As in, the Giants need some runs. Man, the A’s have some pitching. Actually, so do the Giants, but in the last two games, the A’s had more. Or…. another way of looking at it is through the offense’s. Would you say the A’s have a better offense? Not really. In fact, the two teams look very similar offensively and defensively. The A’s are just a tiny bit better in each category.

But they just swept the Giants, and if you want to understand what’s happening to the orange and black this month, you need to face one awful truth: the Giants have been unlucky. They have scored 8 runs and lost, and allowed 1 run and lost. They have blown leads, and been blown out.

They’ve allowed 35 runs in 9 games, scored 42, and gone 3-6; when they really should have gone 5-4, or even 6-3. How do you quantify luck? How do you answer some of these questions? Matt Cain pitched another great game, and got no run support, again. Cain has put together a run of starts that looks like this:

7 IP 0 ER (L)
9 IP 1 ER (W)
6 IP 1 ER (L)
3 IP 7 ER (L)
7 IP 4 ER (L)
6 IP 1 ER (W)
6 IP 3 ER (L)
6 IP 2 ER (L)
7 IP 4 ER (L)
5 IP 3 ER (L)
8 IP 1 ER (L)

He’s thrown 84.1 innings, allowed 68 hits, 31 earned runs and he’s 2-5. Ummmm….. yeah. That sucks.

And on a completely unrelated note….. Prince Fielder could very well be the best young hitter in the game right now. He just turned 23 about a month ago, he’s currently running out an outstanding .299/.384/.658 1.042 OPS line, with an NL-best 23 home runs. Sure, he’s a bit heavy, but please. What a stud.