Why Giants regularly open on road

SEATTLE — In a world with few certainties, one of them is that the Giants will open on the road.

This season makes a dozen years in a row they’ve done so, and they’ve played openers away from home 28 of the past 34 seasons. Among others, Buster Posey has taken notice.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of why we never start at home,” the Giants catcher said this past week. “There’s got to be some reason, but I don’t really have a solid answer for that.”

It turns out there are many factors, but from a sheer baseball standpoint, the thinking is simple: The Giants would rather finish up at home in case they need the homefield advantage. It’s come into play before, as Posey will recall. In 2010, San Francisco went into the final week up by half a game in the NL West and won four of six at home to take the division by two games before going on to win the World Series.

“We’ve had some valuable final homestands where we had to win games at the very end,” team CEO Larry Baer said, adding that top baseball execs Brian Sabean and now Farhan Zaidi have preferred that scenario. “I know in 2010, it was important to us.”

Teams don’t get to decide whether they’ll open on the road or at home; they indicate their preferences to MLB. In a twoteam region, scheduling can be tricky, with teams jockeying for premium home dates such as Memorial Day or July 4. But the A’s and Giants have been in sync when it comes to starting the season, because Oakland enjoys being home for Opening Day, which typically maximizes attendance. MLB seldom wants both teams on the road to start the season because they like to send coldweather teams to California for

openers for obvious reasons.

From a business standpoint, the Giants feel as if getting an extra week or so to prepare for their home opener can be a boost — it allows for more ticket sales, more sponsorships, better planning. Never has that been the case more than this year, as the team is getting ready for limited capacity attendance, including a local requirement that fans be able to provide documentation of a negative coronavirus test or vaccination upon request.

The Giants got an upclose look at a wellrun opener Thursday at Seattle, where the Mariners pulled off an impressively troublefree evening for the 8,174 in attendance, with concessions stands open and food available via creditcard payments.

“It’s a huge lift, a quantum step for baseball to get back, to get the energy back around the game, get some buzz and momentum,” Baer said, “because no matter how you slice it, being completely without fans is so different than even having

something. Last year, being in the empty ballpark was just surreal and depressing, frankly.”

In their 12 consecutive seasons opening on the road, including Thursday’s 10inning loss, the Giants are 57.