If a rough patch in a Major League Baseball season can be analogized to a gathering tempest, then the San Francisco Giants are heading into a doozy.

The club is sailing into a bank of cumulonimbus that isn’t just dark; it’s that inky, purplish shade of black. The kind that means your best option is to find Toto, stick your head between your knees, and kiss your tokus goodbye.

As unhappy a metaphor as it might be, the Gents could very easily be the ill-fated Andrea Gail, futilely climbing that CGI wall of water. The weekend series at AT&T Park against the National League West-leading San Diego Padres would then be the first waves crashing over the forward deck.

Granted, that would cast Bruce Bochy as the team’s George Clooney—a parallel that only works if compare literal and figurative head sizes, respectively.

The point is, the going is about to get tough for the lads. Extremely tough.

And the last three days have been no picnic.

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