Your 2019 Giants: Epic Beat LA Walk Off, Status Update

I wrote the below as a comment to The Athletic's column on the Dodger walk-off win, noting my belief that the Giants can still get above .500 by the end of the season.  Tweaks and improvements abound.

ogc big picture thoughts

In spite of all the bad offense and bad April, and bad W/L record, I still think the Giants will be over .500 by the end of the season. The pitching has been superb, elite for the most part, and it does not take that much offense to suddenly start winning with that pitching.

But we need more than 3-4 guys hitting at one time, because, as we all know, with low overall HR power, we need more of the lineup to be hitting to generate enough offense to win with the good defense.

Plenty of Time

There's still plenty of time to get things rolling (for example, the Giants were 4 games under - currently 5 - around this time last season, and was able to get back to .500 still, because of their great pitching), so I still think that it's a doable achievement, but like most fans, of course, this offense is worrisome to me as well.

We've been waiting for the 8-cyclinders of the offensive engine to work, and nothing has really worked consistently, so far, other than Belt (whom people still feel the need to cap on, but he's a good hitter, period), it has been sputtering all season so far.  Seems like we need someone to get hot to get everyone loose.  Perhaps in Cincinnati, where bats should heat up some, just need some confidence to get some going better.

Need a Catalyst

I would love to see Mac up right now, to see what he can do, but unfortunately, he's not on the 40-man, which greatly complicates things, and requires him to do this for a much longer period, before the Giants/Zaidi makes a move with veteran players, which is the only area of flexibility, as Duggar, D-Rod, and Moronta, I believe, are the only guys optionable to the minors right now. Hence Baggarly's tweet that we'll see Shaw, who is on the 40 and have options, before we see Mac in the majors. But then there's still the sticky problem of what happens on the 25-man roster.

And I have no idea what's going to happen to bring Beede up, now that Vogt is here, does that mean Kratz's time is at end (he's been great defensively, but we need offense)? Not that he's all that great, but the beat writers noted the Giants interest in spring in keeping 3 catchers (albeit, as a cushion if Posey is not up to the task of starting full-time, so perhaps he's fine now), so if not Kratz, then whom? Seems like Zaidi is going to have a heartburn decision again.

Leadoff Getting Better

At least Duggar seems to be figuring things out. He had a tough start, but over his past 15 games played, he has hit .271/.323/.407/.730, which while not great for a leadoff hitter, is at least doable atop the batting order, and loads better than the .580 OPS (and below .300 OBP) they had at leadoff when Cutch was not there. That's a good start for the lineup, now we need the middle order guys to deliver more ribbies.

If Duggar can simply achieve this low batting line for the season, it would be good for getting back to .500.  For example, in 2009, Giants leadoff hitters only hit .258/.312/.404/.717 and the team still averaged 4.06 runs scored per game that season. Only Sandoval was a great bat that season, the rest of the lineup was mediocre at best, with two good bats on the bench, Uribe and Torres.  Very low bar for 2019 to match up.

Signs of Life

And the Giants, since the day they traded for Austin, has been 10-10, so things have gotten a lot better than it was at the beginning of the season with Joe and Reed.  The vibe around the team would be a lot different if we had started with Pillar and Austin from the get go than Joe and Reed, as much as I liked both as prospects. 

It seems like we just need a hitter to get red hot to jump-start this offense.  And once Bellinger cools off (I know, big assumption), the Dodgers should regress back to us, hopefully around the same time our offense heats up some. We will see, we live in interesting times.

Belt has been good for the most part, and Posey has been just as good in his past 17 games/15 starts with a batting line of .291/.344/.473/.817, 182 ISO, which is what we expect from the clean-up hitter, but people are missing because his slow start hurts his overall numbers.  Pillar in his last 21 games, after his slow start in Toronto and with the Giants, has hit .257/.296/.500/.796, so that gives us three good hitters so far, plus Sandoval when he starts, and Austin when he's available, but everyone else has been scuffling on and off.  We need Crawford and Longoria to step up some, and hit what they have been capable of, even if it is just what they hit last season.

Who Will Carry the Giants on His Back?

Who will step up?  Will anyone step up?  And when?  It's frustrating to me, because the defense has been so good for the most part (pitching and fielding) that it feels like the offense does not need to do that much more for the team to run off a nice winning streak.  Obviously, after the Toronto sweep, it looked like a good starting point, but then that Damn Yankees just blew that momentum up.  But now with the Dodger's series win, that's two out of three series wins now, that's a start, one step at a time. 

Hate to put pressure like this on the shoulders of Beede, but it feels like an imperative for him to pitch great and WILL the team to a win, much like Bumgarner used to do.  Given how great (and it's been wonderfully good) he's been pitching in AAA, it's easy to hope on that, but it's never easy to translate great performances in the minors into good performances in the majors, nerves can screw up the best prospects performance.  And it being in Cincinnati, a great hitter's park, that's another level of difficulty for him to succeed there. 

So we'll see who can step up and spark a winning spirit in the team.  I feel like it's close and we just need someone to get hot and carry the team.  And hopefully that will create a surge back to .500 and better.