SFGiantsGuy

I've been waiting to post this entry to see how the NLCS finished. It was either going to be a very depressing "the Dodgers knocked the Giants out of the NLDS and now they're going to the World Series and are probably going to win it" post or a less depressing "the Giants didn't beat the Dodgers but at least the Dodgers didn't win the pennant" which, I admit, I didn't ever think I'd actually write. I fully expected to write an entry where I was going to be begging the AL pennant winner to please just stop a Dodgers legitimate World Series victory for the first time since 1988. After the Dodgers broke our collective hearts, a Dodgers/Astros World Series rematch felt inevitable. In fact, no matter who won the AL pennant, the Red Sox or Astros, it just felt destined the Dodgers would make it there and have their revenge on one of those two teams that won a championship against them and give LA their first non-asterisked World Series in 33 years

 It was fated. We all knew this was going to come to pass. The Giants won a franchise record 107 games. The Dodgers tied a franchise record with 106. The Giants won the NL West on the final day of the season by one game. The Dodgers were sent to the wildcard in a Squid Game elimination round against the Cardinals. They survived, so now we have the first ever San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers National League Division Series and true playoff. That is absurd, given the history of these franchises. How many times have the Yankees and Red Sox matched up in the AL playoffs? A pretty decent amount. Yet these two franchises have not met in a "true" postseason ever. They played 3 game series to determine the winner of the pennant in 1951 and 1962 but history views those as extended regular season tiebreaker games. This time, we get a 5-game series and the winner advances to the National League Championship Series.  Even though it's just the first round, the stakes could

What a weekend, huh? The Giants just wrapped up their final series of the regular season with the Dodgers and left it winners of 2 out of 3 and winners of the season series 10-9. Oh yeah, and also as sole owners of first place in the NL West by one game. Could anyone have scripted a Dodgers/Giants rivalry season any better? The Dodgers, with their super team that got even more super at the deadline with the additions of Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, versus the Giants, who's old dudes are having a renaissance and helping carry a surprisingly deep team that has few holes? If you watch Ted Lasso, the Dodgers are the sexy team with swagger, a team of Jaime Tartt's, to the Giants' team full of Sam Obisanya's, the humble unassuming steady dudes that get the job done. Sure, the Giants added Kris Bryant at the deadline, acting like the Dodgers in getting a big name, but overall the Giants are made up of old grizzled vets everyone had written off and no name up and comers who ar

Do you know who leads the Giants in at-bats this season? Brandon Crawford . That's not wholly unexpected. Crawford has always been a grinder who plays pretty much every day. Do you know who holds the second most AB's? Mike Yastrzemski . Again, that's not surprising. Mikey Yaz is an every day player and he should be up there in AB's. It's a little surprising given the number of injuries Yaz has had, but overall, not surprising. However, after that, things get weird. Just starting the "2nd half", the next two Giants with the most AB's, third and fourth respectively, are Wilmer Flores and Donovan Solano . That is where you see how the Giants season went sideways in terms of line-up construction. I think if you asked Gabe Kapler, Farhan Zaidi, and Scott Harris if they would have penciled in Flores and Solano to have the 3rd and 4th most AB's halfway through the season, they would have scoffed. Surely those AB's would have been taken by Evan Longor

My last post asked if the Giants first place start after a month was for real. Well, 3 months worth of baseball has been played and... the Giants are still in first place. In my last entry they were up a half game on the Dodgers and 1.5 games on the Padres and sported a .607 winning percentage. Naturally they've come back to earth a little, right? Nah, not these "resilient" Giants! They still only lead the Dodgers by a half game, at one point being up as much as 4.5 games, but they now lead the Padres by 3.5 games and their winning percentage sits at .630! This Giants team has surprised even the most optimistic of Giants fans and has surprised all of major league baseball. They are, at the time of this writing, the best team in baseball, and we are officially halfway through the season. They have played 81 games and sit at 51-30. They are 21 games over .500. The most important part? It looks sustainable.  The Giants started the season with the starting pitching being elit

Only the sunniest of Giants fans would have envisioned the team to be in first place, ahead of the Dodgers and Padres, after a month of real live games. That isn't meant to be a diss of this Giants team, it speaks more to the elite rosters of the Dodgers and Padres. Most every baseball fan, expert, and media person not only believed San Diego and LA were the best teams in the NL West, but in the National League. Yet here we sit just a few days into May, and the Giants are all alone in first place after staving off a sweep in San Diego, where they've gone 3-3 on the young season so far. The Giants haven't faced the Dodgers yet, but they'll get that test later this month. They have  feasted on the Rockies who are properly terrible, but the Giants have been competitive in every series they've played so far, which leads to the question, are the Giants for real? Can they keep it up? Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's be realistic. As fun as it is to say

All right, so we are days away from Opening Day, a legit Opening Day, one in April, where as of right now there will no be DH in the NL, no expanded playoffs, and a full 162 game schedule. It's almost like 2020 never happened, which would be great for everyone given how the 2020 MLB season ended. We won't talk about it. That being said, I will  talk about my 2020 predictions . I got 7 out of 8 AL teams right in terms of qualifying for the playoffs and 5 out of 8 NL squads, though my seeding was a bit off. I did have the Rays in the World Series but had them facing the Reds and not facing... whatever team they wound up playing and losing to in six games in that sham World Series. I also had a whopping 0 correct picks with my season end awards. Has that ever stopped me from predicting before? Heck no! So with baseball season two days away, here are my very well thought out predictions for the 2021 season. I can't wait for a real season, where a real World Series champ will be

I swear I promise to write more consistently about the Giants every season but then I do not. There are thousands of other Giants bloggers out there that do a good enough job without my contributions, but I'm declaring I'm back for real, and will be posting about these G-men more frequently moving forward.  First and foremost, before I preview the Giants 2021, let me unfortunately recap how 2020 ended, because it was truly unfortunate in all the ways. The Giants missed the playoffs, and subsequently missed playing the Dodgers in the first round for the first time since the playoffs expanded to the modern format, by one frigging game. All they needed to do was win one of their final 4 games. They lost all four, three of them by one stupid run. Ouch. Instead of being given the chance to be the underdog of all underdogs, whom this blogger believes had a legitimate chance to upset the Dodgers given how well the Gigantes played against them in 2020, they missed the playoffs for the