The San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's haven't exactly come storming out of the gate to start the 2011 season, and their positions in the ESPN power rankings definitely show it. Neither team is above .500 right now, but the A's are treading water at 11-11 while the Giants have sunk to 10-11. Both team's pitching has been pretty solid, but the offense, as usual, has been suspect.
The defending champs dropped two spots from 9th to 11th this week in the rankings after losing 4 straight, and in every sense of the word would like to press the reset button during their recent series with the Braves. The Giants are batting a horrendous .192 as a team over the last week, which is never going to get it done at any level of baseball. San Francisco needs to turn this around and in a hurry before the Rockies pull out of reach. Hopefully on their current 10 game road trip they can gain some ground.
As for the A's, their pitching has been phenomenal, leading the majors in team ERA (2.46) second in WHIP (1.16) and third in Batting Average Against (.226). But on the other side of the coin, all of their regular nine starters are all under .260 batting average, and are 24th in runs scored in the league with 80. At some point their bats are going to have to get going or all that great pitching will be all for not, especially when fighting for a division crown with the Texas Rangers and Anaheim Angels.
All though it seems gloomy now, the sun will always come out tomorrow. Both these teams have the pitching depth to carry them along, now let's see if they can score the runs to win a few.