The 2014 baseball season hasn’t been one where everything has broken right for the San Francisco Giants. They got mediocre work from rotation ace Matt Cain and then lost him for the season. Second baseman Marco Scutaro has never gotten his back healthy. First baseman Brandon Belt hasn’t really developed as a hitter and now he’s got a persistent concussion. By rights, San Francisco should be on the outside looking in.
The San Francisco Giants keep on ticking. They don’t shovel out money like their NL West rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Giants have had some problems to overcome in the early going. But as we hit mid-May, it’s San Francisco who’s atop the division, their 23-16 record narrowly leading Arizona and Colorado.
The San Francisco Giants have pulled away in the NL West, with an 83-62 record and a 7.5 game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers coming into Sunday’s games. The easy thing would be to assume the Giants’ pitching eventually wore down all challengers. It would be an easy and understandable assumption, given this team’s track record over the last few years, but it would not be accurate. It’s offense that keyed Frisco’s pullaway to what looks like a second NL West crown in three years.
The baseball world in general and the National League playoff race in particular was rocked yesterday by the news San Francisco Giants’ left fielder Melky Cabrera was suspended 50 games for using a banned performance-enhancing drug. With Frisco at 64-54, one game back of Los Angeles in the NL West and a ½ game back of Pittsburgh & St. Louis for the last wild-card spot, the suspension will cover the balance of the season and at least through the first playoff round if San Fran was to get there. But do they have the bats to get to October with the All-Star Game MVP now sidelined? TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the rest of the San Francisco Giants’ offense…