Ratto: If the Giants' 2010 was torture, 2011 is agony

Aug. 16, 2011
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Ray Ratto
CSNBayArea.com
Why did Mondays Giants loss in Atlanta have such sting for their fan base? Why do any of them? This has always been a town of passionate frontrunners, and that has not changed even with last years torture fixation.In fact, last year wasnt really torture anyway, because the Giants came from off the pace to win, which is the most gratifying and least stressful of victories. Taking a lead with an incomplete team and trying to hold it is far more agonizing.
Surely the angst cannot come from Brian Wilson, who blew his fifth save in 55 games and 40 opportunities. Neither stat speaks adequately to a closers true value, but an 87.5 percent conversion rate ought to be properly instructive.In short, effluent happens.REWIND: Wilson blows fifth save, Giants stunned by Braves
No, this is probably more a matter of the fans seeing the Giants do something they rarely do -- blow a game they leadand a thing they do infrequently -- score four runs.Thats the real issue here. They have reached the National League average for runs per game, 4.15, in fewer than 30 percent of their games, and score three or fewer 60 percent of the time. Four seems like a triumph in and of itself, and a two-run lead seems close to ironclad.But given that the Giants are a below-.500 team since the All-Star break, have had a number of injuries, several of which were legitimate at the time they were declared, and have come from ahead to find themselves 2games south of the monumentally ordinary Arizona Diamondbackswell, thats where the line to the rooftops and the opened veins forms.The Giants dont seem like the team of destiny this year, and being the team of destiny is so much easier on the constitution. The team of destiny today seems to be Milwaukee, unless you are a real frontrunner and prefer Philadelphia. But destinies are made and crushed not in mid-August but in late September.Put another way, the 1951 Giants didnt start their comeback until Aug. 12, which is only four days ago. To tell folks to calm down is fruitless, so we have abandoned it as a form of advice.Rather than that, we will say, as we have all along, that these are the Giants, period. You have to take the annoying with the cruddy, and re-adjust your view of them not as defending champions of the blah-de-blah-blah-blah, but as one of two teams that could win the worst division in baseball.That doesnt sound noble or admirable, but a team that scores four or fewer runs seven of every 10 times it plays doesnt get to be noble. It gets to grind, relentlessly, remorselessly, and it gets to be smacked around by even its most loyal supporters for its incompleteness.And that isnt torture. Thats realism. Live with it, or belt up.Ray Ratto is a columnist with Comcast SportsNet Bay Area.