© Neville E. Guard | 2019 Jul 23
The San Francisco Giants are blisteringly hot. The team played its best baseball in years during the month of June, but in July the team shifted into another gear, soaring to heights that not even the most optimistic fans saw possible. They are 17-3 in their last 20 games, in sole possession of second place in the NL West, and are just 2.5 games behind the Washington Nationals for the first Wild Card spot in the National League.
The Giants are knocking down all challengers in their path. They’ve beat contenders like the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs, they’ve beat losing teams like the New York Mets, and they’ve beat division rivals like the Colorado Rockies. They are so hot that they won five of their last six games despite being outscored 23-21 against the Mets and Cubs.
Their hot streak has not only captivated the hearts and minds of Giants fans across the globe, but it has also potentially changed the landscape of the entire league for the rest of the 2019 season. They were supposed to be a bad team, perhaps a historically bad team, and sell off anybody with a pulse in order to rebuild, but now the team appears to be too hot to mess with.
Tim Kurkjian, an MLB analyst for ESPN, stopped by the Murph & Mac show on Wednesday morning to discuss the recent hot streak and the team’s trade deadline plans.
“Well, I’m gonna hang onto what I have and I’m gonna try and make the playoffs,” Kurkjian said. “The way they’ve played lately may be a bit of a mirage, but when you have a chance to win you have to take it. Now this is different than five years ago because the Dodgers are standing there with a team that looks really really good, and will get better when they add two relievers. So that has to be factored into it, however 17-3 in the middle of a pennant race in Bruce Bochy’s final year, I think Farhan is likely at this point gonna hang onto (Madison) Bumgarner, gonna hang onto Will Smith, maybe he trades one of the relievers and gets something useful in return, otherwise it’s going to be very difficult to break up a team that is the hottest team in baseball, or at least in the National League at the moment.”
Kurkjian then discussed their incredible turnaround and the team’s playoff chances.
“We haven’t seen too many stranger things than this, ’cause I did two games in the booth from San Francisco against the Rockies and I thought ‘this is one of the worst offensive teams I’ve seen in years,’” Kurkjian continued. “Now they score six runs a game. I thought there was zero chance Bumgarner would be with the Giants on July 31, now I think he is going to stay. But this is why baseball is so great is that it makes absolutely no sense sometimes, and that lineup they threw out there last night simply doesn’t match up against other lineups on good teams in the big leagues and yet that doesn’t matter at the moment because of the way that they’re playing, so this is absolutely bizarre.
“I threw a note out there this morning…they got to .500 for the first time this year at 49-49, the only team to go later than that, to .500 the first time and make the playoffs, was the 1974 Pirates who went 116 games in, meaning this never happens. That you labor like this for so long, get to .500, and then make the playoffs. That’s where the Giants are, potentially, with this team.”
The team has gone 30-16 since the start of June and their record in that span is better than the consensus three best teams in Major League Baseball. The Los Angeles Dodgers have gone 28-17 in that span, the New York Yankees are 28-16, and the Houston Astros are 27-18.
“You have to pay attention when bizarre things like this keep happening sometimes, as corny as it sounds, it might be a sign that destiny is upon them,” said Kurkjian.
Listen to the full interview with Tim Kurkjian below. To hear him discuss the team’s trade deadline plans, start from 00:45.