My thoughts following horrendous sweep by The Evil Ones (tm).
ogc thoughts
As a baseball fan, this was a great series. Two good teams, hobbled by injuries, both giving their best, close tight games in each game, four really good starting pitching performances, almost a fifth until he gave up all those homers, stalwart relief pitching. I only wish that umpires (cough, Mike Winters) didn't interfere with the games (and, to be fair, he didn't cost us any game, just cost us the chance to see what should have happened).
Unfortunately, as per the results of said great series, I'm a Giants fan: 6.5 games back! And by the Dusty rule of thumb - gaining one game a week in the standings is a doable goal - we have 4.5 weeks of baseball left which would leave us short 2 games in the standing. We also happen to be 6.5 games behind in the Wild Card chase as well, but are also behind the Mets by 5.0 games, so it's probably best to focus on the NL West for now, and wait for the dust to settle in the Wild Card.
As I tweeted afterward, while the opera singer has cleared her throat, getting ready to sing, she hasn't sung yet. For one thing, LA, not that long ago, lost 5 games in a row, and that included two against the lowly A's, now 18 games below .500. So they could start losing again. They have been wildly inconsistent, like the Giants have been, all season: they both win and lose in streaks.
However, the Dodgers have been beating up on SD, AZ, and COL in the 2015 season and they play them in 19 of their remaining 30 games. But so did the Giants with the Dodgers earlier (9-3 before the sweep), and while not killer, SD and AZ has been around .500 for at least a month now, only COL has been tanking.
Giants Slight Schedule Advantage
We have slight advantage in schedule. They play 7 games with SD and AZ, 6 with COL, 4 with Giants, plus 3 with Pirates (at home though; Pirates .500 on road) and Angels (Angels are pretty good at home; LAD not so good on road, and they got 17 on the road). If they play at same rates at home and on road, they end up 16-14, which would put them at 91-71, which means the Giants need to be 22-7, which is a pretty tall order as they have only won at that rate when Pence was in the lineup (with the main regulars).
The Giants got 7 with COL, 6 with SD and AZ, 4 with LAD, 3 with CIN (horrible on the road, really bad last month 8-22; LA went 1-6 against them recently) and OAK (bad at home, 31-38 there, 34-41 against winning teams). We have more games against struggling teams (COL, CIN, OAK) and more home games (16 at home, 13 left on the road). But that puts us at roughly 15-14, though, obviously, we cannot play at seasonal rates if we hope to get into the playoffs.
Where the Dodgers have the advantage is that they have beat up on SD, AZ, COL, whereas the Giants have been .500 roughly. Dodgers are 26-11 against them, the Giants have been under .500, 18-20. That's the whole difference between their two records, if Dodgers were .500 instead (19-18), they would be behind the Giants by 0.5 games.
What It Will Take
Obviously, a lot of winning. They have 13 games with COL, CIN, OAK, 4 series. They really need to go 10-3, winning each series, sweeping the Reds like what the Dodgers did. That gets them to 79-67. If they play .500 with AZ and SD in remaining games, that puts them at 85-73, leaving the need to sweep the Dodgers in the remaining four games just to reach 89-73. Thus, the Giants need to not go 6-6 against AZ and SD, if they can get to 8-4 (which basically means that they need to win every road series with them), that would get them to 91-71.
And that shows the enormity of what the sweep caused. The Giants basically need to win every series going forward plus then need to sweep the Dodgers, in order to reach 91 wins and be in the ballpark in terms of just tying the Dodgers for the NL West lead (though that should mean the Giants get the title, because then they would have the better head-to-head record). Lose any series, and they will need to sweep another series to make up for that.
No matter how you look at it, we will need a lot of help. First off, AZ, SD, and COL will need to play LAD to roughly .500, instead of the lopsided record of the season. If LAD wins at that high rate, the Giants are toast, no if's, and's or but's. Second, it would be nice if the Pirates and Angels can win their series. If they can do that, the Dodgers are 87-71 (12-14) with the 4 games with the Giants. That's against 85-73 for the Giants in the other games. In this extreme case, all the best for Giants, positive for the Giants results for LAD, then the Giants "only" needs to win 3 of 4 to tie the Dodgers for NL West lead.
So while the opera singer has not sung yet, she is clearing her throat, the above scenarios require a lot of good play on the Giants part, something they have been unable to consistently do without Pence in the lineup. But 30 games is still a lot of games to play. The Dodgers have been 14-16 over a 30 game period a few times this season. That would put them at 89 wins, which is still tough, but slightly more doable.
Another good thing for the Giants is that the Dodgers are relying on Latos and Wood in the 4/5 rotation slots (4-6 Dodger record, 4.80 ERA). And Anderson has a 4.15 ERA over the past two months, and 5.02 ERA over his last 5 starts. Kershaw and Greinke "only" got 12 starts left (and that's if LA manipulates the rotation to get Kershaw one more start at the end of the season - bet on it though) meaning the other starters got 17 starts.
And can Kershaw and Greinke keep up a 1.50 or less ERA for another month? Greinke has done it all season, so yeah there, Kershaw has been like that since the end of May, so double yeah (Oy!). They have averaged 3.77 RS since the start of July, that makes them 10-2 in their starts, meaning they can be 6-11 with the other guys to reach 91 wins (the other 3 starters would need to go 5.28 RA for that to happen).
So there are some possibilities for positive results for the Giants, but not a lot, lots of ways this can go sideways quickly.
Bleak Prospects
And really, the season is now going to be going game by game, series by series. There will be huge swings in hope and despair, going game by game, series by series. This 10 game road trip (facing Angels in there) for LA is our big hope right now to make up some ground, but we got 7 on the road ourselves, and thus need to take care of COL and AZ ourselves. For now, we are reduced to the Giants announcers talking about how other teams have failed in the past, about how we need to only focus on winning that day's game, nothing more. And that's the awful truth.
Go Giants!
I would not be surprised if the giants finished more than 10 games back, and perhaps find trouble holding on to second place. I hope they all invest in some high definition large screen televisions so they can figure out how to hit some of the pitchers in the playoffs, and perhaps some of the lesser talented pitchers. In the last few weeks, Duffy despite getting his share of hits, has gotten a case of double play itis.
ReplyDeleteI would be surprised if the Giants finished more than 10 games back and not hold onto second place. LA has not played that well through the whole season. They have been as up and down as the Giants have been, and while the Giants have been beset by injuries to almost the whole roster, I'm not aware that as many has hit the Dodgers. I think as long as Bumgarner, Leake, and Peavy continues to pitch well enough, we will get our share of wins in the remaining games, as there will be less road games and most of the teams we face will be not that good. As pitching generally should help us beat these lesser teams.
DeleteNot sure what you mean by TVs, as it seems to refer to the Dodgers, and I would not hope that LA will figure out how to hit. I hope they flop in the first round again, then the Giants sign away Kershaw from them, and have him say that he wants to be with a winner. :^)
Duffy is getting tired. He was a stick before, and even if he added weight over the winter, I doubt he built up that much stamina just like that. The good news is he'll have another off-season to build up, plus the trainers will be helping the starting 3B this off-season. But that tiredness probably affects his speed and is resulting in more grounders and more double plays as he'll be slower too.