The San Francisco Giants leave Miami having lost three out of four to a rebuilding team, so let’s look really hard and find some positives.
3 UP
1 – McCutchen’s reputation
Andrew McCutchenis living up to his reputation in his first season with San Francisco. The right fielder is known as a slow starter who turns it on in June, and he’s doing so this year. He had seven hits in Miami, including first-inning home runs on back-to-back days and a pair of doubles.
McCutchen entered June hitting .246/.357/.379 (thanks to a lot of bad luck), but has started to find holes, or just hit it out of the park altogether, with his hard contact. He’s hitting .339 in 13 June games, and has collected 11 extra-base hits in the month (he only had 11 XBH, all doubles, the entire month of May), good for a .732 slugging percentage. His five home runs this month are also two more than he hit in the first two months combined.
The Giants have needed this production from McCutchen, especially with their most dangerous hitterBrandon Belton the shelf. Now withEvan Longoriaheading to the disabled list as well, McCutchen keeping up this level of production will be even more paramount for San Francisco.
2 – Quality Starts
Quality starts have been hard to come by for Giants’ pitchers, but they got two in four games in Miami.Chris Strattonwent seven innings on Tuesday and held the Marlins to three runs, but the offense couldn’t even score a second run and he took the loss.Dereck Rodriguezwent 6.2 innings on Thursday, yielding two runs as his father watched him from the first row behind home plate (no pressure, kid!).
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Madison Bumgarnerwent 5.2 innings on Monday, but gave up four runs.Andrew Suarezthrew five solid innings on Wednesday, but took a no-decision after one of the many, many blown leads in the series. Those two outings weren’t all that stellar, but Giants’ starters still averaged 6.1 innings over the four-game series. That’s a full inning more than the team’s starter averaged in the season’s first 65 games, so there’s an improvement.
Ty Blachalso deserves a ton of credit for his 6.2-innings of shutout relief during Thursday’s marathon, which did a ton to save the other arms in the bullpen. He gave the Giants every single opportunity to win the game, and they finally did so in the 16th.
3 – It’s Over
The series is over and the Giants didn’t get swept. That’s, uh, kind of positive?
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