There's quite a few factors as to why the Giants fell off the table to such an extent this season, the most obvious of which being the starting pitching. Cain and Vogelsong both had huge regressions, Lincecum had enough rough season, and Zito is Zito. Only Bumgarner put together a good year of the bunch. Offense was bad as well. Posey took a pretty large step back from last season, which is to be expected. His OPS is over .100 lower this season than it was last season. Other than Pence and Belt, the offense in general failed to meet expectations. Pagan got hurt and wasn't very productive at the start of the season, Scutaro fizzled off extremely quick after the All-Star break, Sandoval lacked the punch he once had, and left field was essentially useless, thanks to a combo of Torres, Blanco, and a little bit of Jeff Francouer just to add a little insult to injury. As a Giants fan, I don't think this season was a fluke. Unless they go out there and sign a pitcher or two and an impact outfield bat, I see .500 as an optimistic 2014 season for this group.
Angel Pagan, their lead-off centerfielder, was injured early in
the season and he was an important player for them. He only
started playing again in Sept., I think. Also, their pitching did
not perform as well as expected, although Liscumsun did pitch
a no-hitter.
All the wheels came off and no one knew how to fix the mess.
I'm a cardinals fan and I didn't get to watch them a ton this year but it kinda reminded me of the 07 cardinals just got off the World Series victory. And then sucked what happen this year to them? I had them winning the west again this year.
