Giants blowout Cubs 13-0, back in first place for the time being

And their back in first place....for the time being.

The Giants do it again, for the fourth consecutive series the San Francisco Giants turn the last game of the series into a blowout.  The last time the Giants lost the final game of a series was in Arizona on September 8th in a 3-1 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Since that time the Giants have won 8 out of their last 13 games and only lost a series to the Milwaukee Brewers.  If the Giants could some how figure out how to save those runs on the final game and spread them out over a series then they would be set the rest of the way.

The Giants pitching staff has been nails in the month of September, posting a 1.54 ERA in 19 games.  In those 19 games, the Giants have a record of 12-7 and in the games they lost the differential has been an average of 1.71.  That's where the large issue has been.

The offense has been hit or miss and when I say miss I mean all misses.  I have never seen a team that could blowout a team one night and then get shutout the next and make the starting pitcher look like the second coming of Cy Young.

This team's major problem is that they went from being a small ball team back to a Barry Bond's era team where they live and die with the homerun.  In the games where they typically blowout opponents is games where the team hits a lot of homeruns.

That strategy only leads to trouble and explains the huge differential between the Giants ability to win when they score at least 3 runs and their propensity to lose when they don't.  During this season, when they score the magic "3" runs they are 74-22 and when they don't, they are a whopping 11-45.

Now the Giants take off to Colorado where scoring less than three runs is not an option.  They have their one-two-three pitchers on the mound and they have to put up some rounds for those guys.