight losing series at China Basin, the Giants fell to 13-22 at home, easily the worst record in the majors. Overall, the Giants have lost five of their last six games since their sweep at Washington and have fallen 10 games below .500 (30-40) after getting as close as six.

Lest anyone pin all the blame on an anemic offense, consider that the Giants have scored in 11 different innings over their last six games. Six times, Giants pitchers failed to respond with a shutdown inning.

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The worst of it has to be their inability to win at home. The Giants are trying to build something in the post-Barry Bonds era. Garlic fries can go only so far to appease the paying customers.

"Home is supposed to be a sanctuary, where you get more energy," second baseman Ray Durham said. "For some reason we're struggling here. I really can't answer it. If we knew the answer we could have corrected it."

The Giants' recent bad spell started on the road, when they lost two of three in Colorado. In a roundabout way, their 2-5 week underscores how well they have played at times this season. They were supposed to have lots of weeks like that but have kept them to a minimum.

Asked for his gut reaction to the Giants being 30-40, Durham said, "That's not bad considering the way we started out. Our first month was terrible. We couldn't buy a win. We couldn't buy a hit.

"I'd probably say lots of people didn't think we'd be where we are right now. It just shows a lot of guys in here can play. We're short on talent, but we have a lot more heart than anybody in the league. That showed today. A lot of teams would have folded up in the seventh inning, and we had a chance to win the ballgame. We gave ourselves a chance. We just didn't get the hits."

Down 5-1, the Giants loaded the bases with one out in the eighth against reliever Chad Gaudin. When Keith Foulke entered the game, pinch-hitter John Bowker pooched a single to center to score a run. Manager Bruce Bochy had Bengie Molina pinch-hit with the bases still loaded. He hit a sacrifice fly, making it 5-3 Oakland. But when Omar Vizquel flied out, the Giants were done.

They were supposed to a weak offensive team. At times they have been anything but. Right now, though, runs are scarce because two of their best hitters are scuffling at the same time. Molina is hitless in his last 17 at-bats while Aaron Rowand is 12-for-48 with four extra-base hits in June.

"Any team would say the same thing when their four and five hitters are not locked in," Bochy said. "There's no question the heart of your order makes you go. Those guys were carrying us there, but you need production throughout your order."

Bochy gave a lot of credit to Oakland's pitchers, saying, "Their starters have done a great job. That's huge when your pitchers go out there and limit it the way they did. I think we scored two runs against their starters, and one of them we stole a base. It's hard to win when you get shut down like that."

The biggest positive for the Giants on Sunday was Kevin Correia's return from seven weeks on the disabled list. They need him to be healthy and sharp, and for five innings he was. In the sixth, the A's adjusted to Correia their third time through the order and Correia did not adjust back.

Four of his five batters in the inning reached base and all scored, two with Alex Hinshaw on the mound.

"I was pretty close to having a good outing," Correia said. "I pretty much let it slip away. It's going to take awhile to get over it and be happy to be back."

Correia said the Giants-A's rivalry is more for the fans, but the sweep still "stings."

"We need to find a way to beat these guys because we play them every year in interleague," he said "We've really been hurt by those guys."