Befuddled Giants

Phil Gurnee ♦ July 28, 2017 ♦ Leave a comment

Last year around this time the Giants were in first place and the Dodgers were for the first time having to confront a rotation without Clayton Kershaw. Things didn’t look good and I even said they didn’t look good. Jon Weisman said no problem, and we know who was right last summer.

The Giants went into a skid and never recovered. The Dodgers got hot even without Kershaw. Both seemed inexplicable at the time.

On July 28th, 2016 the Giants were 59 – 43, sixteen games over .500. They had just traded for Matt Moore and Nunez to bolster the team. You would have thought that they would play better with the new players or at least around the same. Instead, they free fell and finished the season under .500 over their last 60 games going 28 – 32.  They still finished the overall season over .500 with a nice record of 87 – 75 and four games under .500 during a 60 game stretch could simply be an anomaly.

Headed into 2017 the Giants still had a nice quartet of starting pitchers with Madbum, Cueto, Shark, and Moore. They had addressed their back of the end bullpen issues by adding Mark Melancon. They still had a core of Posey, Belt, Crawford, and Pence. No one would think of them as world beaters but it did have the look of a competitive team.

Not so much.  40 – 63 is the 2017 Giant record on July 28th.  They are now 68 – 95 since last July 28th.  They are no longer fighting for the postseason they are fighting for the first draft pick with the White Sox and Phillies.

I’m not even going to address why they are this bad, I’m still in shock that a team that was 59 – 43 at this point last year are 68 – 95 since that point.

Good thing, Giant fans have three rings to wave around. That will get them through the next couple of years of rebuild.