Your 2011 Giants: Do or Die

Wow, much more exciting rush this last, roughly, week's worth of games (9 in total) left in the season than we could have imagined just a week ago.  That's what an 8 game win streak will do for you.

Still, 3.5 games back of wildcard (and another team in-between) and 5.5 games back of division title with only 9 games left in the season means that while the week should be exciting, the sands of time is pretty much gone and it is extremely unlikely that the Giants will even make the playoffs, let alone repeat.  Still, as the saying goes, you never know.

Let's take a look at the tough road to the division title since, although further back, the Giants have some control in their hands, due to the three games in Arizona in the middle, and they don't have another team to climb over.

The D-backs only have 8 games left, having played and, more importantly, won, yesterday.  Even if the Giants sweep the D-gers, in LA, and the D-backs, say, win 2 of 3 against the Pirate, at home (and they play at home the rest of the season), the Giants will still be 4 games behind when they go to Arizona.  Then, even if the Giants sweep the D-backs (and we will face Kennedy in the series), they would still be 1 game behind, with 3 to play, with the Giants facing the D-Rox at home and the D-backs facing the D-gers, again, at home, where the GIants need to win one more game than the D-backs just to tie for the division lead.

So, even if the Giants extend their winning streak to 14 games, they would still be 1 game behind and the D-backs get to play the woeful D-gers at home for the last three.  Though, to their credit, LA has been playing well as of late, despite losing Ethier for the season.  And the Giants will have to beat both Kershaw and Kennedy in that nine game stretch.  It appears oh so unlikely and oh so hard.

And we are playing the D-gers three games in LA now.  The first game is the marque game with Tim Lincecum facing Clayton Kershaw.  Kershaw's dominance over the Giants this season has been almost total this season, and amazingly, somehow, with only 18 team meetings, this will be his 6th start, so somehow Mattingly has manipulated the rotation to get Kershaw a start in each and every series the Giants have had with LA.  He is also going for his 20th win of the season and is 4-0 against the Giants this season in 5 starts, 1.04 ERA.  Yikes!  And the Giants don't have one of their major weapons against LHP, Cody Ross, as he's out with an injury (though as noted in my comments previously, Ross's poor 2011 season is directly related to his poor hitting against LHP this season).

Still, the Giants are amazingly 25-15 against LHP, and that includes their 0-4 against Kershaw.  And it is not like he has dominated them in all the games, though still 4 of 5, but in that other game, he only went 5.0 IP, giving up 4 runs, and that was in LA.   Teams normally do not face the ace of the other team so often, and if, say, two were switched over to one of LA's other sad sack starters, the Giants would be two games closer in both races and have a real chance of catching up, instead of an unlikely chance.  Taking out his games (which LA won 4 of 5), the Giants are 7-3 against the rest of the D-gers' starters, and 24-11 against all other LHP.

Let's see, LHP lineup is probably Torres, Keppinger, Beltran, Sandoval, Pill/1B, DeRosa/LF, Whiteside, Cabrera.

Game 2 has Ryan Vogelsong vs. Dana Eveland, a former A's prospect, and LA is his 6th team in the last 6 seasons.  At only 27, maybe LHP Eveland finally has figured it out, 2.25 ERA in 3 starts, but only 10 K's in 20.0 IP, and his BABIP has been very favorable, .262, whereas previously in his career, it was .347 in extensive opportunities, 95 games.  He's facing our version of that journeyman journey in Vogelsong, who in the last month has a 3.21 ERA in 7 starts, not as great as earlier, but still very good.  Should be a good battle, but as noted, Giants beat up on most LHP and Eveland has been extremely lucky with BIP so far in his starts and he's not striking out hardly anybody, on par with Kirk Rueter.

Game 3 has Madison Bumgarner vs. Hiroki Kuroda, the D-gers only other very good starter, Mattingly even managed to include him in this series.  However, he has only had two starts against the Giants and he was not that great, good in first start of year, 3 runs in 7.0 IP, but in the other start, 9 days ago, 3 runs in 4.2 IP with 8 hits and 1 walk.  And he has a 3.79 ERA against the Giants in 7 career starts (see how weird it is that Kershaw has 6 starts this season against the D-gers, Kuroda has pitched 4 full seasons now and will only have his 8th start in two days) so the Giants do hit him relatively well.

Meanwhile, Bumgarner completes our 3 headed dragon atop the rotation, showing way more maturity and gravitas than Dirty ever showed, even though Sanchez is older and has had way better stuff than Bumgarner.  Since Madison started his run of starts where he was striking out a lot more batters, on July 24th, he has had a 2.40 ERA in 11 starts, 75.0 IP, 67 hits, 78 K's and only 19 walks.  I heard on KNBR a debate on who would you rather have, Lincecum or Kershaw, right now, but really, we have our own Kershaw already in Bumgarner.  He should be able to keep LA down while the offense handles Kuroda enough to win.

Signing Young Giants Core

Shankbone noted in the comments that one of the key things the Giants need to do is sign their young pitchers - Lincecum and Cain - to long-term contracts this off-season, and I totally agree.   But writing this, I realize that the Giants should also try hard to sign Bumgarner to a long-term deal as well (and maybe Shankbone meant him too, I just know I didn't think of it until now).  Unfortunately, they had that disagreement about how much Madison would make this season, and so the Giants just enforced their figure, so Bumgarner's side will probably want extra to make up for that.  So I suspect that his agents will play hardball on a long-term deal, much like how Lincecum's agents did that, and thus no long-term contract yet with Tim-meh.  Still, the Giants should at least kick the tires on that with Madison.

And I expect them to at least broach that.  This is the similar timing when the Giants signed Lowry and then Cain to their long-term deals, and I'm sure they approached Lincecum's agents and was rebuffed.  Hopefully they can get him signed.

And while they are at it, may as well try to get Posey and Pablo signed as well.  Buster Posey's leadership and presence in the lineup and the field spoke volumes between what happened last season and what happened this season.  Normal players don't do that, but potential Hall of Famer's do.  Teams need leaders and Posey is a natural-born leader, just give him a Longoria type contract.

And Pablo Sandoval is a great hitter, let him worry more about getting hits than worry about his future with the Giants.

And the price for either will never be this low again, not that we should short-change them, but that if we wait any longer, I think their awesomeness will be that much more apparent and thus will cost more to get.  Get them signed long-term as well as the pitchers.

Unless a miracle happens and we somehow make history and get into the playoffs, the Giants fan base will want some sort of feel-good news to get them through the winter.  Signing all these players to long-term contracts will leave a sunny glow that will last all the way through to spring training I think.

You Never Know But, You Know, It's Pretty Much Over

And history still might happen.  The more I think about it, the more I think Kirk Gibson is a Billy Martin type of manager that can get lowly talent to play above their heads for a season.  No way their team should be so high up the standings, but to their credit, they are.  They went 18-3 over that incredible stretch where they took their huge lead.  And they are now 11 games above .500 in 1-run games, which normally does not happen.  And they are 6 games above their Pythagorean W/L.

But when the cracks start to appear, players could start to press, causing a downward cycle.  They recently lost 3 in a row, but have now won 2.  Will they steady their ship, or would cracks continue?  Still, with so few games left, they would have to have an epic type of collapse to enable the Giants to get back into the race substantively.  Very unlikely.

So enjoy the rest of the Giants season, but don't get your hopes up too high.  I've already mourned for this season and will just enjoy the rest of the games that we have left, and hope for the best.  I curse Cousins and what might have been, but that's life sometimes.  I won't get my hopes up too much unless we can get to within one game of the playoffs.

Go Giants!