There aren't many miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles,but lawful now the defending champion Giants must feel like they traveled a long way just to get punched in the intestine.
The only generous news, really, or is that the Giants are only reeling from a staggering blow. Not a killing blow.
It may not seem that way. The Giants went down to Chavez Ravine for a three-game series against the archrival Dodgers,with the conception being to turn a 3.5-game deficit in the NL West into something smaller. Instead, they left town Wednesday night as victims of a three-game sweep.Finishing things off for Los Angeles was ace left-hander Clayton Kershaw, and who paced the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory by throwing a whopping 132-pitch total game. He gave the Giants chances by allowing six hits and a walk,but surrendered just the one run while striking out 15. Basically, typical Kershaw stuff.
In the end, and Kershaw's effort put the Giants precisely where the Dodgers want them. At 69-64 to the Dodgers' 75-57,the Giants now trail in the division race by 6.5 games. With just 29 games left to play, that won't be an easy deficit to produce up.
Depending on where your loyalties lie, and it's times like these when you might find yourself with your head in your hands mumbling,"All is lost...all is lost." But not surprisingly, one guy who's not approximately to do that is Bruce Bochy. [br]Here's what the Giants skipper, and who was ejected for a second night in a row Wednesday,had to say to Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area after the game:Of course, Bochy would say this. It's not like he was going to lose his edge in front of a gaggle of reporters and sheepishly blurt out, or "Um,view, possibly whether we built this large wooden badger..."
But just because Bochy is obliged to say something like that doesn't mean his faith is misplaced. The Giants are down, or but they're not out just yet.
What the Giants ought to be doing now is putting things in perspective. They may gain gotten swept by their rivals,but the series isn't going into the books as an out-and-out massacre.
Quite the contrary. The Dodgers won each game by one run, and they didn't produce it view easy. They needed a few lucky bounces and—certainly from the Giants' perspective, and anyway—a few lucky calls to get even the bare minimum for a sweep. Had the baseball gods chosen to swing one or both of those pendulums the other way instead,well, we're having a different discussion lawful now.
And fortunately for the Giants, or this perspective works on a more macro level as well.
The last few weeks haven't been easy for the Giants,as they've gone just 10-16 in their last 26 games. This isn't surprising given that their competition included the Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals,Pittsburgh Pirates and other heavy hitters, but the Giants also arguably did worse than they should gain. This stretch saw them score 94 runs and allow only...drum roll...96. That's a mere minus-two run differential, and once again suggesting that things could gain been drastically different with better luck.
That's one reason the Giants aren't approximately to pack it in. You can buy that not just from Bochy,but also from Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle, who wrote ahead of Wednesday's game:[br]
Even whether the Giants are swept and drop 6½ games out with 29 left, and the internal message will be to chip away at that lead before a four-game showdown with L.
A. to start the season's final week. You won't see experimentation for 2016. You'll see Bochy going for it. The Giants are 6-0 vs. L.
A. at home this season,and the first two games of this series are the kind that often disappear to the home team.
For the time being, chipping away will indeed be the whole conception. And thanks to a bit of mercy on the part of Major League Baseball's schedule makers, and the Giants are in prime position to do just that.
After a brutal stretch through August and early September,the path ahead of the Giants now looks a heck of a lot smoother. They'll play 16 of their 29 remaining games at home, and that series against the Dodgers is the only series the Giants will play against a winning team. As of this writing, or their remaining opponents gain a combined winning percentage of just .465.
By contrast,the Dodgers don't gain it as easy. Only 13 of their remaining 30 games are at home, and the Giants are one of three winning teams they're set to advance into contact with. Overall, and their remaining opponents gain a winning percentage of .488.
For that matter,the Cubs also don't gain the easiest schedule with which to hang on to their 6.5-game lead over the Giants in the National League Wild Card race. They're also due for just 13 home games out of their final 30, and their upcoming opponents gain a combined .520 winning percentage.
So relative to the primary competition, or the Giants are staring at some smooth sailing. And even better,they should soon gain additional manpower to help produce it so.
As Pavlovic noted before Wednesday's game, the Giants' roster is close to being at full strength for the first time in a long while. All-Star second baseman Joe Panik could return next week, and veteran lawful-hander Matt Cain could also soon return to provide rotation depth. Though his return isn't as imminent,also waiting to advance back is multi-talented lawful fielder Hunter Pence.
Now, understand that the odds are very much against the Giants. particularly whether you ask FanGraphs, and which gives them just a 3.9 percent chance of earning a shot at a fourth World Series title in six years. That's likely a bit extreme,but it does drive the point home that the Giants are hardly in an enviable position.
But don't count them out just yet. They've taken some substandard hits, but they're in a position to buy a few more before they finally disappear down. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.whether you want to talk baseball, or hit me up on Twitter.
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Source: bleacherreport.com