:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54407975/usa_today_10027766.0.jpg)
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I watched Sunday’s game at 4x speed on my DVR after the game was over. This was not ideal, but there were positives and negatives to this approach. The positive was that I didn’t spend two hours and 46 minutes on the game. Before I die, a little gremlin will crawl out from behind the baseboards and give these minutes back to me. I’ll waste them, just like I’ve wasted all the others, but that’s not the point. I’ll have them waiting for me.
The negative was that the game was concentrated suck, a bouillon cube of nuclear waste, and there’s something even more unsettling about watching it at 4x speed. There aren’t announcers joking around, there aren’t moments of hope. There’s just out out out out out out out out out, at least when the Giants are up. When the Rockies were up, there was always a baserunner, always a rally, and it was shoved into my brain at speeds that were hard to process. Clockwork Orange and Black, if you will.
I can’t recommend it, really. The other option — don’t watch and make the recap up — was clearly superior. And if you don’t have a recap to watch, well, enjoy your Sunday doing literally anything else. This team is unwatchable.
Unwatchable in this instance is defined as “shut out in Coors Field” for just the sixth time in the ballpark’s history. Of course, the last time was in September of last year, which was also one of the most unwatchable stretches of Giants memory this century. It’s possible, if not likely, that this is a bad team, and while Madison Bumgarner vs. Noah Syndergaard was excellent theater and a great memory, it had as much predictive power as the Padres winning an exciting game against the Nationals. That release of cosmic gas will happen for bad teams.
Since the All-Star Game last year, the Giants are 36-55, which is the equivalent of a 98-loss team. It’s not just that they’re bad, or that they’re a take-a-penny, leave-a-penny team that can’t get away from .500. Our last few months of evidence suggests this team could be top-five-draft-pick bad, and now they’re going to be without their best starting pitcher.
Let’s look at the starting pitchers at whom the Giants have flailed over their last 10 games:
The Giants vs. the world
| Pitcher | Date | Opponent | Innings | Hits | Runs | Walks | Strikeouts | Home Runs allowed | Pitches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher | Date | Opponent | Innings | Hits | Runs | Walks | Strikeouts | Home Runs allowed | Pitches |
| Kyle Freeland | 2017-04-23 | COL | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 93 |
| Antonio Senzatela | 2017-04-22 | COL | 7 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 90 |
| Tyler Chatwood | 2017-04-21 | COL | 6 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 93 |
| Jason Vargas | 2017-04-19 | KCR | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 92 |
| Jason Hammel | 2017-04-18 | KCR | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 87 |
| Antonio Senzatela | 2017-04-16 | COL | 7 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 94 |
| Tyler Chatwood | 2017-04-15 | COL | 9 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 105 |
| Tyler Anderson | 2017-04-14 | COL | 4 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 75 |
| Jon Gray | 2017-04-13 | COL | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 34 |
| Shelby Miller | 2017-04-12 | ARI | 5.1 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 101 |
There are no Clayton Kershaws in there. He will be soon, which, great, fine, whatever, but that’s a list of ordinary-to-solid starting pitchers. The Giants couldn’t jump on any of them. They were all comfortable for a few innings, and their pitch counts never spiked too high. The Giants have been making contact, for the most part, but it’s weak, non-threatening contact. And then you remember their offseason move was to get an expensive closer and nothing else. The only relievers who have thrown fewer innings than Mark Melancon are Chris Stratton and Steven Okert, who have been with the team for a couple days.
This is the worst 19-game start in franchise history, tied with eight other seasons. One of those seasons was the Bobby Thomson year, when the Giants stormed back improbably to win 98 games and the pennant. The other seven seasons were all lousy, as you would expect.
It doesn’t make you feel better to know that the 1951 Giants were probably cheating, too, and I don’t think the ‘17 team will have that option. [winks frantically]
I was going to write about Jeff Samardzija (not as bad as his final line, but still plenty bad, which is definitely his brand now), Gorkys Hernandez’s error (he has been awful at everything, and Brandon Belt’s Wild Adventure in left field (not bad, not bad at all, and it reminds you the Giants are least a little flexible over the next couple years), but I’m going to shut it down early and touch on a couple of those items tomorrow because no one wants to read about this game.
No one wants to read about this team. Certainly not after watching them.
The Giants were outscored 10-29 on the road trip, and they were outscored 3-21 in the last two games alone. They can’t pitch, they can’t hit, and they can’t field. Other than that, they’re probably fine.
I will say, though, if they’re going to be this awful, at least they had the courtesy to blow it in the beginning of the season. Last year’s Lucy-with-the-football team was so much worse. I’m way more into the creeping dread and everyday malaise. So, really, it’s like we’re the winners, here.
Except, more accurately, we really, really aren’t.