This team has been flying high for a while and baseball caught up with them. The Cubs would have swept us if not for Burrell. Now, this series Burrell slowed down and Torres did also. Huff is off, especially since that long out in game 1 of the Padres series.

The team just needs to refocus and this day off will help a lot. The offense was never top notch to begin with, but they are more than capable. The defense doesn't have good range outside of a few positions, but at least they generally don't make mistakes.

The pitching is the only real question mark, but I believe they will be fine. The bullpen is finally carrying its weight and they are getting two pieces back soon.

The starters have been solid and will continue to be. What is really important is that Lincecum will get it together. He needed to get hit to refocus him. He also needs to take care of himself and maybe even get a start off to rest. I am so tired of hearing everyones simple explanations as to why Lincecum is having problems. It is pretty obvious that pressure isn't the problem. The last two years all of the pressure and expectations were on Timmy for most of the season. The weed isn't the problem. If he wants to smoke it or eat it or not use it he can choose any of those and it won't have a major impact regardless. I've heard the story that he isn't doing the long toss anymore. Maybe he isn't putting in the same work as before. I bet that has to do with his body being and feeling worn down. Timmy just needs to learn how to take care of his diet, sleep patterns, exercise (and exercise patterns), and maybe even icing or treatments/therapies because his body isn't recovering fast enough over the course of a mlb season anymore as he gets older and has more milage.

I think we are more likely to make the playoffs than not. But either way this team has not once sacrificed its future in the past 2 seasons (in a major way). It does erk me that we made that terrible trade for Garko, because even though the prospect we gave up is sucking, he still had value. Make enough bad small trades and it does add up. Same goes with bad signings. I think the Renteria and DeRosa signings are killing us because we have no real shortstop. We move Uribe to short and now we have no real second baseman. Rowand is also killing us, but I forgive him because I think it has a lot to do with injuries taking their toll. I'm fine with Zito atm because his suck helped get us Posey and Bum, then he resurged in a big way. It still was a big mistake.

The real point is that those conracts give our gm a much smaller margin for error this season and next. Take Zito, Rowand, Renteria, DeRosa, Freddy Sanchez and now we can't afford to "go for it all" in good conscience. I know other fans will argue and say "you just have to get in" and anything can happen. But, imo we were never one or two pieces away from being a likely team to get to the world series. If that is the case, you stay conservative with your trades, and we did. Our division is fairly strong. But, if this team can't beat out the Padres, with their weak lineup... or the Reds who are playing over their heads... then thats too bad. If you can't beat out one of those teams then I don't have any confidence in getting to the world series.

That being said, I think we will beat out the Padres. They have been impressive, but baseball will catch up to them too. Lets revist this topic in September.

:)