Early struggles: Just working out the kinks or harbinger of trouble?

If only the Giants could have flipped the script against the Dodgers, winning the final two games instead of the first two.

Or if the Giants could have stopped everything after Friday night, maybe been rained out during the weekend, and kept the Dodgers’ Wikipedia page hacked with this amusing misinformation: team owner — Joe Panik (who won the first two games on solo homers).

Those would be better scenarios for the home opener, rather than the one that presents itself Tuesday.

The feeling of, “Here we go again.”

The Giants return to San Francisco for their first home game of the season in the wake of being shut out for 18 innings, outscored 14-0 in the past two games and being 1-for-28 with runners in scoring position in the series. Their new additions, who were supposed to bring more pop to the lineup as well as savvy presence, went a combined 2-for-43 in Los Angeles.

So Opening Day 2018 will open under the same clouds of questions and concerns that blanketed all of 2017 and the second half of 2016.

Pick your mood: A mere four games? Or a harbinger of what’s to come?

A segment of the Giants’ fans will be able to step back, take a big look, and say: just four games, a split with arguably the best team in the National League in its stadium, a win against Clayton Kershaw. Everything is OK.

“If you had told me we were going to score two runs and split the series, I’d have been elated,” manager Bruce Bochy said at the end of the series in Chavez Ravine.

And that’s the appropriate baseball response. It’s a long season.

But though baseball fans are good at talking about the big picture, the reality is most of them grind on the small moments.

And folks will arrive at AT&T Park on Tuesday already seeing echoes of last season, when the team finished 31st in the majors in runs scored and RBIs, and dead last in home runs.

Or remembering that the first four games last year in Arizona, when the Giants went 1-3, were indeed a foreshadowing of what was to follow.

The day after last year’s 98-loss season ended, executive vice president Brian Sabean said: “Lord knows everybody wants power ... but there’s a huge emphasis, past and present, on timely hitting.”

So far — still searching for the timely hit.

There were other concerning items at Dodger Stadium, like the defense. Some of the frustration — confusion between Gregor Blanco and Andrew McCutchen in the outfield — might require a few games to get sorted out. Other events, like Sunday’s play when the Giants had Yasiel Puig in a rundown but couldn’t get him out (allowing Corey Seager to score), were brain farts.

“It was a bad read on my end and I mistimed it,” said Panik, though the second baseman was certainly not the only part of the play that caused its failure.

Could new left fielder Hunter Pence, 34, have leaped higher to rob a Cody Bellinger home run? Maybe not, but the vision of Ichiro Suzuki, 44, leaping higher to save a run was noted by some Giants fans. Suzuki and the Mariners are Tuesday’s opponent in San Francisco.

Surprisingly, the starting pitching has been the least of the Giants’ concerns in their first four games, not what we would have expected after the decimation of the rotation during the final days of spring training. Of the four starters against the Dodgers, only Derek Holland turned over the game to the bullpen in a deep hole, and that was because of an error.

Johnny Cueto looked like his 2016 masterful self Friday night. And Ty Blach takes the mound in the Tuesday’s home opener, fresh off his victory over Kershaw.

It’s only four games and the Giants won the first two. In the big picture, four games mean virtually nothing.

But, as we saw last season, when things go south early, it can be hard to get back on track. Last year, by the time the Giants received the gut punch of Madison Bumgarner’s dirt-bike injury, things already were in the process of unraveling. The Giants did not recover.

This is a different team. McCutchen, Evan Longoria and Austin Jackson have been around long enough and seen enough different situations to shrug off their slow start. The team-wide resolve that was evident in spring training didn’t disappear over the weekend.

The Giants have two games against the Mariners — a team that means nothing to them and is an underwhelming opponent for the home opener — before another weekend round with the mighty Dodgers.

Tuesday would be an opportune time to shake off that feeling of “Here we go again.”