Madison Bumgarner had crashed his dirt bike. Jarrett Parker had crashed into the outfield wall at AT&T Park. And the Giants as a whole, they’d spent the better part of two months crashing… and then burning.
So when San Francisco arrived in Philadelphia for a three-game series against the Major League-worst Phillies over the first weekend of June, it was supposed to offer a team that dug its way into a ditch a welcome reprieve from the depths it had sunk to.
And immediately, the Giants proved they couldn’t possibly be as bad as their record suggested. On Friday, June 2, rookie left-hander Ty Blach spun a gem, notching his first career complete game shutout while the Giants’ offense tormented Phillies pitchers in a 10-0 beat down.
The win, much like any other positive signs the Giants encountered during the first two months of the season, was nothing more than a mirage. Over the next two days, San Francisco imploded, losing back-to-back contests to a Phillies team that was simply lifeless over the season’s first eight weeks.
At 23-35, and finally tied for last place with the Padres, the Giants had officially crashed again. This time, they did not hit a dirt patch or an outfield wall. This time, they hit rock bottom.
For a franchise that racked up three World Series titles in five seasons, and was a blown save away from forcing a decisive Game 5 in the NLDS against the eventual World Champion Chicago Cubs, a series loss against the lowly Phillies was devastating.
Facing a 12.5-game deficit in the standings, the series loss in Philadelphia marked the beginning of the end for the Giants’ playoff hopes. But it wasn’t the size of the deficit that looked overly daunting. It was the manner in which the Giants were playing that was the strongest indication that 2017 was not their year.
The silver lining for San Francisco, though, was that based on the franchise’s track record and the magnitude of the losses to the Phillies, the season surely would not get worse. At some point, the Giants would begin to look like themselves again.
It’s August 16, and Giants fans are still waiting.
On August 17, the Phillies will arrive at AT&T Park for a four-game series, and unsurprisingly, they still boast the worst record in the Major Leagues. Philadelphia is in the midst of a massive rebuild, thanks in large part to oversized contracts the franchise doled out to free agents who never lived up to expectations. If the Giants aren’t careful over the next two offseasons, they may have to endure a similar roster overhaul.
The Phillies’ visit to AT&T Park isn’t likely to garner much fanfare. In fact, with intriguing playoff races heating up in both the National and American Leagues, the four games between Philadelphia and San Francisco slated for this weekend will rank among the least compelling matchups in sports this summer.
But that doesn’t mean that these four games are insignificant.
If Bruce Bochy and his players insist the team is playing for pride, this is the weekend that will ultimately prove that. It’s paradoxical, but because these games don’t matter, they might matter more than most of the other games the Giants have left to play.
Though the Giants didn’t think they could sink further than the depths they met after losing two of three to the Phillies, they did. San Francisco went 9-18 in June and 9-16 in July. On August 4, the Giants dipped a season-high 27 games under .500. It’s now August 16, and the club is 37.5 games back of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers.
To be fair, the Dodgers are 50 games over .500 and enjoying Golden State Warriors-esque success, but their position in the standings relative to that of the Giants is still useful for dramatic effect.
As a collective unit, the Giants don’t have much left to prove this season. While there’s no shortage of individuals who have work to do if they hope to carve out a role, or a more pronounced role, on the Giants’ 2018 squad, the team as a whole has a rather subjective goal: “Finish Strong.”
What would a strong finish look like? The Giants are playing above .500 for the month of August, and it’s reasonable to believe that the club is capable of doing that for the rest of the month, and then achieving the same feat in September.
However, the progress San Francisco has made this month can easily be undone by a Philadelphia club that has 43 wins and 74 losses. Though the White Sox, Reds and even the Padres, A’s and Tigers still have a chance to finish with baseball’s worst record, the Phillies have been the clubhouse front-runner since Spring Training concluded.
At this point in the year, the Giants have five more wins than the Phillies, but remain just 2.5 games ahead of Philadelphia because San Francisco has played five more games. All it takes is one hot streak for the red and white, and one cold spell for the orange and black, and the Giants will have increased their chances of landing the No. 1 overall pick in next year’s draft, an accomplishment the franchise would rather avoid.
That’s why the most unimportant series in baseball this weekend is still important. For the Giants and their fans, the appearance of losing, and even splitting a series against the Phillies is a terrible one.
As long as the Giants win 15 more games this season, they won’t finish with a triple-digit loss total. Sprinkle in a few more wins, and fans won’t realistically care if the club goes 67-95, 70-92 or 73-89. That last record is a bit more palatable, but in the end, the Giants aren’t making the playoffs, and they didn’t come close to challenging for a spot.
Another series loss to the Phillies, though, and the optics turn from bad to worse. If you can’t beat the Padres, and can’t beat the Phillies, who can you beat?
Maybe I’m making much ado about nothing, and perhaps fans will forgive and forget at the end of a long season. But something tells me the Giants need to win this weekend, even if they don’t win much the rest of the way.