Pablo Sandoval. Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
They’re feeling rested after two off-days in four days. They’re coming off a (two-game) sweep of the Padres. The rotation has steadied itself, each starter pitching at least promisingly in his previous outing.
Buster Posey returned from the IL on Wednesday. Brandon Belt is back in the lineup after an illness and neck flare-up.
If the Giants ever can seize momentum this season, it would be now. There is a minuscule chance of a prolonged run that would allow them to be playing in October; Fangraphs gives San Francisco a .1 percent chance of making the playoffs.
That glimmer of hope will either be sparked or extinguished in the next 20 days, when the Giants play 20 games in a stretch that likely will break them but could, they hope, make them.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Pablo Sandoval told KNBR before Friday’s game against the Brewers at Oracle Park. “We’ve done it before. Don’t got a problem with that [stretch]. We just need to be prepared mentally to do our job out there.
“We gotta continue playing the way we’re playing. We’ve been putting together good games, close games. … I hope that we continue to keep proving ourselves every single day.”
If they don’t, this span of games — which doesn’t finish until a Fourth of July breather — could finish with a sell-off. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi is waiting for the team to signal whether he should be a trade-deadline seller. Until the recent uptick in play, the Giants had begun waving the white flag Zaidi’s way.
“It’s an important stretch,” said manager Bruce Bochy, whose farewell season could be spent in losing obscurity. “I mean, we always say that about any long stretch, but it’s going to be important we take care of these guys, the bullpen … make sure they get their needed time.”
The Giants played the Dodgers tough, dropping two of three at home in a series they could have swept before edging San Diego in the pair of games. The degree of difficulty now gets cranked up, beginning with the NL Central-leading Brewers, followed by four in Los Angeles.
The first 17 games they play of this grind will be against above-.500 competition, only the 33-36 Padres looming in early July.
“This is a difficult stretch,” Bochy said. “You look at teams we’re playing – really, really good teams, too – it’s going to be important we continue to throw the ball well like we’ve been doing this week and give us a chance.”
It begins Friday with Drew Pomeranz, who pulled up from his nosedive last Friday, tossing five scoreless innings in an against-all-odds victory over Clayton Kershaw’s Dodgers. Previously, he had given up 13 runs in four innings in a pair of starts, and a change of arm angle has the team hoping he has turned a corner.
Have the Giants? The peripherals — most notably a negative-83 run differential — do not bode well. The 15-6 record in one-run games screams that the change the Giants hope is coming will be for the worse, not for the better. The Giants are a 28-38 team that is nine games back in the wild card.
“We are better than that [record],” Sandoval said. “Season’s up and down. You open your eyes, close your eyes, open your eyes, and your record can be better.”
It will need to be if this team wants to stay together.