W    L    GB                                                       

Philadelphia        79 65 Tough stretch against good teams 

Chicago                78 67         Three games out of first place

Arizona                76 69   Estimated record 71-74 

GIANTS                74 70 1.5 Fourth straight win

Miami                 74 70 1.5  Kryptonite in Milwaukee?

Cincinnati         74 71 2  Have allowed 723 runs

Yesterday

Giants defeated Cleveland, 5-4, in ten innings.

Arizona came from behind to defeat the Mets, 4-3.

Miami was crushed at Milwaukee, 12-0. 

Philadelphia and Atlanta split a doubleheader, Chicago defeated Colorado, and Cincinnati was idle.

Today

Giants host Cleveland again at 6:45 PDT. Sean Manaea gets another chance, with righty Cal Quantrill and his 5.70 ERA opposing.

Arizona is at New York, Miami at Milwaukee and Cincinnati at Detroit. Can we see some home-field advantages here, people? Please?

Philadelphia hosts the Braves, Cubs are at Colorado again.

Last Night's Game

Alex Cobb evidently will be pitching the rest of the year with a "hip impingement," which sounds both incomprehensible and painful.  The cortisone shot he took a few days ago didn't seem to help much last night, as he pitched in visible discomfort after a visit by the trainer and manager Gabe Kapler early on. Despite it, he did well, and deserved a shutout for his five strong innings. Cleveland's two runs off him in the third were unearned, after Brandon Crawford booted a two-out nobody-on grounder and Josh Naylor followed with a homer, one of only three hits allowed by the Giants' starter. That 2-1 lead didn't last long.  Mike Yastrzemski, red-hot of late, had led off the Giants' first with a homer, and after Naylor's shot, the Giants quickly took the lead back on a RBI single by Joc Pederson, who's also come alive at the plate recently, and RBI  groundout by J.D. Davis. Then in the seventh, John Brebbia inherited a man on first with one out and gave up a stolen base and a game-tying RBI single, the run charged to Taylor Rogers. Taylor's twin Tyler and Camilo Doval then negotiated their way into extra innings.

Luke Jackson, the Giants' sixth pitcher, looked like the hero when he threw out that gawdawful ghost runner at third to open the tenth, but he swiftly gave it back after another stolen base (the Guardians' third of the game) and a RBI single.  Jackson continued his high-wire act by issuing two walks, but a close call overturned by replay helped him get out of the frame without further damage. And the putative loser became the winner thanks to Blake Sabol, who drove in the Giants' own gawdawful  ghost runner to open the bottom of the tenth and tie the game. Sabol then stole second, advanced to third on a balk, and came in to score the game-winner as LaMonte Wade finally lived up to his "Late Night LaMonte" nickname from 2021 with a line-drive base hit to center field. Whew!

Quite a night for young Mr Sabol, the Giants' catcher-in-training. He came in to pinch-hit in the seventh and took over for Joey Bart behind the plate. In four innings he allowed two stolen bases and had two passed balls, but he turned it all around with his spirited play in the tenth. Blake Sabol may be the archetypal 2023 San Francisco Giant, because this whole season has been about digging holes and then climbing out of them.      

Tiebreaker Tomfoolery

The days of one-game tacked-on-to-the-end-of-the-regular-season "playoff" games, such as the Giants had back in 1998, are over.  MLB now uses "tiebreakers" in a manner similar to that of the NFL. So, there's no chance of a three-way or four-way tie for the last wild-card spot with multiple convoluted playoff and travel scenarios. With that in mind, the Giants hold a 6-5 tiebreaker advantage over Arizona at the moment, which will be tested next week with those two big games in Phoenix.  They also have a settled 4-3 edge over Cincinnati. As for Miami, the season series is tied 3-3, and why these guys allow even-numbered series when playoff tiebreakers are in use is a mystery to us. Less urgent are the Giants' execrable 1-5 record against the Cubs and their 4-2 edge over Philly; there's just too much traffic between here and there unless one or both of those teams does a complete floperoo.