No, these are not flags flying at half-staff over the hopes and dreams of 2019 Giants fans. A little respect, please, for those who have fallen in the service of our country.
Noted curmudgeons that we are, we remember, and prefer, when Memorial Day was observed (not celebrated) on May 30, regardless of what day of the week it fell upon. Midweek days off from school, even when those days included the obligatory trip to the graveyard with parents, were a special delight far beyond the dubious benefits of today's manufactured three-day weekends. We believe if our nation went back to the old way, we'd hear a lot less preaching and posturing about how Memorial Day means more than just beach trips and barbecue.
Memorial Day also usually means baseball, but perhaps with a prophetic sense of mercy, the MLB schedule-makers chose this as a day off for our beloved, benighted San Francisco Giants. Surely they need it. No one who's been watching lately feels especially sanguine about this upcoming road trip to Miami, Baltimore, and New York, even though those three teams have a combined record worse than the Giants' own. The team we just saw get swept on their home field by a resolutely ordinary Arizona ballclub couldn't beat anybody.
It's unusual regardless. We've gone back as far as we care to in baseball history, and we still can't come up with a date for the last time the Giants weren't even scheduled to play on Memorial Day. Well, that's enough of that.
Speaking of dates, two stand out amid the rubble of this season so far. First was April 24, when the Giants concluded a tough 4-4 road trip with two wins in Toronto, the first on a four-homer game (yes, it happened) and the second on a two-hit shutout by Drew Pomeranz. (To call both those incidents 'anomalies' is understatement of the first order.) The second date is May 3 in Cincinnati. The Giants had just shaken off a brutal three-game sweep at home by the Yankees by taking two out of three from the Dodgers, with fine pitching from Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija. At that point they were 13-18, still battling Colorado for last place, but certainly not locked out of possible wild-card contention. But in the 21 games since, Giants pitchers have given up 9 or more runs 7 times, including 44 in the last three games. They've endured 5 starts in that time with Game Scores less than 20, and that doesn't include the blew-up-in-your-face "opener" experiment of May 14. Alone against the tide of awfulness, Bumgarner has posted 4 quality starts in that period. The other guys-- there've been seven of them-- have managed three, but even those are misleading. It's been a disconcerting Giants habit for their starter to be roughed up immediately in the first inning, putting this light-hitting team in a deep hole, and then to pitch respectably the rest of the way, saving his "Game Score" but losing his "Game." An example would be Samardzija's most recent debacle against the Braves, with that nightmare second inning of the six unearned runs, after which he settled down-- yes, settled down like a mugging victim dozing off in a chair at the police station.
Sure, this is a light-hitting team, though they've done better in May than in April. But the bullpen has generally been solid, and with good starting pitching, this team could contend for a wild-card spot. But without it, these guys are sunk. And what's with all the errors, for Pete's sake? Few teams go through a season committing more errors than they turn double plays, but the Giants already have 40 errors in 51 games-- in the NL, only the Cubs have more, with 41-- and only 37 DPs. It's primarily the right side of the infield-- Brandon Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Pablo Sandoval have combined for 15 errors, Brandon Belt and Joe Panik only 4. Crawford's exceptional range has more than made up for his errors in the past, but not this year-- he is below average in range and FPCT. Longoria and Sandoval are, however, the worst defensive third basemen in the league, by far. Does all this affect the pitching? You bet it does-- the Giants have given up 32 unearned runs, by a considerable margin the worst in the league. Add that to a 4.62 ERA, fourth-worst in the NL, and it's time to bugle the cavalry. Or surrender. There ain't much in the way of cavalry.
Following the 2016 near-miss the Giants front office made a conscious decision, a gamble, to try and get one more championship run from "The Core." They misjudged badly during that offseason, and are still paying for it today. We now know conclusively that they have lost that gamble big-time, and so the rebuilding must begin right away. What faint hope there was for a playoff chase in Bruce Bochy's last season is gone. At 21-31, barely over .400, and on a downward spiral, it's extremely unlikely this team can reach .500 by August 31, as they did a year ago.
So Farhan Zaidi's real job begins now, and early returns will start coming in about two months from now. We expect everyone but Buster Posey will be on the market.
Speculation, a great deal of speculation, awaits. But not today. The Giants are idle. Take a walk to a nearby cemetery and visit the grave of one who died that we may live free.
