© Neville E. Guard | 2020 Sep 22
Judgement day is nearly upon us.
With six games remaining the San Francisco Giants find themselves on the outside of the NL wild card race. Though tied with both the Reds and Brewers in winning percentage (.500) the Giants don’t have the tiebreaker, their NL West record (16-18) lacking.
That division record is going to have to look better by Sunday night. The Giants remaining six games come vs. the Rockies (2) and juggernaut Padres (4).
This begs the question: How many of those games will the Giants have to win to get in? San Francisco Chronicle Giants beat writer Henry Schulman gave his prediction and explanation to Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks on Wednesday.
“I don’t think they have to win out because for one thing, a couple of the teams are playing against each other that they’re involved with,” Schulman said. “It just seems to me like .500 may just be the floor for the team that gets in. The problem the Giants have is that they lose every tiebreaker with everybody, and that’s because they didn’t play well against the West.
“I would say 4-2 gives them a decent shot. We’re already seeing this Padres series isn’t going to be like other Padres’ series. They’ve already clinched. They’ve got nothing else to play for right now, so they don’t have to have their big starters go out and throw seven innings. In fact, that would be counterproductive. Mike Clevinger, who was their big acquisition, he came out of today’s game after one inning with some inflammation in his biceps, so even if they can get him ready for the playoffs they are certainly not going to throw him in a meaningless game in San Francisco.
“The Padres don’t really have to win this weekend and that could help the Giants. The flip side of that is the Padres second team is probably as good as the Giants’ first team right now. It’s just a matter of going out and winning as many as you can. I would say 4-2 gives them a good shot.”
Listen to the full interview below.