I tuned into the Giants game on April 7 and April 12 and each time was confronted with a scene that, I believe, provides a foretelling of the San Francisco season in microcosm. There was Matt Cain, struggling away in the fifth inning of a 0-0 game. (In the game on April 12, Matt actually had a no-hitter through five innings.) Better get used to those goose eggs, Matt–a year of non-support from your teammates is your lot.

Through 19 games, the Giants have scored 61 runs, least in the National League. When a team’s cleanup hitter is Bengie Molina, a 33-year-old catcher with a career .410 slugging average, isn’t it hard imagining them scoring even 500 times this season? That’s much too extreme, of course. It’s been ages (36 years, actually) since a team scored way down in the low threes–or under–per game. In 1972, one National and four American League teams were under 500 runs. (You see why the designated hitter came about?) Without starving to that extent, the Giants do seem like a good bet to break into this list of modern era clubs that have scored the fewest runs:

Lowest runs per game since 1996
3.54: 2003 Dodgers (574 runs scored)
3.57: 2002 Tigers (575)
3.65: 2003 Tigers (591)
3.80: 2004 Diamondbacks (615)
3.83: 1998 Devil Rays (620)
3.87: 2002 Brewers (627)
3.92-3.99: Eight teams (634 to 650)

San Francisco right now is scoring runs at a rate of 3.21 per game, which puts them at the top (bottom?) of this list. If AT&T Park were no longer almost neutral and suddenly started playing like the pitcher’s haven it was during its PacBell infancy, then we could almost guarantee a Giants appearance on this list. While I loathe extracting too much from a season’s first three weeks, the Giants so far are certainly fulfilling everyone’s fears of a season of offensive deprivation. Scoring zero runs (they’ve done it twice), one run (three times), or two runs (four times) is bound to be the rule and not the exception.