Hypothetical recap: Two-game sweeps still count

With the MLB season suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, there are no baseball games and limited baseball news. So I’m creating a hypothetical season — complete with news and recaps — until baseball resumes. All news and recaps will have the hypothetical tag, so you can at least know when you’re suspending reality. And you can click “hypothetical season” above the headline to see everything that has happened in this “season.”

The San Francisco Giants finally figured it out. They finally figured out how to become a good baseball team. All they have to do is spend the whole season facing baseball teams that are worse than them.

It’s so simple! I kind of wonder how they didn’t figure it out any earlier. Maybe they should have done that.

Oh well.

The Giants beat up on the lowly Detroit Tigers for the second consecutive game, earning the rare baseball accomplishment of a two-game sweep. Oh goody!

I’m not complaining. No, I am not complaining one bit.

There have been so many times this season where I’ve recapped a Giants game with some iteration of “The opposing pitcher was really good, or maybe it’s just that the Giants offense is really bad,” and let me tell you, it sure is nice to have that shoe be on the other foot.

Johnny Cueto was very good, or perhaps the Tigers offense is simply that futile. If you think I’m being hyperbolic, consider this: The Tigers were one of only two teams last year that had a worse offense than the Giants. And not only did they have a worse offense, they had a substantially worse offense. And, like the good rebuilding team that they are, they didn’t really do anything to address that in the offseason.

So they came into Oracle Park not particularly capable of doing things like scoring runs. Which maybe should have given you some comfort, but it honestly just scared me. Because I was expecting them to score a bunch of runs anyways. At least when the Los Angeles Dodgers pour 10 runs on the Giants you kind of shrug and say, “well, yeah . . .” but if the Tigers do it all you can do is stare at the screen helplessly for five minutes until someone asks you if you’re okay. You’re not okay.

But that didn’t happen! A day after Logan Webb twirled a very nice game against the Tigers, Cueto did the same, going 7 innings, while allowing just 1 earned run on 5 hits and 1 walk. He struck out 7 Tigers batters, and I swear his eyes twinkled every single time.

The offense wasn’t quite as dynamic as it was on Tuesday, when they scored 6 runs, but they still put up 4 runs on professional van man Daniel Norris, plus another one on the Tigers uninspiring bullpen. Evan Longoria hit a home run, Austin Slater had a pair of doubles, and Buster Posey managed to get on base three times despite not having a hit.

And the Giants earned the sweep with a 5-1 win. A two game sweep? Still counts.

They’re now 22-27.