Getting shelled 22-0 over the course of two games obviously hurts. In the Astros eight previous games before heading to San Francisco, our pitchers allowed a total of 21 runs. I wrote earlier this week that the Astros pitching staff had been rolling, arguing that none of them had been pitching poorly of late. This was a good thing, since hitting has not and apparently will not be a strong suit of this year's team. Being in the bottom five in terms of runs scoring in the majors is a difficult way to go about winning baseball games.
Another team that was in the bottom five in runs scored were the San Francisco Giants. Operative word in that sentence is, was. That whole "22 runs in 18 innings of baseball" thing helped them leapfrog among other teams, the Houston Astros. Even with these awesome past two games, the Giants are still a bad team with the bats. San Fran is bottom three in some important categories: wOBA, BB%, OPS, and ISO%. My point is this: the Giants, along with San Diego, are two teams that the Astros had a chance to fatten up on heading into the All Star break. This post is being written before Game Three, but as it stands, the Astros have split six games against these two clubs.
San Francisco is a classic pitching heavy, hitting light team. Which is perfect considering the mediocrity that makes up the National League. We've seen teams with relatively poor offenses make the playoffs: last season's two LA clubs come to mind immediately. Whatever happens, this is the type of team that will make you pull your hair out repeatedly. They're a combination of strong pitching, and an offense that has no big names and when they score runs you can't help but think, "We just gave up a double to [insert Giant hitter here]? We're screwed". More power to them. After all, back in '05, I'm sure a number of Cardinals' fans cursed the name of Jason Lane a time or two.