OAKLAND -- Currently, the most intriguing activity involving the Giants is occurring behind the scenes. That compensates for and reflects the lack of drama on the field, where the Giants endured a 2-1 loss Sunday to the Oakland A's.
The reigning World Series champions remained in first place in the National League West, a half-game ahead of Arizona. But that status surely doesn't fool Giants general manager Brian Sabean. He sees a team that owns a four-game losing streak, matching its season high, mainly because it can't hit.
Officially, the Giants lost on Father's Day as Jeremy Affeldt yielded Landon Powell's eighth-inning homer that snapped a 1-1 tie and wasted Matt Cain's superb effort. But limp hitting continued to be San Francisco's true downfall. The Giants scored five runs while batting .184 (18-for-98) in the series, which ended with Cody Ross taking a third strike and launching a futile argument with plate umpire Scott Barry. The Giants rank 15th in the league in scoring, a level at which they've hovered virtually all season.
No saviors will be arriving from the Minor Leagues or off the disabled list. They don't exist. Manager Bruce Bochy no longer can juggle his batting order. He already has tried everything.
The Giants still can solve their own problems. They did so at a similar juncture last year, when Andres Torres, Buster Posey and Aubrey Huff went on hitting binges that propelled the team to a 21-5 record from July 5 to Aug. 3.
Or Sabean will try to bolster the offense by engineering a deal for a proven hitter. Exactly who is anybody's guess at this juncture, with the July 31 Trade Deadline still more than a month away. But as long as the existence of the Wild Card inflates the number of teams that consider themselves contenders, competition for available players could force proactive GMs like Sabean to move sooner than later.
Bochy indicated that Sabean isn't sitting idly.
"Believe me, there are things he's working on that could make sense," Bochy said. "It's frustrating for us because -- and this isn't a knock on our guys -- we're not quite having the years that some guys should be having. We've still got to believe that they're going to come around. Sure, we're getting to the point now where decisions have to be made. You can go with a younger guy or go with the veterans. You need production. You need results. Now is that time, I think, where I'm sure Brian's looking for that, too. If not, I'm sure he's looking to see what could help this club."
So the onus is on Huff to lift his .387 slugging percentage. It's on Miguel Tejada to improve his NL-worst .539 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage). It's on Andres Torres to emerge from the .178 skid (8-for-45) that has dogged him for 15 games.
"We're going to have to get this offense going. It's been going like this for a while," Bochy said. "Part of it, sure, we're banged up with injuries, but we're still better than this. I think these guys are still going to come around. I believe in them. They showed last year how resilient they can be. They'll figure it out."
Meanwhile, dwelling on what Sabean might or might not do would be counterproductive.
"We can't worry about the outside," Ross said. "We have to do our job and keep grinding. But [Bochy's] right. We're definitely not swinging the bat well. It's kind of an ongoing deal. ... Sooner or later, it's got to pick up. We have too many good hitters on this team."
Said Huff, "It's going to be no easy fix. We've just got to start working counts better and getting on and putting some pressure [on opponents]."
During the losing streak, Giants hitters occasionally have applied pressure. But never have they maintained it. They're 0-for-26 with runners in scoring position in the last four games, including 0-for-19 in this series.
A's starter Trevor Cahill (7-5), who was 0-4 with a 7.43 ERA in his previous five outings, hastened the Giants' sixth loss in a row at the Coliseum by yielding five hits in eight innings. They mustered a second-inning run as Nate Schierholtz drew a two-out walk and scored on Aaron Rowand's double past third base.
Cain held that lead, retiring 14 consecutive batters from the end of the first inning to the beginning of the sixth. But Jemile Weeks' one-out double to left field ended Cain's dominance. Weeks moved to third on Cliff Pennington's groundout and scored the tying run as Coco Crisp singled to right field on a 3-2 delivery.
"It wasn't a good pitch," Cain said. "It came back over the plate -- definitely too much plate for him. I was trying to throw a backdoor slider. It ended up being more of a middle slider."
Then Powell, who hadn't homered all season in 56 at-bats, planted Affeldt's 2-1 pitch into the left-field seats with one out in the eighth. Having blanked opponents in his previous eight outings, a span of 10 1/3 innings, Affeldt (1-1) didn't second-guess his decision to throw Powell a sinker. Location was another matter.
"I look at it and say maybe I could have thrown it a little farther away from him," Affeldt said. "But the ball's sinking down; he got barrel on it and lifted it."
Are the Giants sinking? Or will they receive a lift, either from within or from another club -- which might force them to part with a valuable pitcher?
Cain, who has been a Giant longer than any other player, sounded unruffled. He insisted that the Giants anticipated a low-scoring series, based on the mere 15 runs the teams generated when San Francisco swept Oakland from May 20-22 at AT&T Park. Thus, he concluded, the Giants aren't worried.
"Guys are going to battle through things," Cain said. "We've done it before. That's what a good team does, and that's what we feel like we are."
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