I know the title of this entry might sound oxymoronic since generally a 3-3 road trip is lauded as decent, especially for a Giants team that has been anything but road warriors this year.

But when your pitching staff gives up only nine runs in six games to two teams that can definitely hit for power and the offense can barely do anything to support them, it’s frustrating as hell.

The series in Philadelphia was an especially bitter pill to swallow. We lost the first game 1-0 as our offense was unable to get anything done against Cole Hamels, who has been shaky this year for Philly but looked like the World Series MVP that he was in ’08 against the soft-hitting Gigantes. The Giants’ pitching staff (well, Brad Penny and Jeremy Affeldt) then combined to shut out the powerful Phillies offense the next night in a 4-0 victory.

So then came the rubber match of the series, which was wholly set up in the Giants’ favor with Lincecum on the mound against three-time Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez.

But oh man. Talk about ‘Party Like It’s 1999′ for Martinez.

He made the Giants look ridiculous and gave baseball fans flashbacks to a much younger, more dominant Pedro…so of course the Giants got Lincecum zilch run support. Well okay, one run often can be enough for Timmy, but unfortunately it wasn’t that night. He only gave up two runs and had 11 strikeouts but still got tagged with the loss because–say it with me–the offense failed again.

Oh, and a side note on that game before I move on to Milwaukee–Bochy, stop using Fred Lewis as a pinch-hitter!!! Why do you continue looking to him as a reliable guy to come up in an important situation??? The only unpredictable thing he did in that at-bat with two on and two out in Philly was that he grounded out instead of striking out. I don’t care what the situation is; throw the traditional righty-lefty match-up stuff out the window when it comes to Lewis. Unless he’s the last guy left on the bench or he’s got (in the words of Mike Krukow) serious, serious ownage on the opposing pitcher, I don’t want to see him.

The bottom line with the Philly series: I give the Giants pitching staff a lot of credit for holding the best lineup in the National League to only three runs in two games. But when you do that and still manage to lose the series, it pretty much erases that accomplishment.

Moving on from cheesesteaks to cheeseheads, where it was unfortunately more of the same. Yes, the Giants took the series from the Brew-crew, but that was to be expected for a team trying to make the playoffs. They still barely eeked out the first two wins by 3-2 finals, and today they had a chance at a sweep with a recently much better Jonathan Sanchez on the mound. Sanchez pitched well again today but ended up with a no-decision since the Giants couldn’t do much against Braden Looper. Their best opportunity came in the sixth inning with two on, nobody out and Aaron Rowand at the plate, but then came the triple play that pretty much summed up the Giants’ offense this road trip and the year overall. But hey, I’ll give them credit for finding a new, more dramatic way of not getting the job done with runners in scoring position.

So the game inched on into extra innings and I just had that sinking feeling in my stomach that it wasn’t going to end well. It started when Bochy brought out Bob Howry, which signaled ‘walk-off home run’ alarm bells in my head, especially when Prince Fielder came up. Turns out I was right, but a bit premature as Howry struck out Fielder and barely managed to get out of the inning without giving up the game-winning hit. But then when Juan Uribe popped up a bunt which Brewers catcher Jason Kendall caught, the bad feeling intensified. Granted, Kendall made a great catch…but still, a pop-up bunt for an out? Bad, bad bad. I won’t get too annoyed with Uribe about it, though since he’s been one of the best, most surprising guys in our lineup this year…but still, the entire team needs a huge workshop on bunting.

So then came the 12th inning with Merkin Valdez pitching for the G-Men, the guy who gave up the infamous walk-off grand slam to the Rockies in what has been informally dubbed The Game Which Cannot Be Spoken Of. And here comes Prince Fielder. Sure enough…

…the Giants got bowled over by the Prince, thus sending them back to the city by the Bay with a not-so-great .500 road trip and a loss that sends them two games back of the Colorado Rockies.

Speaking of the Rockies…can they just lose already?! The New York Mets and Arizona Diamondbacks did us no favors this past week except when the Mets beat’em on the night where Lincecum took the hard-luck loss in Philly. Colorado’s schedule continues to look pretty soft for the remainder of the year; tomorrow they open a four-game series at home against the Cincinnati Reds before going on the road to play the Padres, us and the Diamondbacks. Besides the series against us, the only other time they’ll play a team above .500 the rest of the month is when they play the Cardinals at home; then in October they close out the regular season by going to LA. Meanwhile, the Giants have to face the Dodgers and Rockies back-to-back thiscoming homestand, then go on the road to Los Angeles and Arizona. They close out September at home against the Cubs and Diamondbacks (man, lots of Arizona in the span of a week), then end the regular season in San Diego.

So overall I think the Rockies have the softer schedule; however, San Francisco has a couple advantages in that a. they play three more games at home over the remainder of the season than the Rockies do and b. they have an easier last week on paper in that they play the Cubs, D-Backs and Padres while the Rockies play the Cardinals, Brewers and Dodgers. But I guess the question is whether or not the latter point will matter once we hit the end of the month. The Giants’ offense seriously needs to step up in order to stay in contention, and whether or not that happens will determine if they make the playoffs. It’s not about the starting pitching; they’ve shown time and time again that they can be relied upon. Does the realization that the Giants’ Wild Card hopes rest on this lineup make me queasy? Definitely. I think the keys to this offense stepping up rely on three components: veterans like Aaron Rowand and Bengie Molina, Pablo Sandoval getting hot again, and the return of Freddy Sanchez off his DL stint. If all these ingredients come together for the Giants in a positive way and the pitching staff does what they’ve done all year, then we’ve definitely got a shot.

On a side note, as I’ve been writing this entry and others I realize I may come off as really cynical, harsh and pessimistic about the Giants…and I guess the truth is I am. But it’s kind of like if you have a friend who you know is smart but constantly slacks off in school by cutting class often and not doing his homework: you get really angry with them and may come off as mean by doing so, but in the end it’s because you care about them and know they have a lot of potential. That’s how I am with this baseball team; I can love them one day and hate them the next, can praise a player one day and scream profanities at the TV when they strike out again the next day, but it’s not fickleness–it’s because I have my heart 100% invested in this team and want them to succeed. This is the team I started watching in the 2002 World Series and didn’t turn away from even after Game 6, that I’ve stuck by ever since the good times and the many bad ones from recent woeful years. I’m not one of the bandwagon fans who left with Barry Bonds and his home run chase after the 2007 season, and I’m not one of the bandwagon fans that will start showing up if (big if) the Giants make the playoffs. Even after the horrible loss in Colorado a couple weeks ago I didn’t start tuning out their games, even though I did feel like our playoff hopes had been dashed. So no matter how this season ends, I’ll still find myself quickly counting down the days til they return.  

I’ll be out at the ballpark tomorrow and am looking forward to seeing Brad Penny’s AT&T Park debut as a Giant. No better way to spend a holiday afternoon than out at the yard, in my opinion.