Giants extend streak of high-quality baseball to two games

Would you look at that.

If you’re upset that Marco Luciano has only started half of the San Francisco Giants games since his recent call-up, then grab a number and get in line somewhere behind me. If you wish the Giants would find a way to get more consistent at-bats for Jerar Encarnación, grab a number and get in another, equally-long line. If you wish that Luis Matos and/or Wade Meckler were in the Majors right now instead of in Sacramento, well … there’s a number and a line for that, too. If you think Logan Webb (who leads the league in innings pitched), Tyler Rogers (who leads the Majors in appearances), and Ryan Walker (who is two appearances behind Rogers) should have been shut down for the health of their arms and the good of future seasons, that line’s right over there. Yeah, there. It’s hard to see with all the other lines, but you’ll find it. Grab a number and wander over there, someone will direct you to the right place.

Anger is justified. Disdain is warranted. Eye-rolling is allowed.

But confusion? Nope, you’re in the wrong place, pal. Try again later.

There are good reasons for the Giants seemingly-inexplicable recent lineup and personnel decisions. One reason is a desire to do right by upcoming free agents and appease agents by playing veterans and putting the best defense behind pitches. Sensible, if annoying.

The second is that they’re trying to win games, because winning games, even in a lost season, carries importance. One such reason for importance was explained yesterday in an article by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser and John Shea:

According to industry sources, the Giants’ board of directors wanted to assess how the season’s final weeks played out before making a decision on Zaidi, and the 2024 campaign is not ending well. Ownership is frustrated with the direction and performance of the team and is taking a hard look at Zaidi as he concludes the penultimate year on his contract.

If you think that’s a bunch of bull-hooky, well … let’s use our time machine and go back to the 2023 season, and then play god with it.

Through 110 games, the 2023 Giants were 61-49. It’s easy to forget that the Giants were on a 90-win pace because of what happened over their final 52 games, when they went 18-34, effectively leaving the cake in the oven 20 minutes too long, then dropping it on the unwashed floor.

What if that had been reversed? What if, in late May, the Giants were a dismal 18-34, then went on a run, finishing 12 games above .500 for the rest of the year, and looking like one of the sport’s better teams over the final few months of the season?

I reckon three things would have happened:

1. You would have had a lot more confidence going into the offseason than you did.
2. They wouldn’t have fired Gabe Kapler.
3. They wouldn’t have felt as pressured to make a splash this offseason.

Given how scary those last two points are, I may have to revisit how hard I want to make this point. But you get what I’m saying. The Giants offseason, from their internal moves, to their personnel moves, to your delicate feelings, were all influenced by the fact that you’d already digested the good part of the season, while the abhorrent part was fresh on your taste buds.

The Giants can’t do the inverse of that this year. Not in full, at least. It’s way, way, way too late for that, as just 10 games remain in the season following Wednesday’s 5-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles.

But the final dozen games — the 10 to come, today’s triumph, and yesterday’s delightful 10-0 win over Baltimore — certainly can influence things. They can show ownership what the vision for this team looks like when it’s actually executed properly. They can instill the players with confidence, while presenting a better sales pitch to free agents. And yes, they can even prove that the Giants are better than we thought; these games might be meaningless in the standings, but it’s easier to build a 90-win team out of an 80-win team than out of a 73-win team.

And so the Giants continue to put out what they believe is the best team they can field, even if you have no interest in watching Donovan Walton or Michael Conforto, and even if you cringe every time Rogers and Walker uncork their unique and painful-looking deliveries.

But for two days now, it has worked. And while a two-game winning streak — even against a good team, on the road — is not exactly noteworthy, what is worth noting is how the Giants have looked during those two games. They’ve played high-quality baseball, and they’ve played well-rounded baseball … and, crucially, they’ve played 2024 baseball.

Which is to say, they’ve looked athletic. They’ve taken wide turns and extra bases and put pressure on the defense and tracked down balls. They’ve pitched brilliantly and defended admirably. They’ve flexed their power but also strung together small-ball rallies. They’ve had good situational hitting, and capitalized when runners are on third with less than two outs. They’ve stopped staring at two-strike pitches that park in the middle spot of the parking lot.

They’ve looked like a good team is supposed to look in 2024, and while it could all fall apart on Thursday morning, it could also carry into their final 10 games. And that would, without a doubt, change the tenor of the organization heading into the offseason.

Wednesday’s win started the same way that Tuesday’s did: with a leadoff home run by Mike Yastrzemski, scorned former Orioles farmhand. This time Yastrzemski didn’t even give the O’s a courtesy pitch, as he jumped on the very first pitch of the game from Dean Kremer, blasting it deep into the night (and bleachers).

Unlike the night before, Yaz’s opening dinger wasn’t all the offense that was needed. While Hayden Birdsong breezed through the first two innings (with help from Matt Chapman’s admirable stand-in, Casey Schmitt), things got hairy in the third inning when Emmanuel Rivera drew a leadoff walk, and Jackson Holliday — who bears a shocking resemblance to Birdsong — singled, setting the stage for James McCann to hit a lingering fly ball that simply refused to come back to earth for what felt like hours. When it did, Yastrzemski nearly made a brilliant catch, but the ball popped out of his glove, allowing the Orioles to tie the game … and put runners on second and third with no outs.

Birdsong is going to end his debut season with a fairly unsightly ERA, but he’s certainly shown plenty enough to make you optimistic about his 2025 contributions. And with no outs in the third, and Bob Melvin already getting Spencer Bivens warm in the bullpen, Birdsong buckled in and showed some of his best work.

Facing Gunnar Henderson — a left-handed hitter who is one of the league’s best players this year — with no outs and a runner on third provided no challenge, as Birdsong struck him out with truly filthy stuff. A lazy ground ball by Cedric Mullins would score a second run to give Baltimore the lead, but that was virtually all they would do against Birdsong. He breezed through the fourth and fifth innings as Bivens sat down, and quickly got two outs in the sixth inning as well.

His night ended when he gave up a two-out single to Colton Cowser (“the great old battle of the bird and the cow,” as Hunter Pence so delightfully dubbed it), and that tagged him for a run it didn’t really feel like he deserved, when Ryan O’Hearn bashed an RBI double on the very first pitch that Erik Miller threw.

Three earned runs in 5.2 innings doesn’t quite do justice to Birdsong’s performance — especially given the amount of rain that showed up during the game. But it’s safe to say the Giants aren’t exactly staring at his ERA as they evaluate him.

Birdsong still got the win, because the Giants had gone to work in the fourth inning with the aforementioned small-ball rally. It began with back-to-back singles by Heliot Ramos and Conforto, followed by a bunt single by Tyler Fitzgerald to load the bases with no outs.

The tying run scored on a slow ground ball from Grant McCray, in which Baltimore tried to get the out at home but McCann wasn’t on the bag for the force play. Some good luck bailing out mediocre situational hitting? Absolutely. But Ramos had a nice lead, got a quick jump, and flexed his speed while barreling down the line. As he, Fitzgerald, and McCray have taught us (and hopefully the front office and coaching staff) this year, defenses tend to make more mistakes when facing the stress of speed. Making your own luck isn’t just motivational speak … it’s a fairly easy-to-spot reality in baseball.

But on the rare occasions where the Giants do knock in a run in a clear RBI situation, they always seem to settle for that lone run. The sustained rallies are one of the most glaring differences between the Giants and nearly every team they face.

So when Schmitt, called up earlier in the day to replace Chapman (who went on the Paternity List), stepped up with one run in and the bases still loaded, you wondered if he, too, would fall prey to the RISP and situational foibles that have plagued the Giants all year.

Nope. Schmitt, who had a sensational day with multiple highlight defensive plays and a walk drawn, cracked a single into left field to give the Giants the lead.

Just a delight.

With the small ball rally achieved, the Giants would bookmark it with another dinger, when Conforto bashed a solo shot in the top of the sixth inning.

After that inning set the score at 5-3, the Giants would turn things over to their increasingly-strong bullpen. Sean Hjelle got into trouble in the seventh inning, but got out of it. Rogers and Walker wouldn’t even bother with trouble in their respective frames.

And so the Giants will go for the sweep on Thursday morning, but more importantly, they’ll try to look like a high-quality, modern baseball team for the third day in a row. They’ll try to showcase their speed, their athleticism, their ability to produce sustained rallies, and their situational hitting. They’ll attempt to play quality defense behind excellent pitching.

It might not mean anything for this year’s playoff race. But it sure might mean something for next year’s.