Giants win to end 7-game losing streak, but miserable season goes on.
Inconsistency, underachieving lead to decent into 1985 territory
You must give these Giants of 2017 a ton of credit. They are making a serious run for the franchise’s worst ever record, despite owning talent far superior to other historic worst Giants’ teams. That’s an accomplishment.
Not the right sort of accomplishment, of course. But an accomplishment.
It’s mostly stunning for the way all of this snuck up on us. The current Giants’ roster is mostly the same as the one that reached the playoffs last season and gave the eventual champion Chicago Cubs a decent tussle before losing the division series.
Seems like eons ago, doesn’t it? With the Giants’
loss Monday night in Atlanta, the statistical mavens rolled out the information that their 2646 record after 72 games matched the worst start in San Francisco franchise history, matching the 1972 and 1985 Giants of gloomy Candlestick Park. The 1985 team went on to lose 100 games, setting an all-time franchise record that still stands.
For the record, the Giants are not on pace to lose 100 games … yet. Depending on how their remaining games in Atlanta go, they should return to AT&T Park this weekend on pace to finish with between 92 and 94 losses. Get out the confetti!
Diagnosing everything that has gone wrong with this season’s Giants would take thousands of words — and that would just be the quotes from a sports psychologist about Brandon Belt’s inconsistent plate approach. Let’s just say the Giants’ front office made some wild miscalculations about the batting order’s productive capability and signed a closer for the bullpen who either has an iffy elbow (the better option because it explains a lot) or has totally lost his mojo and can’t keep people off base (which isn’t what you want in a closer).
But forget all that for now. This summer, the tension around here will revolve around this question: Could these Giants possibly keep getting even more awful and sink as low as that team of 32 summers ago? Because those of us who were there to document the misery can testify that the 1985 Giants were a fantastic mess. As their catcher, Bob Brenly, summed up in the final week of the season: “So many bad things have happened this year that I’m numb.”
It sounds sort of like 2017, except it wasn’t at all. The current Giants, on paper, have a very decent pitching rotation and a core of former World Series champions, plus a near-certain future Hall of Famer in catcher Buster Posey. The Giants of 1985 had none of the above. Their starting rotation consisted of Atlee Hammaker, Dave LaPoint, Mike Krukow, Jim Gott and Vida Blue. Krukow and Blue each finished with eight victories to tie for the team lead.
But pitching wasn’t the real problem. The Giants’ manager, Jim Davenport, was one of the finest human beings to walk the earth and an excellent baseball man but was in over his head as a rookie Major League manager. Davenport never got a grip on strong clubhouse personalities such as LaPoint and Jeffrey Leonard, who didn’t always bring upbeat spirits to the ballpark. There were also free thinkers such as Greg Minton and Chili Davis making every day an adventure.
In Davenport’s defense, his roster was patched together at the last minute when Jack Clark, a charismatic and big-banger fan favorite, was traded to St. Louis right before spring training.
The Giants received four players in return, including David Green, who was supposed to fill Clark’s spot at first base.
Green batted .248 and showed moderate interest in his profession as he hit five home runs and batted in 20.
Meanwhile, rookie Chris Brown was touted as the team’s next big star but had trouble staying focused and developed a reputation for being soft. He famously missed one game because he “slept on his eye wrong.” Brown later drove trucks during the Iraq war for Halliburton, delivering diesel fuel, so he obviously had courage. It just never showed up on the field. Sadly, Brown died at age 45 in a house fire.
Duane Kuiper was an infielder with the 1985 Giants for a while--but as he described hilariously Tuesday morning on his regular KNBR segment, it happened almost by accident. Kuiper, turning 35 years old, was hoping to accept a job offer that season as a Cleveland Indians radio voice and get a head start on his broadcasting career. He turned down the Cleveland gig after being promised he would make the San Francisco roster by the front office. When that didn’t happen at the end of spring training, the Giants felt bad and put Kuiper on the disabled list for 30 days with a “bad shoulder” so that he could complete 10 years of Major League service.
After those 30 days were up, there was a huge team party. The next morning, Kuiper packed his bags and was ready to leave the Giants for good -- only to be told that he needed to stick around a while longer as a pinch hitter because Johnnie LeMaster had suddenly been traded. Kuiper eventually was cut from the team in late June. He was one of the lucky ones. The rest of the Giants had to stick it out through loss after loss after loss.
Off the field, owner Bob Lurie was fed up with Candlestick Park and impatient with San Francisco officials who were dawdling in their support for a new downtown ballpark project. Lurie announced that he planned to take the Giants across the Bay and share the Oakland Coliseum with the Athletics. Problem was, Lurie made the proposal public without even talking to the A’s, who immediately rejected the idea. Lurie than spoke with Denver officials about moving the Giants to Colorado on a “temporary” basis until San Francisco could come up with a ballpark plan that worked. That never happened, either, but Chili Davis wasn’t phased.
“What difference does it make where we play if we’re going to lose between 90 and 100 games per season?” Davis asked.
Inevitably, Davenport was fired in mid-September. He was replaced by Roger Craig. That didn’t stave off the 100 defeats, as Ron Roenick looked at a called third strike to achieve that tripledigit “achievement” in the season’s last game. But the following year, rookies Will Clark and Robby Thompson joined the team and started the franchise’s ascent back to the playoffs in 1987.
It’s difficult to envision the Giants of 2017 matching all of those lowlights from 1985. Which means, if you’re seeking a sign of optimism, you can better compare the current team to that 1972 team that also began the season so wretchedly. Those Giants had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal on the roster. That’s probably why they were able to rally from the rough start and finish with a relatively respectable 69-86 record with a strike-shortened 155-game schedule.
If I’m making a stab at it, I’ll say the Giants are looking at a 75 victory season at this point. And should feel delighted about that. If they do begin pressing toward that 100-loss milestone, however, I can’t wait for the final day of the season when the 1985’ers are invited back to commemorate the feat. Brenly, assuming he’s no longer numb, should throw the ceremonial first pitch. Into the dirt.