By Morris Phillips
SAN FRANCISCO–The last time the Giants were 30 games above .500 was 2003, when Barry Bonds could decide a game with just one or two official at-bats a game, and the Dodgers… well the Dodgers couldn’t pull things together with a not yet mature Adrian Beltre and an over-the-hill Fred McGriff.
Those were good times.
They also ended way too soon. The Giants won 19 of their final 27 games that season, ran away with the NL West, winning 100 games, and went home quick after three straight losses to the Marlins in a NLDS series that started with a promising Giants 2-0 win.
In that series, no Giant hit a home run. Bonds walked eight times, and ended up with nine official at-bats. His one extra-base hit–a double–didn’t decide anything. Rich Aurilla and Marquis Grissom couldn’t buy a base hit. And Joe Nathan and Sidney Ponson were two guys that didn’t do much on the mound amongst a Giants pitching staff that was clearly capable of much better outings.
The undeniable disclaimer in all this: regular season win totals mean nothing in the postseason. This is just one example, they are hundreds of such examples involving all the great franchises and eras in baseball.
So that being made explicitly clear, the 2021 Giants are racking up the wins, and in and of itself, it’s pretty impressive.
This year, the Giants have managed to stay in first place in baseball’s most challenging division for more than two months. They’ve answered the head-to-head challenges put forth by the Dodgers and Padres. They’ve had one, three-game losing streak, and one, four-game losing streak. They haven’t had one stretch where they’ve gone on a huge tear, instead they have three, five-game win streaks and they’ve taken advantage of almost every one of their 19 opponents.
They lead the majors in home runs currently with 169 in 112 games, and along with that they’ve scored the most runs via the home run of any club. The Giants aren’t particularly impressive in terms of hits, doubles and batting average, but they are right around league average in all three categories. They’ve fielded the oldest lineups of any club throughout the season, and they suffered in that regard to a degree with most of that veteran core having extended periods on the injured list. Their strikeout total is high, but they’ve hit an extraordinary number of homers in close games, which brings us to the biggest surprise–their pitching.
The Giants currently rank third in baseball in team ERA (3.35) and their pitching staff has been stingy in allowing home runs–114 thus far, fewer than just three other clubs. They don’t walk people either (296 walks allowed) which is second fewest in MLB and 166 fewer than the Cardinals, who have issued the most. Again, the pitching staff is a veteran unit, only five other clubs have groups that are older, and in that regard, the Giants have had to answer questions about durability and sustainability. But to date, the group has held together with remarkable consistency due to its overall depth.
In the San Francisco era, only three Giants’ clubs have won at least 100 regular season games. Those seasons were 1962, 1993 and 2003. None of those three seasons ended well–the 1962 club lost the World Series in Game 7 in dramatic fashion. The 1993 club didn’t even qualify for the playoffs, and was eliminated in the final regular season game at Dodger Stadium, and the loss was almost immediately lopsided and uncompetitive.
The most games any of the three, most recent World Series champion Giants won was 94 in 2012. That juxtaposition makes sense in that no club sets itself up to play its best baseball if its grinding through the regular season right to its conclusion. So does this version of the Giants want to win 100 games?
If it must to outlast the Dodgers and Padres, of course. Falling into the wild card, even as a host participant, would be a huge letdown for a club that has spent the majority of the season in first place. But after that, one game playoff decides the Giants’ first postseason opponent, little is gained. As the highest ranked qualifier in the National League, the Giants will draw the winner–most likely the Dodgers–in a seven-game series in which the only advantage they’ll have is home field in Game 7.
If it doesn’t have to win 100, the Giants will likely use the final two weeks to set their lineup and rotation for the NLDS. But avoiding the wild card winner is unlikely. The Giants are well ahead of the Brewers and Phillies in the NL Central and East, and as the highest ranked qualifier they will draw the wild card winner–likely the Dodgers or Padres.
So do they win 100? If it’s done in organically, with all hands contributing, why not? But don’t look for the process to unfold in the final weeks like 2003. This time the Giants–with their next 12 games in the Bay Area, nine at Oracle Park, and three in Oakland–need to put together their 100-game push now. Winning 10 of 12 or 11 of 15 would do the trick. If so, they would merely have to play .500 ball in the season’s 30 or so remaining games to reach 100.
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