Preview: Home sweet home

After splitting six games on the road, the San Francisco Giants return home for a seven-game homestand, starting things off against a team they faced a week ago: the Miami Marlins.

This is a pivotal stretch of games for the Giants; or at least it is if they want to keep running in the postseason standings race. The seven games come against the Marlins and Colorado Rockies, teams that, for lack of a kinder phrase, aren’t very good.

And when they’re done with those seven games? They play the San Diego Padres six times in nine games, then have seven against the Los Angeles Dodgers later in May.

Banking some wins here would do wonders.

Series details

Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Miami Marlins
Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
When: Thursday (6:45 p.m.), Friday (6:45 p.m.), Saturday (6:05 p.m.), and Sunday (1:05 p.m.)
National broadcasts: Saturday (MLB Network, out of market only)

Where they stand

San Francisco Giants

Record: 11-7, 2nd in the NL West
Run differential: +7, 4th in the NL
Postseason standing: First wild card

Miami Marlins

Record: 8-9, 3rd in the NL East
Run differential: +4, 5th in the NL
Postseason standing: 1 game out of the NL East, 1 game out of the Wild Card

Three Giants to watch

Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images

Alex Wood: Wood was great in his season debut, which came against the Marlins. Now we turn our attention to seeing if he can repeat the performance against a team that’s now a little bit familiar with him.

Buster Posey: Posey needs only one more home run to match his 2018 total, and three more to hit his 2019 mark. He’s swinging an extremely hot bat, all while commanding a pitching staff that’s over-performing. We weren’t sure if we’d ever get to see this again, so enjoy it.

Mauricio Dubón: No Giants hitter has gotten more unlucky than Mauricio Dubón, who is putting together strong at-bats but getting nothing to show for them. The Giants have pivoted to giving Austin Slater more of Dubón’s starts, but I have a suspicion we’re not far away from Dubi breaking out.

Three Marlins to watch

Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

Jazz Chisholm: When I did this segment last week, I listed Chisholm, the Marlins’ riveting 23-year old middle infielder. And what did he do that series? Hit 5-9 with a home run and 2 walks. Which is basically what he’s done all year long.

The lefty will face three right-handed starters, so watch out.

Miguel Rojas: The Giants will have the handedness advantage against Rojas, a righty. But that won’t matter much if he hits as well as he did last year or this year (142 wRC+ in both seasons).

Pablo López: The Giants only won one game in last week’s series against the Marlins, and it came against López. But that doesn’t even come close to telling the story, as the young righty allowed just 6 hits, 2 walks, and 1 unearned run in 6 innings, while striking out 9. The Giants will need to do better if they want to best him again.