Gabe Kapler

Can Giants figure things out as schedule gets even tougher?

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The smell of smoke wafted into the dugout Saturday afternoon and was so strong that it curled up the stairs on the other side and was noticed by fans who were waiting for autographs near the Giants clubhouse.

A fire in the batting cage would have been too on-the-nose given how the last couple of months have gone, and it turns out it was all done on purpose. Hitting coach Justin Viele burned some sage to try and cleanse his lineup's bats and bring better vibes to a team that has struggled to get past the one-run mark in recent weeks. In search of more slug, he turned to smudge.

The Giants then went out and wasted a no-outs, bases-loaded opportunity in the second inning, scoring just three runs in a second straight loss. They avoided a sweep on Sunday, but until Patrick Bailey's clutch swing, they again had just one run. They struck out 17 times in the win.  

When you've reached the moment where you're stopping by stores in the Haight to find something you can burn, you know the season has reached a low point. But for the lineup, this search has been going on for a while.

Since the start of July, the Giants rank last in the big leagues in average, slugging, home runs and runs scored. They are 29th in on-base percentage and wRC+. It's not a fast roster, but it's one that hoped to be opportunistic, and the Giants have stolen just six bases over the span, again putting them at the bottom of the league.

They also rank last in Batting Average on Balls in Play over the last six weeks, and Viele said that's one area he hopes can turn quickly. They could use a little more luck, although sometimes you make your own luck. The Giants are 22nd in hard-hit percentage since the start of July, so it's not like they're hitting rockets all night and not getting rewarded.

On Sunday, manager Gabe Kapler identified another potential solution.

"It will probably come as no surprise that some of these things will keep you up [at night], and I've spent some time figuring out how we are successful going forward, and the one thing that I kept coming back to is staying healthy," Kapler said. "If you give us our full group -- you give us that group and you run that group out there for the rest of the season, we're going to score a lot of runs.

"Michael Conforto is going to go through his good stretch, Joc Pederson is going to go through his, [Mike Yastrzemski] will go through his, [Austin Slater] will come back around against left-handed pitching. All of that stuff is going to happen if we can figure out a way to stay healthy and on the field. That's the best way for us to succeed in the final six-and-a-half, seven weeks of the season."

There's some good news on that front. The Giants expect Yastrzemski (hamstring) back this week against the Tampa Bay Rays, and Mitch Haniger (fractured forearm) is close to a rehab assignment. They could be whole going into September, but at the same time, it wouldn't necessarily be a shock if they never got healthy, or if things got worse.

Of the position players who are "regulars," eight already have had a stint on the IL. Yastrzemski has strained his left hamstring three times. Haniger, Brandon Crawford, Thairo Estrada, Pederson and Slater all have gone on the IL multiple times. 

Better health would be nice, but the Giants can't exactly count on that being their solution, especially because a lot of the veterans were only available at Giants-friendly prices because of past injury histories. Other injuries will pop up, and fatigue will kick in. For some, it already has.

"It's obvious everybody is trying to catch a second wind and sprint to the finish line," said right-hander Alex Cobb, who has a 5.63 ERA in the second half. "You're holding the postseason in the palm of your hands and you're trying not to let that affect you too much, but you go through a season and you have your high points and you have your low points. This is one of those [low points] for me individually and for the team. You try to get out of those as quickly as possible.

"Everybody is wanting to be the guy to get the team out of it and come up with the big hit and come up with the outing that starts the momentum in the other direction. This isn't a lack of effort on anybody's part. We're just kinda going through the valley of it."

While the weekend was another disappointing one, the Giants might have at least seen a glimmer of a light at the end of the tunnel. For weeks, it has been Wilmer-Or-Bust at the plate, but Bailey's walk-off raised his OPS in August to .899, and he's reaching base at a .447 clip over his last 11 games. 

The first run of the game came on a Conforto homer, giving him two in two days after a month without a blast. Conforto reached base six times in the two games, and the Giants are hopeful he's getting going. While the rookies have gotten most of the credit, Conforto's hot streak in May helped turn the season around. 

"Obviously Conforto getting going is huge for us," Kapler said. "Again, we were kinda relying on one bat, maybe two bats in any given game. To have several of them going at the same time is really what's going to propel us to lots of victories in a smaller stretch."

It's not quite now-or-never for the lineup, because the mediocre NL wild-card field should keep the Giants around no matter how the next couple of weeks go. This slump, though, might have given away the NL West, and the Giants don't want to lose much more ground during their toughest month of the season.

The Texas Rangers led the big leagues in runs when they arrived, but it won't get any easier. The Rays arrive tonight with 71 wins, and after that the Giants will visit the red-hot Philadelphia Phillies and play six games against the Atlanta Braves, the best team in baseball. It's not until Sept. 8 against the Colorado Rockies that the Giants will see an opponent without playoff aspirations. 

"It's a good test for us. When you're at your low point and you look up and see this wave of first place teams and powerhouse offenses, you find out what you're made of," Cobb said. "You dig a little deeper, you figure out how to get out of it and know that you're not going to have any easy games ahead to work on things. You've got to find it and execute right away."

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