Giants' threat to Dodgers in '21 appears to be fluke
The world according to Jim:
• Two years ago, you might recall, the San Francisco Giants won 107 games, held off the Dodgers on the final day of the regular season to end their string of division titles at nine, and took them to Game 5 of the National League Division Series before a check-swing strike three sent them home. (Which was, if you recall, poetic justice for a similarly debatable call at midseason that cost the Dodgers a game and helped the Giants to that division title.)
At the time, the refrain heard in many parts of SoCal was, “Uh oh.” The Farhan Zaidi/Gabe Kapler Giants had arrived, the NL West was about to become more competitive and an ancient rivalry seemingly had been reinvigorated.
Or maybe not, because as the teams end this season this weekend in Kevin Elster Park (we'll explain later), it certainly seems the Giants' 2021 success was a fluke. …
• A year ago the Giants were 81-81 and finished third. Going into the final weekend, they're hugging .500 and will miss the playoffs again while fielding a team that Giants fans evidently consider boring, considering that they're 17th in baseball in home attendance. Pitcher Logan Webb seemed to call out the front office when he told Bay Area media earlier this week, “We have to make some big changes in here to create that winning culture,” referring to a clubhouse where losing is taken too casually. And that helps explain why the Giants fired Kapler on Friday. …
• Consider, in contrast, the leadership Jason Heyward has provided the Dodgers after originally signing a minor league contract, or the leadership
Miguel Rojas has provided as the everyday shortstop after originally acquired for depth. Andrew Friedman seems to have taken clubhouse chemistry into account, and maybe that's part of why one franchise wins consistently and the other wins fleetingly. …
• The chances of Shohei Ohtani becoming a Giant this offseason may have plunged, too. As the San Francisco Chronicle's wonderful columnist Ann Killion pointed out, if Ohtani is going to walk from the Angels because of a desire to win and a suspicion that management doesn't share his commitment, why would he go to a team whose management is only marginally better? …
• OK, an explanation for that reference in the second paragraph: The Giants' beautiful, scenic waterfront ballpark has had multiple names: Pacific Bell Park, SBC Park, AT&T Park and the current Oracle Park. But the day the place opened in 2000, a visiting player — the Dodgers' Kevin Elster — hit three home runs, leading to my purely unofficial nickname. It might not be as offensive to a Giants fan as calling the city 'Frisco, but feel free to drop it into your next conversation with one just to see what happens. …
• Memo to Dave Roberts, Friedman and the rest of the Dodgers' brain trust: It is not just unnecessary to use Caleb Ferguson as an opener before handing the ball to Ryan Pepiot, as was the case in Monday's loss in the opener of a doubleheader in Denver. It's unwise. You're just as likely to get Bad Caleb as Good Caleb, the former even more likely when you use him as an opener. Just let Pepiot start and go as long as he can.
But no, the Dodgers don't ever overthink things as October approaches, do they? …
• Will we soon have TMZ power rankings to determine the most engrossing (or maybe we should say click-worthy) sports stories of the week? The Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce story (and note who gets top billing) was on top early, but Coach Prime is still to be heard from today. Any other contenders? …
• Evidently, all it took was one Swift appearance in the family suite Sunday while Kelce's Kansas City Chiefs were routing the Chicago Bears to create an entirely new group of NFL fans.
Just imagine Swifties taking over NFL stadiums. Oh, wait. They already have. …
• The jockeying for new or remodeled edifices is getting almost as chaotic as that of college football realignment. In the last few weeks we've heard saberrattling involving the Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Oklahoma City Thunder and Jacksonville Jaguars. All want various sums of public money for either new facilities or renovations, and the veiled threats are out there in most cases, though none have gotten quite to the John Fisher section of the Stadium Blackmail Playbook.
Then again, Fisher's A's have been burning bridges in Oakland but don't yet have a secure deal with Las Vegas, and indeed some Nevada legislators are rightfully skeptical. …
• This should be another reminder of how lucky we are in Southern California to have stadiums and arenas that have been privately built, where the responsibility for maintenance and (where applicable) renovation lies with ownership rather than a public agency. …
• Another aspect of living in SoCal: Everywhere else, it's unquestionably football season and everything else is incidental. Here, in the most diverse sports market in North America? October's the busiest month of the sports year with the Dodgers, Rams, Chargers, USC, UCLA, Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Ducks all playing meaningful games as the month proceeds — and the two most popular teams in town don't play football.
Meanwhile, in New York, Boston and Chicago, the combined records of the NFL teams are 3-9, and only in Chicago might there be postseason baseball. And we won't even discuss what the weather forecasts will be going forward.