W    L    GB                                                     

Philadelphia        81 68 Some breathing room at top spot

Arizona                79 72   Swept Cubs to move up

Miami                 78 72    Swept Braves to move up 

Chicago                 78 72         5 straight losses; season in jeopardy

Cincinnati         78 73    0.5 Gotta win to keep up

GIANTS                76 74  2 On the outside looking in

Yesterday

Giants defeated Colorado, 11-10, to save one game out of what should have been a "gimme" series.  

Arizona finished up a three game sweep of the Cubs, and Miami did the same with Atlanta. Cincinnati lost at New York. Philadelphia lost at St Louis.

The Weekend

Giants were swept in horrific fashion on Saturday, looking about as bad as a team can look, especially against an opponent with 92 losses.

Diamondbacks and Marlins were the big winners, both sweeping good teams at home and moving up. The Reds split with New York. The Cubs, like the Giants, are in big trouble; they've lost five straight and their wild-card position. Philadelphia, more or less unfazed by all this, split with St Louis.  

Today

Giants have the day off; they open the big two-game series at Arizona tomorrow night. They'll have their two best starters, Logan Webb and Alex Cobb, ready to go. The question is, will they be able to hit Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, two good righthanders with winning records and ERA below 3.5?

Miami hosts the Mets; Marlins are 43-32 at home this year. Cincinnati gets Minnesota at home.  Chicago is idle; they'll get the Pirates at Wrigley starting tomorrow.

Philadelphia is at Atlanta in a matchup of two (OK, we'll call it) playoff teams. 

The Weekend Series

How quickly the Giants have fallen, from the favored position Friday night to two games behind everyone else this morning. That disastrous ninth inning from the Colorado series opener seemed to haunt the Giants all day Saturday as they lost both games, grounding into five double plays and stranding 15 runners. The early game saw the Giants seemingly shake off the previous night's loss by jumping out to a 3-0 lead after two innings. But it all fell apart for rookie Keaton Winn in the bottom of the third: two walks sandwiched around a single, followed by a bases-clearing triple from Ezequiel Tovar, who had the game-winning RBI Friday night. Winn, to his credit, recovered and pitched a scoreless fourth, and probably should have been left in for the fifth. Instead, Ryan Walker got into immediate trouble, walking three, the last with the bases loaded. Ross Stripling then came in to issue another bases-loaded walk, and stuck around to give up three more runs in the sixth and seventh.   

The Giants never led in the second game. Paul DeJong, in there for defense, booted a ground ball in the first inning, and two unearned runs followed. The inevitable Charlie Blackmon, who sat out the first game, led off the third with a triple and led off the seventh with a double, scoring both times, while two Giants rallies were killed by double-play balls.  

Yesterday, with this once-promising series in ashes and a humiliating sweep at the hands of a last-place team they've owned all year staring them down, the Giants finally got off the mat and dealt out the kind of beating we've all been expecting. Taking an early 1-0 lead, the Giants exploded for eight runs in the top of the sixth: six straight hits, a three-run homer from Brandon Crawford, then two more hits to make it 9-0.  

It wasn't enough. Sean Manaea pitched five strong shutout innings,  but after he gave up a two-run homer in the bottom of the sixth, Gabe Kapler pulled him for John Brebbia-- who immediately committed a bonehead error and then gave up a three-run blast to Brenton Doyle. That made it 9-5, and amazon.com reported a sudden spike in worry-bead sales.  

Not to worry? The Giants answered smartly back in the seventh as Austin Slater and J.D. Davis quickly got on and Patrick Bailey drove them both in with a double. Colorado answered back with a run in the seventh off Tyler Rogers on a bizarre play at second base, but Luke Jackson pitched a scoreless eighth and with a five-run lead, Kapler evidently figured it was time for a nice low-risk show-of-confidence outing for the beleaguered Camilo Doval. 

Here's how that went: double, single, sacrifice fly, hit batsman, wild pitch to load the bases with one run already in. Then a gruesome error as Doval failed to field a ground ball toward first, a run scoring. Then a two-run single and a 11-10 game, and Taylor Rogers coming in to face who else? Charlie Blackmon, the series MVP, representing the winning run.  With a sense of dread hanging over every pitch, the lefthander got him on a line drive hit right to Thairo Estrada in short right field, and it was finally over, after three hours and seventeen minutes, a marathon under the new game-timing standards. 

The Road Ahead

Just a week ago, we figured this Arizona series would pit two teams with more-or-less the same record fighting for the same spot. But now Arizona has leaped ahead of everyone into the second wild-card position (albeit by half a game), while Chicago is down in the pit brawling with the rest of us. This doesn't change the Giants' perspective at all: they have to win both games because Miami doesn't seem to be able to lose to anyone, let alone a bad team like the Mets, at home, and the Cubs are also at home facing 70-80 Pittsburgh. What's changed about all this is that the Giants could sweep Arizona and still not improve their standing much. They'd still trail the cursed Snakes by half a game, and while they might pass the Reds (who host first-place and ready-to-clinch Minnesota), there's no certainty they'd gain any ground at all on Miami or Chicago.  

But it doesn't matter. there's no choice. "Just win, baby."  After this it's four games at Dodger Stadium before the final homestand against San Diego and LA. We recently posited that a good Colorado series would keep the Giants in good shape even with a .500 finish in those last ten games. Now a sweep in Arizona and 7-5 finish leaves them at 83-79, and that will not do it. The only thing that can be decided in this desert series is whether the Giants will still even be in the race when it's over.

Notes

Was Crawford's home run yesterday the last of his storied career? It could be... Logan Webb leads all of MLB in innings pitched. Zac Gallen, whom the Giants face tomorrow night, is second... Webb is also fifth in WHIP and 9th in ERA... Doval is still third in saves with 37 despite having blown 8. The leader, Cleveland's Emmanuel Clase, has blown 11-- and the Guardians have a 72-78 record... The only Giant anywhere near the league lead in batting categories is LaMonte Wade, 12th in OBP and 18th in walks... Wilmer Flores would be tied for 10th in OPS if he had enough PAs to qualify; he's about 100 short... Carlos Correa, whom the Giants attempted to sign over the off-season, leads the world with 30 GIDP.