Have the San Francisco Giants Been Cursed?
By Jason Burke
Following Friday night’s 9-0 loss at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks (who, by the way will be picking first in this year’s June Draft) the San Francisco Giants are now riding an eight game losing streak. Staff ace Madison Bumgarner is 1-1 with a 5.29 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP through three starts. That doesn’t remind me of the pitcher that carried the Giants through the World Series, which lead to him riding a horse in the home opener earlier this week–which leads us to a possible curse.
The baseball gods could not have looked down favorably on Bumgarner, or the franchise, for flaunting their recent greatness. Granted, the Giants were already on a three-game streak at the time of the horse entry, but with the way the Giants have been losing of late this option should not be discounted. The team has been outscored 43-15 over the eight-game streak, and 26-9 since they raised the World Champion flag.
Another option for a curse could be the “curse of the Panda.” Letting Pablo Sandoval walk his way to Boston (don’t worry, he stopped for food) reminds me of another player’s departure that cursed a team to languish for eighty-plus years. After some exceptional moments in the orange and black, Sandoval’s absence could result in a modern “Curse of the Bambino.” This theory will take more time to really take hold.
At their current pace, we’re looking at a 40-win team, so obviously they’ll turn it around to a degree. Then again, this is an odd year, and the San Francisco Giants could just be following their recent trend of missing the playoffs every other season. In 2013 the Giants went 76-86, finishing 16 games behind the Dodgers, and just two games out of last. In 2011 the Giants played well, finishing with a record of 86-76 (that’s creepy), but four games behind St. Louis for the wild card spot.
Regardless of whether the team is cursed or not, some of the issues that have plagued the team early this season were foreseeable. The rotation was thin before the season began, and Matt Cain‘s injury is surely magnifying the problem. While Chris Heston has been solid in his two starts (1-1, 0.69), it’s the aging veterans that need to prove their worth.
The offense as a whole is struggling, and say what you will about Sandoval, but when he was on the offense tended to click a bit more. With Boston, the Panda is batting .316 with a .409 on-base percentage, both of which would rank atop the team leaders this season behind Angel Pagan and Nori Aoki.
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Pagan has been on fire to start the season, batting .370, but the players behind him in the lineup have only brought him home four times out of the twenty-one occasions he has reached. Again, if recent trends hold, Pagan will miss some time this season, as he has averaged only 97 games played over the past two odd seasons. This offense sans Pagan would be hard to watch right now. Like 2014 Padres historically bad. The team has allowed the most (12 more than next-worst Arizona), and scored the fewest (16 fewer than San Diego/Colorado) runs in the division.
Something has to give sooner or later, or the chill that you feel by the bay may not be the fog rolling in, but The Ghost of the Panda cursing his former team.