I haven’t been keeping up with my blog that well (i.e. at all) since I started it three weeks ago when I was flying high on my San Francisco Giants and the fact that they were playing the best baseball since I became a serious fan of the team.

Well, didn’t take long for that dream bubble to get popped.

Maybe that’s a little harsh. All hope is certainly not lost; there are more than two months left of the regular season. However, a dismal 1-5 start to the second half is definitely enough to have Giants fans like myself questioning the success of the first half and wondering if it was too good to be true.

Yes, it is a road trip and the Giants haven’t been a good road team in years, with this year being no exception as they are 19-29 away from home. But I don’t feel like that can be used as an excuse, especially with this road trip in particular. A team that considers themselves a contender should be able to win a series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, regardless of whether it’s at home or away and regardless of the fact that the team is just coming back from the All Star Break. The Atlanta Braves are a little tougher, but the Giants should have been able to at least split the four-game series; now they’re going into tomorrow counting on Barry Zito to bring out his better half and their offense to get at least a couple runs to support him to avoid the sweep.

The whole home-away record comparison reminds me of a good point I heard KNBR host Damon Bruce say tonight. He said something to the effect of, “A team playing at home is what they could be, but a team on the road is what they are” because all the positive variables encompassed in the ‘comforts of home’ are removed once they go on the road. I hope that the Giants team that has showed up the past several games isn’t their true identity; it definitely doesn’t help that several key players (such as Molina, Rowand and Sandoval) are slumping. We’ve been counting on Rowand to hit well in the lead-off spot for awhile and now he’s a little banged up and slumping besides. Bengie is starting to turn around a little; I think until the eighth inning tonight he had the Giants’ only two hits against Jurjins. Sandoval is 1-for-26 on this road trip, however, and as Duane Kuiper said, “So goes Pablo, so go the Giants.” He is the face of the 2009 Giants with his bright personality, youthfulness and sweet swing that developed faster than anyone anticipated, so I don’t think it’s any coincidence that his luck at the plate and that of the team as a whole go hand-in-hand.

What this ugly start of the second half has showcased is that while the Giants have been a lot better than anyone expected this year, that alone may not be enough to get them to the playoffs, let alone far in them. We can’t continue putting the weight of the world on Lincecum and Cain to give up zero runs and on Panda to hit any ball that gets thrown his way. Tonight showed that especially–Lincecum had an unusually imperfect night with his second shortest outing of the season and four earned runs, and he ended up with a loss even though four runs isn’t an insurmountable deficit for most teams to overcome. The fact that the Giants’ record is so poor when they are not leading from the onset is a huge indicator that they need another bat in this lineup. 

No offense to Lincecum, but I felt like he was towing the company line when he said the team shouldn’t add anyone else for fear of disrupting chemistry; however, at the same time I realize it’s not like he could really say, “Yes, trade someone and get me more run support!” I don’t think it would hurt team chemistry if they made a trade; rather, if they added a bat to their lineup I believe it would take pressure off guys like Bengie and Pablo to rake it and off Cain and Lincecum for feeling like they have to be near-perfect in every single start if they want a chance to win. It would also reinforce the idea that the Giants are a contending team and have a chance to make it to the postseason, which one would think would boost team moral, not hurt it.

Now I realize the cautious approach the front office is taking in not wanting to trade high-end prospects like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. Although they are unproven at the Major League level, I think they should be almost completely untouchable unless the Giants get an insane offer (i.e. if the San Diego Padres called and dangled Adrien Gonzalez). But since that seems like a pretty unlikely scenario, I would argue against trading our golden prospects. However, at the same time Brian Sabean can’t hesitate to pull the trigger for an offer that involves any minor league player; as the saying goes, you have to give talent to get talent. Maybe if you trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates you can pull the wool over their eyes and not give away much (a la the Matt Morris-Rajai Davis swap that helped get his hefty contract off our books), but that probably isn’t going to work with other teams.

This road trip has been reminiscient of the last time the Giants played this poorly, which was in May when Brian Sabean acknowledged the team needed to obtain a bat after we got swept in San Diego and lost two out of three to the Mariners. We’re 1-5 on this road trip again, and even if we can avoid getting swept in Atlanta tomorrow it’s not over yet; rather it’s off to the Mile High City to face one of the hottest teams in all of baseball, the Colorado Rockies. So my point is this: if Sabean said we needed a bat in May after a poor road trip against mediocre teams, how about now when we just did the same thing two months later?

I think the vast majority of Giants fans realize we cannot just stand pat with this team at the trading deadline like we have in recent years. Giants fans haven’t been able to hope like this since 2004, when Steve Finley crushed our postseason chances with a grand slam on one of the last days of the regular season. Think about it–that’s half a decade of saying, “Well, maybe next year” before the year was even through. Before this season started everyone in the baseball world was already writing off this year for the Giants and circling 2010 on the calendar. But much to everyone’s surprise, next year has arrived early, and Giants fans shouldn’t be deprived of the chance to fully take advantage of the possibilities of now. If the Giants could add a solid bat and the Big Money-Little Money combo can get going again, they have a shot at contention. And if they could make it to the playoffs, they couldn’t be written off right away, not in a short series with the one-two punch of Lincecum and Cain.

It seems that every year in the Major League Baseball postseason there is always an improbable upset. In 2007 it was the Colorado Rockies winning 20 of their last 21 games and riding their hot streak all the way to the World Series. Last year it was the Dodgers beating the Cubs in the first round of the playoffs and making it all the way to the NLCS. I know I’m getting way ahead of myself, but what if the Giants could be that team? The bottom line is that we’ll never know unless the front office realizes the golden opportunity they have with this season and goes out and gets a legitimate hitter to boost this offense so we at least have a shot at duplicating the success of the first half.