5 San Francisco Giants Who Need to Step Up Their Performance

5 Giants Who Need to Improve

While the San Francisco Giants have remained a force in the NL West through the first 62 games of the 2013 season, they have definitely had their fair share of struggles. Whether it be through their starting pitching, fielding, or injuries, the team has had a lot of obstacles to deal with thus far. To their credit, they have done a good job dealing with everything, and continue to spar with the Arizona Diamondbacks for first place in the division.

As the team wraps up the first half of the season, they are more depleted than they have been all year. Ryan Vogelsong and Angel Pagan are already on the disabled list, and Pablo Sandoval likely will join them in the coming days. Things look to be on the upswing in general, though, as Vogelsong's spot in the rotation is being admirably filled by Chad Gaudin, and the rest of the starters have performed better of late too. The bullpen looks to have stabilized as well, with Jean Machi emerging as a reliable setup man, and everyone else continuing to perform well as they become more accustomed to their roles.

If the team is going to continue to contend for the division and be a power in the playoffs, however, they can not have an incomplete team with so many players not showing their full ability. While every player has their ups and downs, here are five Giants in particular who need to turn things around in order for the team to reach its full potential.

Matt Cain

Cain has been without a question the team's biggest disappointment thus far, coming off a career year to have a 5.09 ERA through 13 starts this year. How much these struggles can be attributed to him aging or being fatigued from two championship runs in three years is unknown. Cain has acknowledged that he has made bad pitch selections many times this year, and it seems that he is working to correct it. His last start was very effective, with him only giving up one run and four hits over seven innings, so hopefully he is on the right track and can rebound to his traditional form as the division race intensifies.

Angel Pagan

While Pagan has certainly had his fair share of good moments this season, he has not effectively done his job as a leadoff hitter thus far. After hitting .288 with 29 stolen bases last year, Pagan is only at .262 this year with six steals, and his average was brought up by a couple of days of good production before his injury. If Pagan cannot consistently get on base, he may need to be moved out of the leadoff spot and down to a lower spot in the order. This would not be the worst decision in the world, as Gregor Blanco and Andres Torres are both capable leadoff hitters, and if Pagan moved down, he may feel more comfortable demonstrating his base-stealing ability since he would not be risking the at-bats of run producers like Buster Posey and Hunter Pence. Once Pagan comes back from his injury, he needs to start playing more like he did last season if he wants to get the same result.

Andres Torres

Make no mistake — Torres has done much more than what was expected of him thus far. After getting off to a slow start, he has effectively platooned with Gregor Blanco in left field and his held his own while playing every day in the absence of Angel Pagan. There are several areas, however, that he needs to improve greatly in if he wants to keep up this success throughout the season. First of all, he needs to learn how to be the same hitter on the road as he is at home. While he is hitting .356 at home, he is only hitting .150 in away games. Secondly, Torres needs to shore up his fielding. He has had several costly defensive mistakes this season and cannot afford to be a liability in the field.

Guillermo Quiroz

Quiroz is a great defensive backstop and is an important asset in the clubhouse as he provides the rare quality of being a Venezuelan player who speaks flawless English. However, his offensive numbers have not been good as of late, and he probably needs to begin hitting soon to save his job. Quiroz was not supposed to be the backup catcher on this team; Hector Sanchez's hitting struggles allowed Quiroz to win the job.

The Giants cannot rely on Buster Posey to catch as much in July and August as he has to this point, as the hot weather and general fatigue makes it too difficult. The club got a major boost having Sanchez to back him up last year, as he hit .280 and was the personal catcher for both Barry Zito and Tim Lincecum. The team likely would like to get some level of production from Sanchez again this year, and Sanchez, who is now hitting over .300 at AAA and hit a massive home run Monday night, will begin breathing down Quiroz's neck if he does not step it up soon.

Marco Scutaro

While Scutaro is having a fantastic season at the plate and is tied for the lead in average among NL second basemen, he has become a defensive liability. His nine errors thus far are already the most he has ever made in a season while playing second base, and he's no stranger to the position, having played 497 games there. Especially with the defensively gifted Nick Noonan no longer around to spell him when necessary, Scutaro needs to recover his defensive skill so his pitchers have more confidence.