The Giants have absorbed injury after injury. They’ve looked like a Little League team on defense for moments. They were outmatched in their first series against their rivals in Los Angeles and had the league’s worst bullpen during the month of May.
After a 5-5 road trip, the Dodgers came to town for a three-game series. San Francisco trailed the first-place Dodgers by 6.5 games. If they continued on their trajectory, they could have seriously stumbled behind in the standings.
The season isn’t even half over yet. SF knows division crowns aren’t handed out until October. But San Francisco’s first sweep over the Dodgers since 2016 made a statement: the Giants are good enough to contend.
“I think it’s a solid position to be in,” manager Gabe Kapler said postgame from his office.
That position is 3.5 games out of first place — and three games back of the Padres. Fangraphs gives the Giants a 10.3% chance of winning the division; had they stumbled at home against their rival, that projection would have trended closer to zero.
“We’ve all — everybody in this room has been around the game long enough to know divisions aren’t won in June,” Kapler said. “And they’re probably not lost very often in June — although it happens, I didn’t think we were in that danger zone. I understand why it feels that way sometimes or it feels very easy to be like, ‘Oh man, the division’s getting away from us.’ I just don’t think it happens very often with good baseball teams, and I think we’re a good baseball team.”
In 2021, the Giants and Dodgers embarked on the winningest division race in baseball history. They both seemed to win every single day, with the back-and-forth excellence coming down to the very last day of the season.
This is a new year, though, and although both clubs returned much of their cores, it’s unlikely they both win over 105 games again. Plus, San Diego’s new direction under manager Bob Melvin makes them a more formidable NL West power.
After the first two months of the season, the Giants didn’t do much to inspire external confidence. Yet by outscoring the Dodgers 12 to four on the weekend and recording their first shutout of the year, the Giants proved the NL West is a three-horse race.
“I mean, they’re not gonna go away,” reliever Dominic Leone said of the Dodgers. “And I think for us, we want to show everybody that we’re still here. We’re still a competitive team and we can play our best baseball with anybody.”
Leone likes to tease reporters that his corner of the clubhouse — the one featuring fellow relievers José Álvarez, Tyler Rogers, Zack Littell and Jake McGee — actually exists. People love to hate the bullpen when it’s trending down and hype it up when it performs in pressurized situations.
The same results-based reactionary tendencies can apply to a baseball team in general. But for SF’s bullpen, the perception rollercoaster ride has felt especially extreme.
San Francisco’s relievers were the best in baseball during 2021, posting a 2.99 ERA. The club brought back almost the entire same group for this season, yet recorded an MLB-worst 6.26 ERA in the month of May.
Kapler’s faith in his bullpen never wavered. The sample size of a random month-long stretch is much less telling than an entire year-plus, he said. Jake McGee, who earned the save on Sunday, said things can spiral when they’re going south. But the inverse can also be true: with more success comes more confidence.
SF’s bullpen was outstanding this weekend and can build on the lights-out performance. The Giants used seven different pitchers on Saturday, but constantly worked around jams to limit LA. In the finale, John Brebbia, Dominic Leone and Jake McGee similarly navigated traffic.
Los Angeles went 2-for-34 with runners in scoring position in the three games. Giants relievers allowed one earned run in 16 innings.
The Dodgers have now lost six of their last eight games. Manager Dave Roberts said his club needs to rediscover a winning mindset.
But even while the Dodgers have shown vulnerability, Leone is right: they’re not going anywhere.
LA will be without Walker Buehler for multiple months, but have the arms capable of stepping up without him. Their order is still as talented as any, with underperforming Max Muncy and Justin Turner due to get going. They still have the sport’s second-highest payroll and could very well be buyers at next month’s trade deadline.
But the Giants have now proven they’re capable of sticking right there with them. A sweep without Brandon Belt, LaMonte Wade Jr., Steven Duggar, three members of their starting rotation and several other key players dealing with nagging injuries is enough evidence.
“I think this is the right moment to show them that we also have talent, that we’re able to compete,” Jarlin García said Saturday. “Coming up with two wins right now, I think it was just a perfect message to them.”