Hrmm....

The Giants are alone in second place. They have just 5.5 games standing between them and the playoffs, and seven head-to-head games remaining against the team they are chasing. They have won seven of their last eight, and are two games over .500 in the second half. The starting staff is tossing quality start after quality start, and the bullpen is a sublime mix of grizzled stoppers and wide-eyed youth. The offense has, uh, not recently batted out of order to make an automatic out. Things are looking up.

Here's where the McCovey Chronicles party line would come in, dropping the hammer on the warm praise delivered in the opening paragraph. "But", it would start, "the team isn't any good". And it isn't a good team, true, but that's not the right point to bring up. The Padres aren't good. The Dodgers aren't good. The Diamondbacks aren't good. Nobody's good. The NL West is a reality television show where men who look like Scottie Pippen bobbleheads left out in the sun compete to win a date with a supermodel. The chances of the winner scoring on the first date are akin to the NL West winner coming home with a World Series Trophy, but who cares? Someone will get to walk away from the cameras in triumph, casting a backward glance at the losers. And, heck, maybe that supermodel will be just wild for a good personality and active listener. There's a chance.

For the first time this season, the Giants are a fun team to watch. Some of the praise should go to Brian Sabean who realized, even if a bit too late, that the team should be throwing young players in the fire. The improved pitching from the people we had expectations for in the first place is the real reason for the renaissance. The extended enjoyment, however, has come from watching the hopping fastball of Jeremy Accardo, the occasional excellence coming from the nation-state of Hennesorreia, and the occasional glimpses of players like Todd Linden and Jack Taschner.

This team is not good enough to make the playoffs, but neither are the Padres, Dodgers or Diamondbacks. Someone is going to win this thing on a technicality, and as long as the Giants are under six games I'm going to be hopeful. If the Giants can go into the Stadium of the Damned, and take at least two of three from the blue horde, I'm going to be excited. If the Giants can go into their next series with the Padres three games back or less, well, shucks, we'll become the frothing, crazed partisans we usually are around the end of September.

I don't believe in miracles. But I do believe in stupid luck. Things are starting to get interesting.