The Giants are 62-52: The Metropolitans Are Cold

The Mets have been on a 4-10 skid, 2-5 over last seven, and 2-5 in their last seven home games. So I hope to win 3 since they are only 30-25 at home for the season but in a bad slide right now.

We could be set up for it. Zito has been hot and he is up against Parnell, who has started only one game all season and has a horrible WHIP. Cain vs. Santana should be a great game, could go either way as Santana has alternated bad start with good start in last 4 starts, with him due to be bad this start if he continues that pattern. He has not been his dominating self for the past month or so and only 4 DOM starts in his last 10, though more lately, so he has been out of sorts this season so that gives me hope for this game, beyond that it's Cain pitching.

Then we got Sanchez vs. Pelfrey. I like our chances there, as Pelfrey has been hit hard for the past month. Then we got Martinez vs. Livan, which will be tough as Livan has seemed to always been tough on us, probably because he is good when he feels like it, the problem has been getting him to feel like it. Now that he's old, he's not always able to bring it - witness his 5.28 ERA - but I would never take Livan lightly when he faces the Giants.

Giants Thoughts

So, it is going to be tough to win 3 games against them. Still, during their losing streak, they have only averaged 4.2 runs per game while their pitching has been giving up 5.1 runs per game. Plus they are throwing a reliever at us who had not been pitching all that well when he was a reliever, and most pitchers do better relieving than starting. Also, even their better pitchers have been struggling of late.

Of course, the Giants offense has been misfiring lately too. It will help to get yesterday off, to help our walking wounded recover a little bit, particularly Freddy Sanchez, who has been great for us thus far, when he's actually in the game. We have Velez and Lewis as two pretty hot hitters, plus Sandoval doing his usual goodness. Molina has been hitting better of late and with Schierholtz back from the DL, he should be an improvement over what Winn had been contributing. Rowand had been banged up and rest will hopefully help ignite his bat again, he's been either hot or cold, but rarely in-between this season.

1B has been odd. Ishikawa has continued to hit with limited play - despite only getting 16 AB since Garko joined the team, he still has 1 HR more than Garko, who has had 40 AB - but he's been horrible on the road. Garko needs a HR so that he can stop pressing. He did better on the last road trip, so hopefully he can crank it up again. Perhaps they should have an odd platoon: Ishikawa starts at home, Garko on the road.

Overall, while I normally would say that 2-2 is the most probable result based on the overall view of things, given these other factors, that would tip the scale enough that I think that 3-1 is a strong possibility, though 2-2 is still the highest probability. I don't anticipate winning only one game or getting swept ourselves, but that possibility always exist.

Thus far this season, the Giants have won 20 series, lost 12 series, and tied 4 series. They have been swept 4 times, but some of those happened early in the season and they have worked their way back to sweep the other team 4 times. Unless they can make hay on this road trip, they will probably end up around .500 again for the month of August, which is what this team is capable of.

Since the begining of 2008, the Giants have been right at .500 or perhaps 1 game up or down in all the months except for two bad losing months last season and one great winning month in June 2009 when Sandoval went crazy and hit like 12 homers in the month. We will need someone to contribute like that to pull that off in August or September.

Though I do like our chances because Lincecum is Lincecum, Cain has been going good all season and usually get even better in August, Zito is usually very good in the second half and has been thus far, and Sanchez has been good since his no-hitter. If we had a hot 5th starter - RJ could have been great in there - we could have run off long winning streaks, I think.