July 12th-July 19th. What will the Giants do at the deadline.
On June 9th, the Giants had seemed to hit the lowest point of the season. They had just lost their second straight game to the Dodgers, despite a 7-inning, one run gem from Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner made one mistake pitch and Max Muncy made him pay, hitting a no-doubter into McCovey Cove. The Giants couldn’t muster one run, and Bumgarner ended up with a loss in his best start of the season. This type of game has been the epitomty of Giants baseball since 2016. The Giants offense has regularly been among the worst in the league, and they never seem to be able to back a great pitching performance with any runs. Oracle Park was empty, the boo-birds were out, the Giants were 26-38 and fans were calling for all of their favorite players to be traded. I’m sure if you told Giants fans that in a little over a month they would be one game under .500, 3rd place in the NL West and 2.5 games back of the Wild Card, they would have laughed at you for a good 5 minutes and went on their way.
Well, it’s a little over a month since that game and out of nowhere, the Giants are the hottest team in the league, and are giving fans reasons to be happy, with stellar pitching and the hottest offense in the league. This last week, the Giants have gone 7-1, rattling off 6 straight wins.
They opened up the second half in Milwaukee, starting what might’ve been the most important road trip in recent memory. If the Giants could keep up their winning ways on this trip, they might have a chance at the Wild Card and they would make the Trade Deadline very interesting. The G-men proceeded to take 2 out of 3 from the Brew Crew and their loss probably should have been a win. They certainly didn’t make it easy, as it took a Buster Posey 10th inning Grand-Slam to win game 1 after Will Smith’s first blown save of the year. They still won 10-7, scoring all of their runs on 5 home runs, which at the time was a reflection of the new and improved, red hot offense. The bullpen collapsed in game 2, giving up 4 runs in the last 2 innings including a walk-off double to Ben Gamel. However, the team bounced back to win the rubber match 8-3, behind a solid pitching and hitting performance from Tyler Beede who had a career-high 7 strikeouts over 6.2 innings, only surrendering 3 runs.
The Orange and Black had to hop on a plane and head to Colorado for a four game series, and ended up with a sweep, winning more games in Coors Field in one series than they had the last 3 years. The first day was a double-header, and the Giants burst out of the gate, putting up a season high 19 runs in game 1, accompanied with a gem from Jeff Samardzija, who has been on a roll. In Game 2, Dereck Rodriguez pitched very well in his first start in a while, and the Giants won 2-1. Brandon Crawford had the best day of his career, going 6-9 with 3 homers and 9 RBI’s, with 8 of them coming in game 1. Game 3 was very similar to Game 1 in Milwaukee, as Will Smith blew another save, but the Giants offense exploded for 4 runs in the 10th again. The Giants completed the sweep in game 4, showing more resiliency, coming back from multiple deficits and winning 11-8. This is easily the best series I have ever seen from the Giants, as they had 59 hits, out scoring the Rockies 50-15.
The Giants came home for a series with the Mets and won an exhilarating game 3-2 in the 16th inning. In what might be his last start as a Giant, Madison Bumgarner threw 94 pitches over 9 innings, only giving up 1 run. This was an absolutely inspiring performance and it heavily reminded Giants Fans of the 2016 Wild Card game. Noah Syndergaard held the obviously tiered offense to only 1 run as well, and the next run wasn’t scored until the 16th. Both bullpens were fantastic, getting out of jams left and right, until Pete Alonso hit a home run in the top of the 16th off of newcomer Williams Jerez. But, again, the Giants refused to give up, scoring two runs with 5 base runners, including an RBI double from Crawford and a walk off single from Donovan Solano. It was truly a great game, and one the old giants would never have won.
Player of the Week:
I struggled with this one for a while, and any other week Mike Yastrzemski or Donovan Solano would have won this award easily, but in the end, Brandon Crawford’s performance was too hard to deny. The incredible performance on the day of the Double-Header, great defense all week, and the game tying 11 pitch at bat that resulted in a double last night secured the Player of the Week honors this week. HM: Mike Yastrzemski, Donovan Solano, Kevin Pillar(incredible defense in CF that arguably won games for the Giants in Colorado)
Pitcher of the Week:
No question, Madison Bumgarner deserves to be named Pitcher of the Week. Over 2 starts, he threw 16 scoreless innings, and the start last night is one of the best of his career, and if it really was his last start as a Giant, it was the perfect send off. HM: Jeff Samardzija, Dereck Rodriguez
The Giants have the rest of this series against the Mets, and then they get the Cubs, but the main story of the next week will be what the Giants do regarding trades. They were widely regarded to be sellers at the deadline, but this string of recent success has put them right in the middle of the NL playoff race. The Giants will be the talk of the deadline, and whether they decide to trade away their studs or stand pat and try and make playoffs, I will be there right alongside them. Farhan Zaidi really has a difficult decision to make, but in the end, it is very hard to deny the fire and fight of this Giants team.
Written by Jack Smith
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