talkinGiantsbaseball: Giants foggy in Windy City

Ramirez tops S.F. offense with one swing off Walker.

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)

- A random thought while watching the Giants nearly get shut out for the third time in four games: When the Titanic sank, was the wind over the north Atlantic blowing in?

It was at Wrigley Field on Friday, which was great news for pitchers, not so great for a Giants offense that needs no meteorological help to wheeze at the plate.

Their 3-1 loss to the Cubs submerged them that much closer to the briny deep. They have not won on their four-game trip while being outscored 22-4, and would have been blanked again had they not punctured a slight hole in closer Kerry Wood's nasty facade with a ninth-inning run.

Matt Cain used the wind to his advantage, pounded the strike zone for seven innings and did not allow a run, giving him 15 shutout innings with 19 strikeouts in two starts against the Cubs this month. In a nostalgic nod to 2007, his near-perfect performance went for naught. Cain got no decision and will finish the first half 5-7.

The Giants lost after manager Bruce Bochy chose to have Tyler Walker walk Derrek Lee with a runner on second and one out in the eighth inning of a still-scoreless game and face Aramis Ramirez. The Chicago third baseman responded on the first pitch by hooking a home run inside the left-field foul pole against a wind that had calmed. It was the third three-run shot allowed by the Giants on their trip.

Walker tried to jam Ramirez with an inside fastball to induce a double play. Instead, the ball started over the plate and conveniently moved into Ramirez's bang-bang zone.

"He's too good a hitter to miss that pitch," Walker said. "It was a rough day. This is a rough stretch for us. That's not exactly what we needed at that point."

What the Giants need is somebody - anybody - with a stick of wood in his hand to get hot. Right now, nobody is. The offense is nearing a catastrophic failure. Until Ray Durham doubled, Eugenio Velez walked and Bengie Molina singled home the Giants' run in the ninth, the first four spots in the order were a combined 3-for-52 on the trip.

"There's not a whole lot to say," Cain said. "What we've done has obviously not been very successful. We've got to get something going, get some momentum going into the second half. We've got to get these next two games for sure."

Ah yes, the next two games, not exactly a recipe for offensive health.

With all due respect to Jason Marquis, who matched Cain's seven shutout innings Friday, this was the "easy" game for the Giants in the series. Today and tomorrow, they close the first half by facing two of baseball's tougher starters, Rich Harden in his Cubbie debut and Ryan Dempster.

An 0-6 trip seems more likely than unlikely considering the Giants have mustered three, three, three and five hits over the first four games. Oh, yeah. Randy Winn, one of only two Giants with an RBI hit on the trip, is questionable for today after slamming a foul ball off his right knee in the first inning, forcing him to leave in the third.

The throbbing in Winn's leg died down long enough for him to offer some perspective on the Giants' travails. He said the five straight losses, four on this trip, must be placed in the context of whom the Giants are playing. They lost to three good pitchers on a hot Mets team and another good pitcher on a Cubs team that is 36-11 at home.

"It's such a small portion of the season," Winn said when it was suggested the Giants might be starting on a slippery slope toward oblivion. "I don't think you can take that and make it a bigger deal than what we (did) to this point."

The big deal Friday was Bochy's decision to walk Lee and face Ramirez.

"You're caught in a hard spot," Bochy said. "You've got two similar-type hitters. You hope maybe you can get out of it on one pitch. You're going to have to face one of them. We just made a mistake."

If it will help Bochy sleep better, he should know Ramirez said, "I would have done the same thing. Derrek Lee is hitting .300. He's probably the best hitter on the team the last five years. In that situation you don't want to get beat by one of the best hitters. You walk him and take your chances with the next guy."