Why are the Giants so bad against pitchers?

The eternal question

I, for one, was enjoying the denial.

All teams go through bad stretches at the plate, I would say.

There’s always going to be a couple week period when your team looks terrible, I would insist.

Yes, there are bad vibes, but it’s totally normal for a team to have bad vibes sometimes. What’s really weird is if there are never bad vibes, I would say very smugly, my face contorting into an expression like a Dreamworks cartoon character.

But it’s time to stop being polite and start getting real. The Giants have a problem, and that problem is the entire offense.

Not you, Heliot or Wilmer. But everyone else.

Let’s start with the most basic numbers: In March and April, the Giants scored 142 runs in 31 games, for an average of 4.58 runs per game. In May, the Giants have scored 100 runs in 25 games, for an average of 4 runs per game. Over the course of a full season, those averages would come to 742 runs and 648 runs, respectively, which last year would have made the team 10th and 26th in runs scored, respectively. So essentially, the Giants went from a somewhat above average offense over the first month to a significantly below average offense in the second, which is exactly what everyone with eyes has seen, but it’s still nice to have that confirmation.

So, what’s different? In April (I will be saying April instead of March/April because that’s clunky and I think you get it because you’re smart and attractive), the Giants hit .227/.307/.376, for a wRC+ of 94, and a team BABIP of .277. In May (excluding yesterday), the Giants have hit .235/.308/.370, for a wRC+ of 92, and a team BABIP of .280. Those numbers are not wildly different. Sure, the team hit for a little less average and a little more power in April, but overall, there doesn’t seem to be a lot there.

But this does give us one big clue: by wRC+, the Giants had a below average offense in April, but they still scored a good number of runs. So the question then is, were the Giants just lucky? Instead of looking for what’s unusually bad about May, should we be looking for what was unusually good about April?

Looking at the team batted ball profiles for the two months, there are a couple of differences. The first is that the team’s fly ball rate went down from about 43% to about 42%. This isn’t particularly damning on its own, but the team’s soft contact also went up, from 16% to 19%. Hitting the ball softer and at a lower launch angle would lead to less power, which is what we saw from the Giants in May.

There’s also small ball to consider. The Giants were better baserunners in April than in May. At least part of that, and certainly the part that’s easiest to check, is stolen bases. In April, the team stole 21 bases and was caught 7 times, for a solid 75% success ratio. In May, though, the team stole 5 bases and was caught 5 times, which is a much less solid success ratio of 50%. Add into that that the team has grounded into 8 more double plays in 270 fewer plate appearances, and what you’re really getting is a lot more outs on the basepaths that aren’t reflected in slash lines or wRC+ calculations.

Some of the baserunning can be explained by the simple fact that the team’s two best baserunners, Jung Hoo Lee and Tyler Fitzgerald, haven’t been on base much in May. After a scorching April, Lee’s bat has gone cold this month, so he hasn’t been creating havoc on the basepaths, and Fitzgerald spent most of the month injured, and hasn’t quite found his rhythm since coming off the IL.

Those are the differences between April and May, but the real core of the issue here is that the team doesn’t have enough good hitters. If you do a good job around the margins, you can mitigate that somewhat, but the real positive effect on the team would be if LaMonte Wade Jr figured out how to be good again. It would be if Patrick Bailey finds a swing that’s mostly been missing since last year’s All-Star Break, or if Willy Adames hits like he’s the highest paid player in franchise history.

To be competitive with the Dodgers and in the playoffs, you need to have a lineup with enough depth that the good hitters can balance out the ones who are having bad days. The Giants don’t have that. They’ve never had that this year, but some high BABIPs from their fastest players made it seem like they had more talent than they actually did.

The key takeaway is this: you can’t expect the team to repeat their offensive performance from April. They’re not hitting well enough to expect to score an above average number of runs. Baserunning can make up for a little of that, but it’s not going to do everything. Jerar Encarnacion possibly taking a lot of Wade’s playing time might move the needle, but he could also be nothing special himself.

It’s hard to see the magic fix that will turn this offense into the one we’d all like it to be. Sure, you could replace Wade or Patrick Bailey with someone with a stronger bat, but in Wade’s case that guy would be Bryce Eldridge, it’s likely he’s not quite ready yet, and with a prospect like him, you really want him to be ready. In Bailey’s case, there simply isn’t anyone in the organization who’s likely to be a better hitter. For Adames, well, you know he’s not going anywhere. Of the three, Wade is the most likely to be replaced since there are so many options, but the Giants need production from all three spots, and they’re just not likely to get it this year.

It’s entirely possible that the offense we’ve seen this month is the one we get until Buster Posey makes some decisions at the trade deadline. That’s not what any of us want, but things also don’t seem to be getting any better, and they really need to be getting much better.

Maybe the worst part: we can’t even blame Justin Viele anymore. Truly, this has been a hellish month.