Cueto, Pence Will San Francisco to Seventh Straight Win

I'll be the first person to admit that, having played and reported baseball, that, on occasion, it can get a little boring. Don't get me wrong; I love this sport more than any other, and I wouldn't be writing if I didn't have anything but adoration for the American Pastime. Despite that, sometimes the process of standing around for an extended period, only make little or minor movements in between pitches, can be dull.

Sitting around in the bullpen or the dugout while the game goes on can especially be a monotonous task, resembling a classroom filled with adolescents trying to pass the time until the class period ends rather than a group of grown men paid to play baseball. There is fun to be had in these spaces, whether it be bubble gum antics or their version of discussion at the water cooler, but deep down, they'd rather be in the game.

This waiting has been the life of the San Francisco Giants relievers.

Johnny Cueto followed Maidson Bumgarner's lead, throwing a complete game and striking out eight while only allowing one run and walking two. Hunter Pence gave Cueto the only run support of the game on a two-run shot, his 7th of the year.

Cueto and Bumgarner became the first Giants to throw back-to-back complete games since Livan Hernandez and Jason Schmidt did so on August 19th and 20th in 2002.

While Cueto and Bumgarner were dealing, San Francisco's bullpen was, once again, dormant.

While Cueto soaked up all the innings in yesterday's affair, he felt no remorse towards the bullpen's lack of activity.

"They can stay there," Cueto said with the help of interpreter Erwin Higueros. "Just stay there and enjoy your time. As long as we can throw a complete game, they can enjoy themselves out there."

The bullpen not working since Sunday is a great problem to have, but the dominant pitching has masked the real issue at hand: the offense.

The offense looked stagnant last night and wasn't able to make any hard contact off of Cueto's opposition, Drew Pomeranz, who held the Giants to just four hits, two coming off the bat of Denard Span. The San Diego bullpen was better than Pomeranz, holding the Giants hitless in its three innings of work. If not for Pence's home run, the Giants are more than likely not winning last night's game.

Over the course of the last week, the offense has averaged a little under four runs per game, far from the offense's full capabilities. The team his batting a measly .237 with a .319 on-base percentage. In that time, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Joe Panik, Matt Duffy, and Angel Pagan have a combined batting average of .154, and Panik and Duffy have been held hitless in their last 31 at-bats.

The only players who have been productive during this past week are Hunter Pence, batting .318 with a two home runs and an OBP of .400, and Buster Posey, batting .300 with three doubles, OBP of .333, and only one strikeout.

By contrast, the pitching staff has been nothing short of excellent. Excluding Hunter Strickland and Derek Law, who had a couple of bad outings, every pitcher has an ERA under two over the course of the last week, and the starters have a combined ERA of 1.32.

While it's great to have this stretch of dominant pitching and poor hitting to bring us back to the torture years, this level of pitching isn't sustainable, and the offense will need some life to come back into form. Pence and Posey can only do so much by themselves, and there are only so many go-ahead two-run home runs that Pence can hit.

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