Still the champs:
The Giants are showing signs they could be poised for another title run, if they can make the playoffs.
In 2010, the San Francisco Giants thundered past the 97-win Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Championship Series and the red-hot Texas Rangers in the World Series. In 2012, they overpowered a heavily favored Detroit Tigers team in a Series sweep.
Last season, they might have topped those two championship runs, entering the playoffs as a wild card and winning four consecutive rounds as underdogs.
Any major league team might think if it makes the playoffs, anything can happen. But the Giants know it.
“I think all teams tell themselves that,” says Mark DeRosa, a Giants utility player in 2010 and 2011 and now co-host of MLB Network’s MLB Central. “The Giants firmly believe it, because they have done it.
“You go all the way back to 2010. They know what it takes. I’m not day-to-day with the San Francisco Giants. I am more month-to-month.”
The team that has won three World Series in the past five seasons hasn’t looked like it much this year, going 16-21 in June and July. But consider it also went 22-30 in those months in 2014.
Last year, it was without starting pitcher Matt Cain after July 9 and leadoff man-center fielder Angel Pagan for 66 games. Injuries cost each of them the postseason.
This year, the Giants did not have starting pitcher Jake Peavy in May or June, and Cain did not make a start until July. Right fielder Hunter Pence was out for more than a month with a wrist injury, and pitchers Tim Lincecum, Tim Hudson and Jeremy Affeldt and left fielder Nori Aoki entered the second half on the 15-day disabled list.
“I think we got a strong group and a strong mind-set and a really
great direction,” Pence says. “There is no formula (to make the playoffs). If anyone had that formula, why wouldn’t 30 teams follow it and make it?”
Yet the Giants, despite four losing streaks of five games or more, have championship pedigree. It’s why several major league analysts interviewed by USA TODAY Sports heading into the second half like San Francisco’s chances to make another run toward the postseason.
The Giants might not admit it, but DeRosa suggested the team also could have had a little bit of bad luck in terms of scheduling and travel. From June 30 through July 6, the team lost seven games in a row while traveling to the play the Miami Marlins and the Washington Nationals, where they fell 9-3 on July 4 during a game that started at 8:05 a.m. Pacific time, and back to San Francisco to play the New York Mets. They went 1-8 in that stretch. “We’ve been through this,” manager Bruce Bochy said in the middle of it. “This is not the first time. This is not the first time this year. Look at last year; we’ve had our streaks. We’ve had too many this year at this point, but we’ve had good ones, too.”
Perhaps another big run is on tap. Entering the All-Star break the Giants won four of five and, from July 17 to Aug. 5, face a string of teams below them in the standings (Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres) or with worse records than them (Oakland Athletics, Milwaukee Brewers, Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves).
“They are right there to be able to make this a really good season,” ESPN’s Doug Glanville says.
San Francisco (46-43 yet within 41⁄2 games of the the National League West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers and two of the NL wildcard leaders) has been a much better offensive team than it was in the first half of 2014 (53-43). The Giants have been markedly better at hitting for average (.270 to last season’s .243 at the break) and scoring runs (4.2 runs a game vs. 3.9).
Their 377 runs ranked 11th in the major leagues, and in none of its past three World Series runs have they featured an offense ranking better than 12th. In 2010, San Francisco ranked 17th.
On the mound, San Francisco’s team ERA has bloated to a 3.82 after being 3.39 last year at this point (and 3.50 overall). The team’s collective ERAs were better during the 2010 (3.36) and 2012 (3.68), but the returns of Cain and Peavy should help.
“It starts with good pitching and defense and doing the small things right, especially offensively,” says Giants catcher Buster Posey, a three-time All-Star.
DeRosa thinks the duo of shortstop Brandon Crawford and second baseman Joe Panik is arguably the best defensive combination in the game. And Crawford’s production — he had 52 RBI, 17 shy of his career high — could help offset the loss of third baseman Pablo Sandoval, who batted .279 with 16 home runs and 73 RBI in 2014 for the Giants but signed a five-year, $95 million contract with the Boston Red Sox in the offseason.
Sandoval hit .417 in the NL Championship Series and World Series after winning the 2012 World Series MVP. Yet Crawford has two full postseasons under his belt and Panik, hitting .308 with 33 RBI, played in every Giants game of last year’s postseason.
New Giants third baseman Matt Duffy, 24, was on pace to produce similar RBI numbers to Sandoval with a .293 batting average and a higher on-base-plus-slugging percentage at .797. (San- doval’s was .739 last season.)
“They believe in themselves, they know their roles, and they have a great manager,” ESPN’s Dan Shulman says. “The trick is getting there.”
PENCE PROVIDES INFUSION The catalyst for a Giants secondhalf renaissance could be better health.
The lineup should be more capable because Pence has returned from left wrist tendinitis. He had seven RBI in his first five games back as the Giants won four of them.
The 32-year-old batted .333 for the Giants last postseason and adds 20-homer power to a team that ranked 23rd in home runs.
“I think a huge key for them is getting Hunter Pence back for a lot of reasons,” Shulman says. “They needed help in the outfield to contribute more offense and to bring them more energy.”
Players such as Gregor Blanco (.313) and Aoki (.317) had high batting averages. (Aoki is due back in late July.) Yet the outfield as a whole had produced only 13 home runs.
That includes 34-year-old center fielder Pagan, who is bat- ting below his .282 career batting average at .271 with zero home runs and 23 RBI.
Cain — who has dealt with elbow and forearm issues over the last two seasons and could not straighten his arm out completely for the last three years, according to DeRosa — gave up five runs in five innings July 2 vs. the Marlins in his first start back.
The rust appeared to dissipate in Cain’s next one, when he pitched six shutout innings and struck out seven in a 3-0 Giants win vs. the Mets.
Entering the All-Star break, Peavy, who has dealt with back injuries this season, had back-toback strong starts, allowing three earned runs and striking out nine over 131⁄ innings.
Lincecum, who helped keep the team hanging around contention with a 7-4 start before he went on the disabled list with a bruise to his right forearm, could be back before the end of July. He might be headed for the bullpen, which might not be a bad thing.
In 2012, he had a 0.69 ERA as a reliever in 13 postseason innings. And the 31-year-old might not be the only addition to the bullpen.
While the Giants have struggled in the middle of games — the third, fourth and fifth innings — with an ERA of 4.41, that number climbs to 5.24 for the ninth inning, worst in MLB.
“I don’t think their bullpen is as good right now as it has been in some of their championship years,” Shulman says. “It would not shock me if they went out and tried to pick up a reliever at the trade deadline.”
That could be tricky, however. Having two wild-card teams in each league increases the number of teams that think they are a a few moves away from making the playoffs.
“There are lot more buyers and sellers,” Glanville says. “The way baseball is trending, bullpen is really king. The (Kansas City) Royals are a great example.”
Having a someone like Affeldt, out since Friday with a shoulder strain, might be just as valuable. The 36-year-old lefty has a 0.86 ERA in 311⁄3 career postseason innings and didn’t allow an earned run in the 2014 postseason.
There is danger, of course. Fresh off a World Series in 2013, the Giants fell flat at 76-86 with a similar team. At the All-Star break, that team was 43-51.
Then came last year. From that run — “People were shocked that we won the World Series,” Pence says — and two previous ones, the Giants have built up experience and the confidence to know that what they once did, they can do again.
“I have been in that locker room,” DeRosa says. “I know how Bruce Bochy and his staff go about it. They have their eye on the bigger prize.”