Will the Real Offense Please Stand Up?

In April the Giants were one the best hitting teams in the National League. They ranked in the top 5 in all of the hitting categories except for slugging where they were 6th. By all measures they were pretty good except for maybe a little weak in the power department.

They posted a .280/ .346/ .422 triple slash line with a .142 ISO and a BABIP of .317, if they were able to produce numbers that closely resembled this at the end of the season I would be tickled pink and the team would be well on its way to 90 wins when combined to the outstanding pitching.

When the calendar changed to May things changed drastically even taking into account last nights offensive outburst of 4 runs.Things are nearly reversed with the team in the bottom five in all offensive numbers and in most only doing better then the lowly Astros.

So far the team has posted a .234/ .300/ .357 triple slash with a .123 ISO and a BABIP of .278. Nearly every category has fallen by 50 points from the previous month.

This begs the question which month is more indicative of the true offensive level that we can expect from this team?

The BABIP will most likley over the course of the season move toward .300 and maybe depending on luck be a few points higher or lower but what about the other numbers?

Last season they posted .257/ .309/ .389 with a .132 ISO. These numbers were bad enough for them to finish in the bottom 5 of all offensive categories. There hasn't been a large change in the types of players or the actual players that have donned the orange on black this season compared to last and I would suspect that it would be wishful thinking to think that the numbers will be much different from last season.

I bet that what happened in April was fortunate and the Giants are not as good of a hitting team as the numbers suggest, the numbers for May thus far show a poor hitting team that has maybe gotten unlucky. I bet that the real 2010 offense is closer to what we have seen this month plus about 15 to 20 points on most categories.

My prediction for the end of the year: .260/ .315/ .380 and an offense that is not really much changed from last year. Lets hope that the team has 4 Cy Young canidatates this season because that is the only way that this team plays baseball in October without some voodoo luck or a robbery of another teams best hitter.