SAN FRANCISCO -- Gather the troops, rally 'round the flagpole, let the Giants players' voices cry as one, talk their troubles over and strive to get on a winning streak, escape the doldrums with the resonating drumbeat of success.

Call a meeting.

Why not? The club dropped its seventh game in its last 10 contests Monday, a 5-3 loss to the San Diego Padres, long San Francisco's whipping boys but now a team to contend with.

There's a familiar and disturbing pattern to the Giants' games, the starters not holding the opponents down with enough quality pitches or quality starts and the hitters slumping with runners in scoring position.

Manager Felipe Alou, however, admittedly not a meeting kind of guy, says there's only three times he'd be tempted to speak as the boss to the players -- when he's really mad, or panicking ... or feeling sorry for the men

"I don't feel any of those yet," said Alou, "but one of these days we have to get together, I guess. I knew when I played when we needed a meeting. The players know when we need a meeting."

As for running around in circles, throwing stat sheets in the air and shouting hysterically -- that's panicking -- Alou may show frustration and anger on rare occasions, but panic isn't in his dictionary.

"Where I come from, we don't panic," said Alou of the Dominican Republic -- as well as his some 50 years in baseball, where going off the mental deep end doesn't help.

Giants starter Noah Lowry felt the sting of defeat for the second straight outing and lasted only 5 1/3 innings, throwing 107 pitches, including two too many to Geoff Blum, who smacked a two-run homer and an RBI single.

And as is their custom, the Giants trailed early and couldn't come back, despite the bullpen continuing a stunning streak over the past 12 games, holding the opposition to a 1.49 ERA covering 42 1/3 innings.

Over the past eight games, San Francisco is batting only .230 and scoring an average of just over three runs per game.

Call a meeting, getting things off their chests?

Shortstop Omar Vizquel has played 16 seasons and has seen it all -- slumps and streaks and moody players and meetings that threaten and cajole the players to play better.

He's a newcomer to the Giants, but oddly he's still waiting for someone to say something, ignite a verbal fire, spark a streak. Vizquel believes there's too much silence in the clubhouse.

"The guys are taking it for granted -- they keep saying we know how to get ready, know how to do this or that, but we're not doing it," said the shortstop, who singled twice Monday, driving in one run. "Obviously, somebody has to speak up and maybe that can be a good wakeup call.

"It's probably a good idea to have a meeting, like talk things over. Everybody's grown up and they know what they have to do, but it's always good to talk between us."

If there was a captain per se on this club, a virtual team leader, there might have already been an intraclub meeting of the minds. But on this veteran team, it almost goes unsaid that improvement is necessary.

Vizquel thinks some players might be pressing, trying to do too much.

"It's like everybody wants to hit like a bases-loaded home run with nobody on," he said. "We should pull for each other, try to get a base hit instead of waiting for a home run, which we're trying to do."

"We are making a lot of mistakes pitching-wise, and obviously we're not hitting in the clutch. We have guys on but not bringing them home. So when you have a combination of those two, that's pretty bad."

As for Lowry, the lefty says he'll have to make quality pitches, not keep the ball up, keep his mind strong.

"For me, it's not mechanical," he said. "A lot of it is mental. I need to step it up a little bit. I think, for me, it's an all-around game that needs to be picked up. I'm not holding my own right now. I need to figure things out."