The Giants left on a ten day road trip that started in Cincinnati, where Gabe Kapler and his staff made two glaring coaching errors and the Giants lost the first two games to the worst team in baseball.

The Giants have lost seven of the last nine games, nine of the last thirteen. They are seven games out of first place behind two teams that are stacked with expensive talent, and they’re only three games over .500 after 45 games, more than a quarter of the season.

Game one was delayed for more than two hours by rain. Before the game even began with Gabe Kapler skipping the national anthem, Tommy Pham slapped Joc Pederson across the face over – not making this up – a perceived rule violation in a high-stakes Fantasy Football league they were both in last year, and a dispiriting .gif of the Padres that Pederson sent to the League’s groupchat. Pham was scratched from the start by the Reds, and suspended by MLB for three games the following day.

The Giants then lined up behind Carlos Rodón, who had another rocky start. Rodón went only five and a third innings on 99 pitches, walking three and giving up seven hits and three earned runs. The Giants bats were silenced by Reds rookie right-hander Graham Ashcraft, who held them scoreless through six and a third for his first win ever. The Giants picked up a run in the eighth as Joc Pederson was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. They then stranded the remaining baserunners.

It was 3 – 1 and the Giants hoped to hold it with Jake McGee, recently returned from the IL – a two-run deficit against the Reds seemed surmountable now that Ashcraft was off the mound. McGee jogged out and took warm-up pitches, only to discover that Kapler and the staff hadn’t put his name on the lineup card. Facepalm. It was a bad look. The Giants had to quckly go with Jose Alvarez, who gave up two more runs and put the game out of reach. Giants 1, Reds 5

Game two was an excellent Alex Wood start that was wasted by the Giants, who again couldn’t produce runs against a Reds starter. The Giants had 12 hits and left eleven on base. They were 3 for 16 with runners in scoring position. Still, thanks to Wood’s solid five and two thirds in which he K’d six and gave up just a three-run homer to Kyle Farmer, the Giants were in this one. They had runners on in the eighth and ninth.

But the game ended on a terrible send by 3B coach Mark Hallberg that resulted in pinch-running Joey Bart being thrown out by Aristedes Aquino at the plate by yards. Bart didn’t even bother sliding, he just pulled up and basically walked into the tag, feet from the plate. Aquino has great arm strength and is known for his accuracy. There was no good reason to send Bart with two outs. Giants 2 Reds 3.

The coaching staff has to be held accountable for their blunders. Kapler is a smooth talker and a generally good, likable guy – in fact I am proud of his wokeness – but these were two stupid baseball mistakes against the worst team in the league in games we need to win. We have to defeat the bad teams to stay even with the Dodgers and Padres.

I don’t believe we can win the NL West with the guys we have right now. I am not even sure who our guys are or will be in September. The new system is awkward and feels out of control a lot of the time. There’s constantly changing personnel. So what are we doing? We have no real starting pitching rotation. Belt and Pederson are our only power and the bullpen, which is really quite good, is overtaxed constantly and forced into pressure situations.

We all looked past the weird moments last year because we were winning. We won the west. I don’t see that happening. If I am not to blame management for our situation – 13th in payroll, and dropping in the standings without enough talent – who am I to blame?

Better win tomorrow, Kap. Need you to focus on your job.