Monday BP: The Giants did, in fact, Beat LA

Happy Monday, San Francisco Giants fans, and Happy Juneteenth.

I’m guessing you saw the cool thing that happened over the weekend: the Giants swept the Los Angeles Dodgers. That’s really cool for the obvious reason of sweeping the Dodgers. We love that. But if we zoom out a little bit, it’s also cool because it puts a cherry on top of some pretty excellent baseball. Let’s just look at some fun facts.

• It was the Giants third consecutive road sweep, their ninth consecutive road win, and their seventh consecutive win total.
• They’ve won 10 of their last 12 games, and 14 of their last 16 road games.
• With the win, the Giants leapfrogged the Dodgers in the standings. The Giants are now 0.5 games ahead of LA in the NL West.
• Unless you want to “yeah, but...” that, the Giants also have a better run differential.
• Speaking of run differentials, if you’re worried that the Giants just caught a hot streak and aren’t actually good ... the Giants are second in the National League in run differential. Arguably the greatest predictor of future success says that, after two and a half months, the Giants are the second-best team in the league, and tied for fourth-best in the Majors.
• Minor note about run differential: the NL is funky this year. Only six of the 15 teams have positive run differentials, with only one team representing the NL East (the Atlanta Braves at +100) and one team representing the NL Central (the Chicago Cubs at +9). Then you have the NL West nabbing four spots (the Giants at +48, the Dodgers at +42, the Arizona Diamondbacks at +25, and the San Diego Padres at +24). And then, just to even themselves out, the NL West has the Colorado Rockies who, at -98, have a negative run differential that’s nearly double that of the next-worst team, and comfortably worse than the four negative NL Central teams combined.
• The Giants are 3.5 games back of the Diamondbacks. Winning the NL West will be very difficult with how well Arizona is playing and how much potential LA and San Diego have, but it certainly looks doable right now.
• Since April 22, the Giants are 33-19. They have the best record in the Majors during that span, and the second-best differential.
• They’re really fun and I’m enjoying watching them. I hope you are, too.

What time do the Giants play today?

The Giants are back home, kicking off a very difficult. The begin a four-game series against the Padres tonight at 6:45 p.m. PT.