Nori Aoki’s Hot Start Being Wasted by Lineup-Wide Slump

The San Francisco Giants‘ lineup is in a funk. If you’ve watched the past few games, that is not breaking news. Up and down the lineup, the Giants are being shut down, stranding runners, and letting great pitching efforts go by the wayside. The one guy whose bat wasn’t left in Arizona is the leadoff man, Nori Aoki.

When manager Bruce Bochy announced that Aoki, the newbie left fielder, would take leadoff duties away from Angel Pagan, there were a lot of questions. Pagan’s impact as the leadoff hitter has been undeniable over the last three years in the orange and black, and when he’s been injured, the lineup has suffered noticeably. Aoki has put those questions to bed in the first nine games of the season.

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Aoki is batting .405 out of the number one spot, leading the Giants by a wide margin in that category, as Pagan’s .333 is the next closest mark. His on-base percentage is .488, which also leads the squad. Aoki has hit in all nine games to start the year, building off an eight-game hitting streak to end the 2014 season. The 17-game overall hitting streak is Aoki’s career high.

But behind Aoki, there hasn’t been much help. Since the series with the San Diego Padres began, Aoki is hitting .391 (9-23) to go along with five walks. The rest of the Giants’ lineup has slumped miserably, batting .156 (28-179) as a team. Over that six-game span, Aoki has 24.3 percent of the team’s hits.

Over that same timeframe, the Giants are hitting .136 (3-22) with Aoki on base. Two of those hits scored Aoki, as Justin Maxwell had an RBI double and Brandon Belt had an RBI single, both in San Diego. But more often than not, Aoki is left standing on the base he earned.

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Overall this year, Aoki has been stranded on base nine times. Seven of those instances he was in scoring position, including four times at third base. He’s also been on base for three double plays, and has been erased by a fielder’s choice twice. Out of the 21 times Aoki has been on base, he’s scored only four runs.

One of the funniest moments of the early part of the season was Aoki blowing past third base coach Roberto Kelly‘s stop sign as he tried to hold the speedster at third base. But after seeing those numbers, can you really blame him for wanting to score?

Aoki has been a pillar of consistency, not just with his bat, but with his presence in the lineup. The Giants have used eight different lineups over the first nine games, and Aoki is the only player who has been featured in the same lineup spot in every one of those games. He and Brandon Crawford are the only Giants who have started every game thus far.

Aoki is not only one who should be frustrated by the Giants’ poor offense. The pitching staff has thrown some beauties over the past week, but the story is the same. There’s just no offense for them. In four of the past six games, the starting pitcher has been rewarded for a great effort with zero runs of supports. Tim Hudson has gotten the Caining treatment twice, while Tim Lincecum and Chris Heston have each gotten it once. Hudson still hasn’t seen a run of support yet in 13 innings of work.

The fans are frustrated, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the players are frustrated as well. Andrew Baggarly of Mercury News said that the clubhouse was a “ghost town” following the game.

Despite what we saw in the 2014 World Series, a team can not win on the back of one single player. If the Giants are going to defend their World Series championship, they need someone besides Aoki to step up and hit behind him.