What The Fuck Happened To The San Francisco Giants?
No, really. What the fuck happened to the San Francisco Giants? Are Giants fans just as surprised as baseball fans outside of San Francisco, or did they see this coming? I certainly didn’t.
On July 10, the final game before the All Star break, the Giants were the best team in baseball. Better than the Cubs, better than the Nationals, better than the Rangers, better than everybody. At 57-33, San Francisco had the best record in baseball, four more wins than the powerhouse Cubs, and then something happened. What that something is, I do not know. I can definitely explain what happened, but as far as how it happened, I would assume that the Giants don’t even know, because there is zero indication that they’re trending towards fixing what’s been ailing them in the second half.
Since starting out at 57-33 — that’s a .633 winning percentage — the Giants have gone 16-31 — that’s a .340 winning percentage — which is the worst record in baseball over that span. How the hell does that even happen? How do you literally go from being the best team in baseball to the worst team in baseball? No exaggeration, the best to the worst. Worse than the Minnesota Twins, who just lost 13 straight games, and now have lost three of their last four since snapping that losing streak. It’s almost unimaginable to be that bad, and yet the Giants are worse. And despite all of that, they still hold the top Wild Card spot in the National League. Says a lot about the competition in the National League, outside of the division leaders.
But no, really. I wanna know who’s responsible for this epic collapse. In the first half of the season, the Giants had a bunch of guys swinging the stick. Brandon Crawford (.800), Buster Posey (.843), Hunter Pence (.861), and Brandon Belt (.928) all had an OPS of .800 or better in the first half. Here’s a list of all the Giants players with an OPS of .800 or better in the second half:
See what I did there? That means nobody. Posey has zero home runs in his last 40 games, and he’s slugging .338 over that span. Belt is hitting .200 with a .676 OPS over his last 45 games. Pence is hitting .235 with a .642 OPS in the 31 games since he was activated from the disabled list at the end of July. Crawford is hitting .242 with a .740 OPS in the 25 games since his 7-hit game in Miami. They’ve essentially gotten nothing from all the bats that they depended on in the first half.
Madison Bumgarner has proven to be human in the second half with a 3.66 ERA, compared to 1.94 in the first half. Jeff Samardzija hasn’t been great in the second half (4.39 ERA), and Johnny Cueto has regressed a bit, too, with a 2.47 first half ERA, compared to 3.90 in the second half. Pitching wise, this isn’t terrible by any means. As a team, the Giants have a 4.02 ERA, and the league average is 4.18, so they’re right there in the middle. Where they’ve struggled, and where it’s cost them the most, is obviously offensively, posting the 25th worst OPS in the majors in the second half (.692).
Now, the question obviously becomes, can they rebound from this? It’s not like they’ve been decimated by injuries. They’ve essentially got the same players in place who brought them to the top of the majors in July in terms of winning percentage, and let’s not lose sight of the fact that they still hold a playoff spot. Me personally, I don’t think they can come back from this. This isn’t just a little funk that they’re going through; it’s an entire half of a season that they’ve been the worst team in baseball. With four weeks to go, I think the Mets and Cardinals are playing too well right now for those two teams to not find a way into October with San Francisco being the odd team out.