Baseball is Back!
Major League Baseball resumed after a long and agonizing off-season on July 23 for the Giants. They faced the Dodgers in the second game of the season (the first game was earlier that day, Yankees vs Nationals). That game ended in a loss for the Giants with a score of 1-8. The Dodgers won the 2nd game of the series 1-9, but the Giants came back and tied the series with a win in the last 2 games.
Home Opener
After the 4 game series against the Dodgers, the Giants traveled back home to play the next 2 series at Oracle Park. The first one was against the Padres. The Padres took the first game but the Giants rallied on the 2nd game to win it in walk-off fashion. Mike Yastrzemski had 2 home runs including a splash shot that walked it off in the 9th. The 3rd game, however, didn’t go as planned. The Giants were trailing and came back in the 7th and 8th. It was looking good until the Padres scored 6 runs in the 10th inning to blow open the game and won the series.
Onto Texas
After the rough series vs the Padres, the Rangers came into town to face the Giants for a 3-game series. The first game showed great potential as the Giants scored 9 runs. Flores hit a 3 run homer for his 2nd of the season. Chadwick Tromp also made his major league debut and getting a single and RBI double in that game. The next game vs Texas was also very good as the Giants won 7-3. The 3rd game was close as it was 5-5 heading into the 7th inning thanks to a home run from Evan Longoria and Chadwick Tromp (his first MLB home run too). However, it wasn’t enough as Joey Gallo hit a 3 run go-ahead homer in 7th. The Giants couldn’t come back but won the series!
Will the Coors Affect Come into Play?
For the next series, the Giants traveled to Colorado for a 4 game series vs the 1st place Rockies in the NL West. The Giants were hot in the last 2 series as they averaged 7 runs in the last 5 games they played. They hope they can keep it up especially when they travel to Coors. The first game was close with homers from Tromp, Yaz, and Dickerson. However, sloppy defense killed them and the Giants lost 6-7. The second game, there was basically no offense as the Giants only scored 2 runs because of a double from Duggar. Other than that, there wasn’t anything else. The Giants won the 3rd game, 4-3 thanks to a 3 run homer from Belt. The last game, there wasn’t much offense at first but Mauricio Dubon came in clutch and hit a 3 run home run in the 7th to take the lead. However, the bullpen wasn’t enough and the Giants blew the lead in the 7th inning. The Giants lost the series 3-1.
Mike Yastrzemski and Donovan Solano
Mike Yastrzemski and Donovan Solano stood out in the Giants lineup in these first couple weeks. Solano has the 2nd best OBP in the MLB (.478), and Yaz has the 4th best (.467) as of August 7th. Donovan Solano also has the best average in the MLB (.465) and the most hits. They have definitely been surprising and hopefully they can keep it up for the whole season.
Pitching
Even though the hitting has been great, the pitching has not. Only 2 games resulted in the Starting Pitcher last more than 5 innings (Jeff Samardzija and Kevin Gausman). No starting pitcher has enough innings to be a qualified starter. Kevin Gausman has only 13.2 innings pitched while the most in the MLB is 21.2. The bullpen is young and inexperienced and has cost the Giants the win in many games this season.
Overall
If the Giants keep up the offense, and the pitching steps up a bit, the Giants can be a serious threat and can make a run for the Wild Card especially with the new 16 team playoffs in 2020. In 60 games, anything can happen with the Giants.
