It’s hard when no opponent is easy;ASTROS 4, GIANTS 3

If the Giants' season ends after their162nd game, which seems likelier by the day, the postmortem will beeasy to write: great pitching and a lot of fight, but too many keyinjuries and way too few runs. A more subtle failure can be included, too, namely the Giants' impotence against some ofthe league's worst teams. They lost their season series against theMarlins 2-4, Reds 2-5 and Nationals 3-4 and they split with thePirates 3-3, with two of the three losses in San Francisco whilethe Buccos were falling off a cliff.