For Giants fans to stay sane in the second half, they must take mental snapshots of the good, such as Saturday's four-run rally against All-Star starter Ben Sheets and Jonathan Sanchez's eight strikeouts.
They then must close their eyes and imagine young starters who can pitch deep into games, an offense that can score like that consistently and a bullpen that can hold leads.
That will require good acquisitions by the front office, smart coaching and better development in the minors. For now, the fans must endure more of what they saw Saturday, the Giants blowing a 4-1 lead against Sheets and losing to the Brewers 8-5.
A four-run sixth against Sanchez and an increasingly flammable Keiichi Yabu gave the Brewers a 5-4 lead.
The Giants needed 25 pitches from reliever Mitch Stetter to push across the tying run in the bottom half, on Randy Winn's bases-loaded infield out. The Brewers needed one pitch from rookie Osiris Matos to untie it in the seventh. Prince Fielder launched a hanging changeup into McCovey Cove for his 20th home run. Corey Hart doubled on the next pitch and eventually scored, too.
That cemented the Giants' eighth loss in the last nine games and 20th in their last 26 home games, a slide that should persuade any final holdouts that this team must start playing for 2009 the minute the July 31 trade deadline passes.
"It's kind of frustrating when we want to win more games," Sanchez said. "This was an easy game to win. We didn't get it. It's not only me. The whole team's got to be frustrated about these games."
Frustration seemed embedded in manager Bruce Bochy's words when he said, "To be honest, what separates good teams from mediocre clubs are games like this. You've got to find a way to win."
The Giants are failing on a lot of fronts now, but the bullpen is foremost on Bochy's mind after Jack Taschner and Sergio Romo each allowed three-run homers Friday night and Yabu could not hold the three-run lead with which he was entrusted Saturday.
"We've got to get some of these guys to step up in the 'pen," Bochy said. "It didn't happen today. Yabu's having a tough time. It's something we've got to talk about."
Through five innings, Sanchez allowed one run and struck out eight, but in the sixth, he lost his release point and walked two to load the bases after Hart hit one of seven Brewers doubles. Sanchez allowed five doubles to go with eight strikeouts.
Enter Yabu, who threw a wild pitch to Jason Kendall that resulted in two runs. Catcher Bengie Molina tried to throw out Hart at the plate. When the ball sailed past Yabu, Bill Hall came home, too. The tying and go-ahead runs scored on Rickie Weeks' two-out double off Yabu, who is not the same pitcher he was before a June 22 game in Kansas City.
Starting with that 11-10 Giants defeat, Yabu has allowed 18 hits, three walks, five hit batters, two wild pitches and 11 runs in his 81/3 innings.
Yabu said Weeks hit a low-and-away slider for the double, and that as long as he keeps the ball down, he should be OK.
The Giants' four-run rally against Sheets in the fourth was encouraging. Aaron Rowand started it with a double, Jose Castillo and Omar Vizquel each had RBI singles and Eugenio Velez doubled home the fourth run.
Vizquel had his best offensive game in awhile, hitting a second-inning double for his first extra-base hit since May 21. Then he left with a badly bruised left foot after fouling a ball off his foot in the sixth.
On the next pitch, Vizquel walked and Bochy had Ivan Ochoa pinch-run and play shortstop over Emmanuel Burriss, an interesting choice. Burriss was a compensation-round draft pick in 2006 and supposedly a big part of the future, Ochoa a career minor-leaguer. Don't the Giants want to see one of their top prospects as much as often as they can?
"It's not a question of prospects," Bochy said. "Ochoa was playing great down there (in Fresno). Emmanuel, sure, he's a prospect, but Ochoa, the way he played down there, he's played himself into a prospect. I could have gone either way there."
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