Hypothetical recap: Drew Smyly throws the baseball well

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 other day I wrote an article about the San Francisco Giants dogs, and noted that left-handed pitcher Drew Smyly has an absolutely spectacular, super-chunky four-legged friend named Tye.

Tye is a good boy, so I’m guessing he’s very proud of his human dad, even when that human dad plays baseball poorly. Tye loves him anyway. That’s the beauty of dogs, I always say. They don’t care if you suck at baseball. That’s very advantageous in my life.

But Smyly does not suck at baseball, and on Saturday he was not playing baseball poorly. He was playing baseball quite well, in fact. So well that it never felt like the Giants had much of a chance of losing the game, which is not a common feeling for a baseball team that spends its evenings hanging out at the cool hipster club titled Sub .500.

Smyly pitched 7 innings and gave up just 1 run on 3 hits and 2 walks, while striking out 7. Way to go, Drew. You deserve a treat, just like Tye does.

Alex Dickerson provided the offense against Chris Archer, who is a pitcher that fits right into a theme this season. The theme is “players I wanted the Giants to get, but they didn’t get, and now I’m happy that they didn’t get that player.”

You’ve probably heard me utter some iteration of that phrase five or ten times already this season.

I thought Archer was destined for really great things a few years ago, but he hasn’t had a season worth more than 1 rWAR since 2017. He’s still the number one starter on the Pirates though, which speaks to both the pedigree of being a former All-Star, and the Pirates lack of quality pitching options.

Dickerson had three legs of the cycle (he missed out on a triple) and knocked in three runs. That was more runs than the Giants would allow, which is a really good way to guarantee a win on the baseball diamond.

When all was said and done, they won 6-2, and improved to 24-27.