Just a few quick notes after a most satisfying and entertaining blowout win against a bad team. Don't discount it; blowing out bad teams is what good teams do.

The Giants hit five home runs last night, the first time they've done that at Oracle Park. The last time they did it at home was 2018 when it was still AT&T Park. Anyway, five homers in one game shouldn't be too surprising, after all, for a team that leads the league in home runs.  Who saw that coming back in April?

Along with the five longballs the Giants drew nine walks, and five of those walkers came around to score. Mike Yastrzemski was the poster boy for the wait-it-out set: no hits, but three walks and three runs scored. Steven Duggar (.305, with two homers in two games) walked twice and scored on one of 'em. Gabe Kapler: “We have the ability to grind out at-bats and wear pitchers down... We could have scored several more runs tonight..." 

Indeed. The Giants left nine men on base. Heaven knows how many runs they might have scored had they managed to hit the ball a little more efficiently! 

Was it just a year ago that the Giants' facebook site was overflowing like a jammed commode with "Fire Kapler" comments from the ignoranti? Oh, we might not be able to discuss politics without coming to blows, but the man has shown he can manage a baseball team made up of widely diverse characters and keep them moving in one direction, and that, sports fans, is what it's all about.

Believe it or not, the San Diego Padres would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. They've lost 7 of 10 and trail the Giants by six games. Both the Cubs and Brewers have moved ahead of the Pads in their battle for the Central division lead.  

Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks.... Invidious comparisons to the 1960s Mets and 1940s A's are bubbling to the surface as the snakebit Snakes (waitaminute, can snakes be "snakebit?" Maybe they're "man-bit?" City Editor: "Man bites snake? Boys, that's a story!") have now lost 22 straight road games, own the worst record in all of baseball, with a winning percentage south of .300. This leads to inevitable talk about manager Torey Lovullo's future; he just received a vote of confidence from Arizona ownership, immediately following the firing of the team's hitting coaches. 

How does Madison Bumgarner feel about all this? "Bum" is back on the IL now, so the Giants won't see him in today's series finale. Y'all may or may not recall the Giants have faced him once since his departure: they beat him last September 5 at the O.  Given Arizona's putrid state of affairs with the season approaching its midway point, will Bumgarner, if back to full health, be trade bait come July? He is set to earn 79 million dollars through 2024.  

Would the Giants entertain a trade for "Bum" if it were a true salary dump and not a demand for top prospects? Recall how the Giants cut Mark Portugal loose under similar circumstances in 1995. With things getting serious now, how badly do the Giants need another solid veteran starter (assuming Bumgarner still fits that bill)?  Kevin Gausman is great, and  Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood are generally good. After that-- well, we're not convinced Johnny Cueto is 100% healthy, and the fifth starter spot is a black hole; with Logan Webb and Aaron Sanchez sidelined, Kapler's been using the "opener" scheme, which is a total crapshoot.

Would they spend the money? And who even entertained such an unlikely thought three weeks ago?

What's doin' elsewhere? The Mets, who simply can't score runs, persist in not allowing them either, and thus have moved five games ahead of Philadelphia, who once again look unable to step across the threshold of mediocrity. (Kapler's fault, hah?) And Atlanta in no way resembles the team that almost made the World Series a year ago. Now, the Central is where the excitement's at, with four teams over .500 and within three games of the lead.

A website whose name we forget posted that Yankees manager Aaron Boone was the bettors' favorite to be fired midseason, ahead of Lovullo (people bet on when managers are going to be fired?) and the usual suspects in Baltimore, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. The Yanks are keeping their nose above .500 right now, but trail Tampa and Boston by 7. Each of the AL divisions has a two-team race going: Chicago, led by septuagenarian Tony LaRussa, battling Cleveland in the Central, and Houston and Oakland atop the West. The Angels, our preseason favorite, still can't pitch, though Shohei Ohtani is having a season for the ages in Mike Trout's unhappy absence.  

It only gets worse for Arizona, as they host the Dodgers this coming weekend. Meanwhile, the Giants get no rest as Philadelphia comes to town, and Gabe Kapler finally gets a shot against the team he used to manage. 

Play 60

Well, after 60 games this year the Giants are 9 wins ahead of where they finished last year. That makes as good as any a demarcation point for reviewing this most unexpected season so far. So, with the Giants clinging to a 2-1 lead in Texas today after last night's thrilling win, we'll proceed, in no particular order...

Brandon Crawford not only deserves congratulations for starting more games at shortstop than any man in Giants history, San Francisco or New York, and for belting 2 home runs and driving in 4 runs last night, he also deserves some serious MVP consideration, and we ain't kiddin'. Crawford, 34, is 7th in the league in OPS, fourth in slugging, fifth in homers, and is playing shortstop as he did several years ago when he was defining that position. He's also drawn 23 walks in 170 AB, which boosts his .265 average to a .357 OBP. It's not that he should win it, it's that he's going to be in the discussion, and that's a wonderful thing.

We won't be watching the All-Star Game, but Crawford, along with Kevin Gausman and Buster Posey, will certainly be there.  Had Posey enough ABs to qualify, he'd be third in average and OBP, and fourth in slugging and OPS. Of course, we can argue that his frequent off-days (19 out of 60) are what's helping keep his numbers up. But 10 homers in 41 games is pretty good no matter how you look at it.

Crawford, by the way, is the only Giant with enough PAs to qualify for the batting title. If anyone gets more out of a full lineup than does Gabe Kapler, we'd like to meet him. And given the cascading toll of injuries that have befallen this club, it's a testimony to the "Resilient" banner that adorns the Giants' website. There'll need to be a lot more of it in the coming weeks.

Are we ever glad to see Steve Duggar measuring up! .307 with a .899 OPS in 35 games and superb defense in center field. He's one of eight Giants slugging over .500 on the season-- though two of those guys are currently on the IL. And we wish we could see some better numbers from another of our perennial favorites, Austin Slater. He's done remarkably well as a pinch-hitter but overall he's not doing enough to keep Duggar, LaMonte Wade, and last night's grand-slam hero, Mike Tauchman, out of the lineup. 

As a  team, the Giants lead all of major-league baseball in home runs (!) as well as in wins. They're sixth in OBP, seventh in OPS, and sixth in runs. On the pitching side they're sixth in ERA, tops in saves with 23, and second in fewest walks allowed. It warms the heart, it does. And, in a season with historically low WHIP totals, the Giants are fourth at 1.11, which is generally Cy Young territory for individual pitchers. For teams... !

The Giants are 18-9 at home, 20-13 on the road (with a chance to make it 21-13 if they hold on here), and they've got a four-game set at Washington coming up, which means an excess of home games down the road, when things are likely to get much tighter and tougher.  

How many of you would have figured with Evan Longoria and Mike Yastrzemski both on the injured list, the Giants would still have the best record in major-league baseball, holding a two-and-a-half game lead over San Diego and three full over LA?

What about Connor Menez, another of our favorites, recently called up, with two scoreless innings today on the road, in the late innings of a one-run game?  We're glad to see the Giants bringing up the younger guys to work out of the bullpen, which has been by far the shakiest part of this team all season long. It's another way Kapler and his coaches have managed to "find out who can do it and who can't" while still keeping the team in contention. Contention? First place, sports fans!

And today we have the local boy, Sammy Long, whose major-league debut over 4 innings showed 7 strikeouts, one hit, and one run.  He's a 18th-round pick out of Sacramento State, and, you know, you never can tell.