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Both Home & Away, There's Trouble In The Bay For The Giants

By Sean Stanfield - KHTK

(KHTK, Sports 1140/AP) - If you're a Giants fan, you may want to cancel some of your scheduled recordings of the defending champs.  Unless of course, you're really into the performances of Buster, Belt & "Brother" Pence in those Animal House commercials.  Nothing to see here.

The Freak, not freaky (even after posting his highest strikeout total since last July with 11 K's against the Mets last night).  The Panda, needs to switch to bamboo shoots.   The Beard, not sure if he would help this team at all (especially injured), but to maybe distract fans from the dismal season that has become the team's second World Championship Title defense in three years.  Remember what happened in their last defense campaign?

After learning last year how the Giants win rings, Hunter Pence is now learning how the Giants defend them in San Francisco fashion.  "There's frustration," right fielder Hunter Pence said. "We want to stay as positive as we can right now. We've got to get it done. We've got to keep pushing to find a way to turn it around."  Brother Pence, meet Brother Obvious.

San Francisco has lost 12 of 14 and is a season-high eight games below .500.  In a long night by the bay last night they went 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position and stranded 18 overall - 13 in the last six innings.  Bochy has proven to be one of the games best in patch-working a band of "misfits" together to win games, but even he seems to be at a loss.  "That's as frustrating a game as we've had," Bochy said.

Changes to the lineup order were of little help last night as well.  Brandon Belt, batting in the third spot for the first time in his career, was 0 for 8 with five strikeouts, including the final out of the 12th inning with two runners on base (The last Giants player to go 0 for 8 in a game before Belt was Jose Uribe against Atlanta on June 11, 1985). Bochy said he expects to keep Belt in that spot Tuesday night.

Coming Soon:  A change is coming to the Giants lineup in the form of veteran outfielder Jeff Francoeur. The 29 year old was released by the Royals after posting disappointing numbers in his third year with Kansas City (.209/.250/.324 in 182 at-bats).  Francoeur has hit 20+ home runs in only two of his nine season in the big leagues and has a career average of .264

Bottom Line:  The Giants need a break.  As in, getting lucky, All-Star, a revitalized rotation, you name it.  The break they may end up getting is one from October baseball, and while that would surely be sad to see all those seats empty and much less orange and black in the month of Halloween, don't cry for the Giants.  There's always the possibility of another World Championship next year.

The Associated Press Contributed To This Post

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