- The Giants completed their first winning month of 2008 on Sunday, although they could not enjoy the feat after embarrassing themselves in a three-game catastrophe against a Reds team that really is not very good.
"We stunk this weekend. We know it," manager Bruce Bochy said after the Giants lost 9-3 in the most odorous of the three defeats. "We did again today. It was a tough series for the pitchers here."
Tough? How about awful?
The Reds scored 27 runs, or one more than they totaled in the eight games against the Cubs, Rockies and Astros that preceded the San Francisco series. Matt Cain, Billy Sadler and Jack Taschner combined to walk nine Sunday.
The Giants walked 17 in the three games, although, to be fair, only 15 were unintentional. Barry Zito, Kevin Correia and Cain, the three starters, threw only 59 percent of their pitches for strikes.
"It came down to pitching, and we didn't pitch well against this team," Bochy said. "Give them credit. They swung the bats. They've been struggling, but we certainly woke up their bats."
Bochy is fed up with pitchers who do not pound the strike zone. The Giants rank second in the majors in walks allowed (552), an organizational deficiency that must be addressed if they want to take the step from rebuilding to contending.
For now, Bochy pledged to give rookies such as Osiris Matos, Sergio Romo and Alex Hinshaw a chance in September to prove they can throw strikes late in the game, at the expense of experienced relievers such as Taschner, who drew two mound visits from an unhappy manager Sunday.
The first visit followed consecutive two-out walks to Chris Dickerson and Jeff Keppinger, the second when Taschner fell behind 2-0 to Edwin Encarnacion after Fred Lewis misplayed the potential third out into a three-run double for Joey Votto.
The play-by-play largely is unimportant, save for a hanging curveball that pitcher Bronson Arroyo lined into the left-field corner for two runs that sent Cain toward an 8-11 record. Three starts ago, Cain was one out away from reaching .500. Now, he seems doomed to a second straight losing season.
Cain's wildness stemmed partly from some unusual and uncontrollable movement on his pitches. Still, he said, "I walked (Jay) Bruce three times, which is just absurd."
Absurd because the rookie outfielder entered the game with 20 walks against 86 strikeouts.
The Giants lost five of their final six games in August. Even so, they finished the month 15-14, a byproduct of their turn to youth. If fans can grit their teeth and avert their eyes from some of the final scores, the promise of some of the youngsters has to be heartening.
What a season Emmanuel Burriss has had one year out of the South Atlantic League. Eugenio Velez is improving at the plate - he hit for the cycle in the series - and not looking like a lost puppy at second base. And Pablo Sandoval ... well, the jury is still out after 56 at-bats, but after he hit his first career triple Sunday, Reds broadcaster and former Giants pitcher Jeff Brantley said Sandoval "looks like a miniature Big Papi."
Make that a miniature David Ortiz who can hit from both sides of the plate and looks at home on a big-league field three weeks after his 22nd birthday.
The Giants' September begins today with Jonathan Sanchez's return in a matinee in Denver. If they can finish 14-12, they will avoid 90 losses. Not that the Giants would raise a banner next season that proclaimed, "We did it! 73-89!" But cast against the preseason expectations, it would be a positive and something to shoot for.
"It has to be," Rich Aurilia said. "You have to be out there trying to prove something. I think we've done better than people expected us to do, but I don't think we've done as well as we expected ourselves to do.
"We've lost a lot of games we should have won. We've had some ninth-inning comebacks. That's good. We've got to go into next month against some of the teams that are contending and play with some passion and some reason. If that's the reason, to avoid 90 losses, then that has to be it."
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