Giants aren’t caught up in what’s going on down south

OAKLAND >> It’s a good thing the Giants built up a five-game cushion over the Dodgers in the National League West last week because it’s almost all gone now.

The Giants remain a game and a half ahead of the Dodgers after Saturday, but without LaMonte Wade’s game-winning homer in the top of the ninth, that margin would have been less than one game going into today.

For a team that was not expected to be in this position, it’s fair to wonder if they can hold off an improved version of last year’s World Series winners.

But while us on the outside might be scoreboard watching for hours a day, it sure doesn’t sound to me like the Giants are too con

cerned with the Dodgers.

“I just don’t get too caught up on the things that we don’t have any control over,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said before San Francisco’s win over the A’s on Saturday at the Coliseum. He’s instructing his team to follow suit.

Yeah, you know that juggernaut? Just ignore it.

In all seriousness, it’s not as if the Giants haven’t noticed the Dodgers — L.A. has been an omnipresent threat since the Giants first moved to the top of the division in the early weeks of the season. But the way the manager sees it, trying to keep up with the Joneses in Hollywood is a good way to fall behind them.

“I actually don’t think that you have to ignore it,” Kapler said. “Just notice it. At the same time be focused on our process.”

“This game is so detailed and so granular at times that bigpicture stuff, you notice it, but that’s not what you’re really focused on.”

And looking at the here and now for the Giants, it’s fair to say they’re playing good ball. They’re winners of 15 of their last 20 games and their last seven series with a chance to go for eight in a row Sunday at the Coliseum.

Yes, the quality of competition wasn’t elite (10 games against the Rockies and Diamondbacks) during that stretch, and there are questions about starting pitching. And, yes, this team might be too reliant on the home run to score, too. But

these are champagne problems — nitpicking the team with the best record in baseball.

There should be nothing but praise for San Francisco as of late. The fan outrage after backto-back losses was the best example to date of how far this team has come. There are 28 other teams that would love to be playing like the Giants.

But the dread — perhaps it’s an inferiority complex — has intensified in recent days. Why?

Because while the Dodgers want to take the Giants’ place in the standings, they don’t envy San Francisco’s form. L.A. has won nine straight games.

Yes, the Giants went more than two weeks — July 28 to Aug. 13 —without giving up any ground to the Dodgers.

But now they’re in a precarious spot, having given up 3.5 games in the standings to the Dodgers over the course of a week without losing a series.

So how long can the Giants hold off their rivals? The writing is on the wall, right?

They just might not acknowledge the wall.

“It’s 162, spring training, the playoffs. It takes an extraordinary amount of energy, effort, and attention and bandwidth,” Kapler said. “If you’re not really focused on that step right in front of (you), I think you run out of gas.”

I hate to admit that a corporate slogan is accurate, but the Giants’ season has, in fact, been defined by their resiliency. Wade’s home run Saturday was just the latest example of this Giants team refusing to quit.

With a quarter of the season remaining and their rivals finding their best form amid the dog days, the Giants’ biggest tests are still looming.

If San Francisco can hold off the Dodgers, it’ll be the most rewarding division win for the Giants since... when? 1997? 1971? Either way, it’s been a minute.

But anything truly worthwhile requires hard work. The next six weeks will be the hardest of the season.

I don’t know if the Giants can hold on to win the division, but they’ve proven me wrong so many times this season, it’d be foolish to say they can’t.

But when it’s all said and done and we know the winner, can someone let Kapler and his team — the only folks who seem to have a healthy outlook about all of this — know how it all worked out?