Any thought of a comeback was squahsed in the bottom of the sixth inning when Buster Posey grounded out softly to second base to end a two on, two out threat. The rest of the game was watching a bunch of bad, belt-high 0-2 pitches get crushed by various Mets. Every spot of the Mets’ batting order had a hit and Pete Alonso pinch hit in the sixth to hit a 3-run home run, as the Giants lost easily, 11-4.
So, the Giants fans who’ve had to endure a run of 14 wins over the last 16 games can finally breathe a sigh of relief. They now have a .000 winning percentage and the sell-off can begin.
That’s not what’s actually happened here. The Giants fell to 49-50, but the worst thing that happened was that a seven-game winning streak was snapped. Baseball teams lose all the time. The Giants are still just 2.5 games back of the Wild Card. But... still... we have to acknowledge that there’s a loud contingent of success haters who want the Giants to sell off the present roster even if none of the return will be on the next good Giants team. This recap will be split up for the two camps:
Recap for Giants fans who hate the Giants
49-49 was always such a joke. People getting joy out of a bad team winning seven games in a row has always been more of an indicator of the decline in western civilization and not a sign of a bad team improving. To put it another, perhaps better, way: sure, the Giants have won 14 of their last 17 and are 27-16 since June 1st, but more importantly, they’re 54-71 since September 1st of last year.
The Giants are a bad team. Never forget that the Giants are a bad team. My goodness, they are a bad team. Always have been, always will. The Giants must be punished for ever having been good because they never planned for when they might be bad, and now they are bad, so they must stay bad forever. Or, at least until Buster Posey is a distant memory and the Giants have the number one farm system in all of baseball, with all fifty of the top fifty prospects. Short of that, they are a terrible team.
Remember, the Giants have been a bad team since July 2016. They will be a bad team for the rest of our lives. Stop trying to make “enjoying the Giants” a thing. SELL.
SELL! SELL! SELL!
Recap for the rest of us
After playing four games in three days against the Rockies in Denver and then back-to-back extra innings, the offense going completely limp against a rookie pitcher they’d never seen before and who’d allowed 10 runs in just 7.2 innings to this point makes total sense. The winning streak obscured reality: the Giants are easily flummoxed.
Compounding the “never faced this guy”-ness of the performance were Alex Dickerson’s pair of double plays that killed comeback rallies and the general sluggishness of the rest of the lineup.
Jeff Samardzija struck out seven in five innings and didn’t walk anybody, but the Mets hit a pair of tape-measure home runs off of him in the meantime. Derek Holland followed suit in just a single inning of work and then Ty Blach came in to try to softball his way through a power offense.
Since June 1st, the Giants have a 1.19 HR/9, 3.87 ERA, and 3.15 K/BB (372 K/118 BB). They’ve been pitching just fine and been getting solid run support to boot (5.4 runs per game). Today, neither happened, and so they lost very badly.
If this June 1st and beyond team had always been the 2019 Giants, then we’d look at a game like today and say, “Blech, let’s forget about it and go on to the next one”, but it’s not that simple. The Giants have expectations — they need to remake themselves and firm up organizational talent to build for an uncertain but hoped for future window of contention instead of living in the present and simply competing now.
If the last two weeks really have made the front office reconsider its entire position —
“They are selling.”
— 95.7 The Game (@957thegame) July 17, 2019
“One more time, a bit slower.”
“They. Are. Selling.”@JeffPassan says #SFGiants still plan to move Bumgarner and relievers ⬇️https://t.co/IXGPaqAPhG
“He doesn’t cuss, but he gets passionate real quick about this article.”https://t.co/ruKVejeQNS
— KNBR (@KNBR) July 20, 2019
— then it is completely irrational to assume that this bad, ugly, demoralizing blowout loss swung the group think completely to the other side of consideration.
Or it’s simply the case that the Giants are going to wait to make the right deal. A winning streak would seemingly solidify whatever price tag they’ve placed on players like Smith and Bumgarner. One game shouldn’t change any of that, even if others are desperate for it to.