On June 1st, the Giants were in St. Louis, about to take ¾ over the defending National League Champions, while holding a 7.5 game lead over the Dodgers and the Rockies. Their stranglehold on the West would grow to 9.5 games by June 8th after taking 2/3 in Cincinnati and sweeping the Mets at AT&T Park.

Today, on July 1st, after dropping 5 of their last 6 series (including being swept three times) the Giants find themselves one half game behind the hated Dodgers.

What went wrong?

A Wounded Angel

Just like last year, the Giants are proving that they live and die by Angel Pagan, who missed the club’s last thirteen games of the month with a back strain. Boy, have the Giants missed their lead-off man.

Since Gregor Blanco took over at CF back on the 15th, he has crossed the plate only three times, walked 5 times, and stolen only two bags in thirteen games. Angel Pagan scored four more times than Blanco did in the thirteen games he started before being shelved.

The lead-off hitter is one of the biggest keys to the Giants’ success and right now, Gregor Blanco is not that guy. Pagan is slated to come back today against the Cardinals, but if Pagan can’t stay healthy this season, the Giants might want to consider looking into acquiring a new lead-off man to avoid another 2013.

A Shaky Bullpen

What was such a strength of this team early on, has become a liability in June.

There are two glaring series in which the games were lost, in large part, by the Giants’ bullpen. The first, June 13-15 vs Colorado, featured three games in which the Giants had leads late. Sergio Romo blew two saves and Juan Gutierrez lost the lead in the 8th of the Sunday game.The other was this passed weekend vs the Reds.

On Thursday night, Jean Machi entered the game with a one-run-lead and gave up a two-run banger to Brandon Phillips, ending his streak of scoreless innings at 25.1.

Saturday night, Sergio Romo enters with a 1-0 lead and blows yet another save. After Posey keeps the team alive and sends the game to extra innings, bullpen staples, Javier Lopez and Jean Machi combine for five earned runs in the eleventh.

And, finally, on Sunday, after Tim Hudson pitches into the 9th, down 1-0, Jeremy Affeldt comes in and blows the game wide open.

If the bullpen didn’t falter in those six games, their June record flips from 10-16 to 16-10 and the Giants are sitting on a comfortable 5.5 game lead over LA.

Perhaps for Machi, Affeldt, and Lopez, these are just rough patches, but for Sergio Romo, who posted an ERA of 9.72 for the month of June, it is viewed as a little more than a rough patch. Romo has been relieved of his closing duties and the Giants will choose to go by committee until further notice.

How Will July Be Any Different?

We Believe in Bochy

Bochy will put this team in the best position to win. We know that. Once Pagan and Belt are back, he will have the lineup that took this club to the top of baseball not even a month ago. We know that by the end of this month, he will have one or two new toys on the roster that will undoubtedly help these guys beat out the Dodgers in the pennant race. We know that his MVP catcher is on fire entering this month and can lead this squad by example. We know that Hunter Pence is going to be out there each and every day giving it 100% every single play. We know that this team can only go up from here and being a half game out of first, and two games up on the wild card is not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination. We know that in this game, teams are gonna have bad days, bad weeks, and, in this case, bad months. We know that this team will tie us to the bed post and torture us a little bit, but it can all be worth it in the end.