PHOENIX – It takes more than a sound swing to be a successful major league hitter. You have to trust yourself. You have to manage anxiety.

So Giants hitting coach Hensley “Bam Bam” Meulens must be a psychiatrist as well as a swing doctor.

But what happens when the team hits .099 over a five-game span, as the Giants did in the first five games of this road trip? How does the hitting coach manage his own anxiety?

Meulens had an easy answer. He didn’t feel any.

“I wasn’t that down on them, to be honest, because they are talented hitters,” Meulens said, one day after the Giants rapped out 19 hits in an 11-3 victory at Arizona. “They were hitting the ball at people. So I don’t have anxiety. If we’re striking out 15 times a game, maybe, but these are good hitters who were hitting into a lot of bad luck.”

Prior to the All-Star break, the Giants were fourth in he NL with 4.71 runs per game. Before Saturday’s strong showing, they ranked 14th in the NL with 3.96 runs per game since the break . That lack of an extra run has made a huge difference. The Giants are 7-14 in one-run games since the break, including a pair of 1-0 losses.

They nearly split a four-game series at Wrigley Field even though they hit .106 over the four games. Instead, they lost three of four – each of them a one-run loss. Of course, Santiago Casilla blew the series finale in the ninth inning. But when a team is going through a closer crisis, as the Giants are, sometimes it takes a big offensive rally to help minimize the issue.

The Giants’ low point came the day after wrapping up the series with the Cubs, when they had to play a holiday day game at Coors Field, appeared dead flat, collected just two hits (an all-time low for them in Denver), and hit just two other balls out of the infield.

Meulens declined a reporter’s request for an interview after that Labor Day loss, saying he didn’t believe the timing was appropriate for him to comment. He saved his talking for the clubhouse, when he held a meeting with players the next day.

“You can’t add pressure,” he said he told them. “Just be yourself and keep passing the baton. If we keep doing that, we’ll be fine.”

“You always have a few of those games,” he said. “You don’t know why it happens, and it can be easy to blame it on the schedule. But we get paid to do it. It doesn’t make it easier, but that’s our job.”

Now, about the swing doctor part …

Meulens said he and Buster Posey talked for more than an hour prior to Saturday’s game. Posey was hitting .133 (4 for 30) on the trip, and the frustration was building.

Posey went 0 for 6 for just the second time in his career. He hadn’t had a game like that since he was a rookie in 2010. He threw his bat after rolling over a pitch. He also swung and missed so badly that his swing clipped plate umpire Dale Scott.

The next day, Meulens printed out several video stills of Posey at the point of contact when he was riding a hot streak.

“And I printed one picture from (Friday),” Meulens said. “His front elbow was up and the barrel was dropping underneath the ball. That’s why he was fouling off so many pitches in Chicago and Colorado. He has a very simple swing. It’s an easy fix for him. But hitting is all about feel, and if you don’t show him, he might not be feeling it.”

Posey went 2 for 4 with a triple and a walk Saturday.

Meulens also noticed a flaw with Brandon Belt, who straightens (or, “bars”) his front arm as he loads. That’s generally seen as a swing flaw, but Belt has managed to be productive hitting that way. In recent weeks, though, Belt was barring his arm before his load, while still in his setup.

“And so his hands were too far back,” Meulens said. “It was taking him longer to catch up. These are the little things you see in their approach. You show them a video, and you be sure to show them what they’re doing right, too.

“These guys work very hard every day. They really do. They do everything right in practice, but there’s no pressure, no speed, nobody watching. The game is different. It speeds up everything. And when the team isn’t scoring runs, you want to hit a three-run home run with the bases empty.

“But I like where we are. I really do. (Hunter) Pence is coming around. (Angel) Pagan has had a solid season. We just have to find a way to keep the line moving. I think these guys realize where they’re at, and the position we’re in.”

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The Giants might need a few more runs against Zack Greinke on Sunday if they are to sweep this series. The Diamondbacks have been terrible at home, and they are 24 games under .500 against right-handed starters. But they have a lot of right-handed thump in their lineup,and they are 18-19 against lefty starters. So Matt Moore has a challenge in front of him, especially as he comes off a walk-fueled debacle at Coors Field.

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Right-hander Derek Law will throw a simulated game prior to batting practice Monday at AT&T Park. The Giants plan to activate him Tuesday or Wednesday, and as Bruce Bochy has said, Law will be a big part of the bullpen down the stretch. He might even be used as the primary right-hander in the ninth inning.

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Gregor Blanco (shoulder) continues to hit, but it sure sounds like his season is over. He’ll a free agent, so he might be finished as a Giant as well. Blanco has been at the center of many memorable moments with this club since 2012. I asked him the other day what memory he most cherishes, figuring he would mention the two World Series titles or the catch he made to save Matt Cain’s perfect game.

Instead, Blanco said it was making the team as a minor league free agent out of spring training in 2012.

“That was my chance,” he said. “I knew they believed in me.”

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Bochy was saddened to learn that the High Desert Mavericks would be contracted from the Single-A California League. He was the first skipper for the Mavericks after the franchise moved from Riverside in 1991, and led the Padres affiliate to the Cal League title.

“I’ve got good memories there,” Bochy said. “We had a lot of fun there. They had great crowds, great enthusiasm. The games were different, with the wind blowing out. There were a lot of cheap home runs. But the fans there enjoyed it. They had a good time with it.”

Baseball’s minor league explosion pretty much began with the Mavericks. They became the first Cal League team to draw over 200,000 fans in one season. Bochy’s star in that inaugural season was Matt Mieske, who went on to play for the Brewers.

And there were late nights at The Cocky Bull, a saloon and steak joint in Victorville where a few players might have found future wives.

Bochy said there was one negative memory. He got back from one road trip to find someone had thrown a brick through his apartment window and cleaned out his place, including his Las Vegas Triple-A championship ring. A few weeks later, a pawn shop contacted the team. Someone had sold them the ring. Bochy bought it back.

Whoever made off with the proceeds probably had a bar bill to settle at The Cocky Bull.

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Lineups:

CF Span, LF Pagan, C Posey, SS Crawford, RF Pence, 1B Belt, 2B Panik, 3B Núñez, LHP Moore.

2B Segura, SS Owings, 1B Goldschmidt, C Castillo, RF Tomás, 3B Lamb, LF Drury, CF Haniger, RHP Greinke.