The F Around part of the season has ended. It’s time to Find Out.
I desperately needed the All-Star break, too. About as badly as the bullpen did. Now I’m back and the team is back and while I’m just a blogger who has been in a steady decline post-peak for several years now, the Giants are right where they wanted to be from the starr of this calendar year: in contention in the second half with a significant quantity of reinforcements coming back from injury to help them out.
That first half where they were neither good nor bad? That’s over. It’s time for the San Francisco Giants to separate themselves from this tier of mediocrity and there’s no better opponent to begin that work with than the Colorado Rockies.
The Rockies are such a weird team. So poorly managed that they would be better off being run by a dozen FanGraphs writers, and that’s not condemning the FanGraphs writers. Their lineup strikes out a lot for a team that hits too many groundballs. They’ve got a solid groundball staff, but they need more strikeouts to combat how the non-groundballs get punished in Coors Field. It’s no surprise that they’ve allowed the most runs in the sport (573), but it’s unforgivable that they’re just 20th in runs scored (403). They’re even 13th in runs scored at home (213). The Giants have scored more runs at home (221).
Even if you didn’t hire the FanGraphs people, if you plunked the A’s in Coors Field and called them the Rockies, the Rockies would suddenly be a respectable franchise. There is a lot of rot and disappointment in this franchise, and that’s why this series is so important for the Giants.
Sure, sure, there are plenty of mathematicians out there who’ve gone on and on about how outcomes (wins and losses) are irrelevant and only process matters, but now we’re in the part of the season where the only sensible thing to do is tell those nerds to stop posting. There are 65 games remaining and the Giants are 1 team in a field of 9 that’s competing for 3 spots. Those other teams: Atlanta, St. Louis, New York, Arizona, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Chicago. This group represents three tiers of the 5-tier National League.
TIER 1: GREAT TEAMS — Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Milwaukee
TIER 2: GOOD TEAMS — Atlanta, St. Louis, New York
TIER 3: AVERAGE TEAMS — Arizona, San Diego, Pittsburgh
TIER 4: BELOW AVERAGE TEAMS — Cincinnati, San Francisco, Chicago
TIER 5: BAD TEAMS — Washington, Colorado, Miami
The Giants are trying to jump from Tier 4 to Tier 3 just so they can have a shot at landing in Tier 2 by the end of the season. The Giants have 12 games left in the month of July and 6 of them come against a team that has just 34 wins and a directionless future. It would be very easy to feel as though they were spiralling towards Tier 5 if they lost or split these 6 games.
The intellectual exercise that has been “contending while rebuilding” is over. It’s time for the usage algorithms and the actual talent to produce a high volume of positive outcomes.
Series details
Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Colorado Rockies
Where: Coors Field, Denver, Colorado
When: Friday (5:40pm PT), Saturday (5:10pm PT), Sunday (12:10pm PT)
National broadcasts: None.
Projected starters
Friday: Kyle Harrison vs. TBD
Saturday: TBD vs. TBD
Sunday: TBD vs. TBD
Where they stand
Rockies, 34-63 (5th in NLW, -16.0 WC), 403 RS / 572 RA | Last 10 games: 4-6
Giants, 47-50 (4th in NLW, -3.0 WC), 427 RS / 454 RA | Last 10 games: 5-5
Rockies to watch
Do we have to?
Elias Diaz: Last year’s All-Star representative for the Rockies has followed it up with an actually good season. He was below league average at the end of the year according to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference, but only Baseball Reference says he’s league average so far this season on a line of .286/.330/.403 (100 OPS+). FanGraphs has him at 90 wRC+. But FanGraphs also says he’s worth nearly a full win above replacement because of his approaching average bat and his above average defense. He’s the mostly likely trade piece the team will part with, too, so all eyes on him.
Cal Quantrill: Do you remember the game where he limited the Giants to 1 run in 6 IP in the Rockies’ 9-1 win on May 9th? I don’t, but this is the exact sort of situation the Giants need to avoid in order to prove they’re going to be competitive in the second half. Of course, baseball is very hard and it’s easier said than done. But that game was basically in the pre-Heliot Ramos Is The Team’s Savior era. The day before he’d been called up, played, went 1-for-4 with an RBI and the Giants won 8-6. Bob Melvin then benched him the next game and they lost 9-1, which managed to lead to this moment at least:
Helium Ramos pic.twitter.com/50cYJ2goUS
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 9, 2024
Melvin didn’t make that mistake again and the Giants have gone 30-28 since with Ramos starting.
Nick Mears: The 27-year old Sacramento City College legend has a 5.95 ERA (very bad) but a 2.81 FIP (very good) and he does it with a 96+ mph fastball and 2,500 rpm slider. He’d be a great addition to any team’s bullpen if the Rockies had the good sense to trade a guy with an 11.1 K/9, but for this series, I’d like to see the Giants damage up these particular goods if given the opportunity late in the game. No offense, Nick.
Giants to watch
Kyle Harrison: In the same series where Heliot Ramos returned to the Giants and Cal Quantrill shut them down, Harrison pitched 7 shutout innings in Coors Field. It wasn’t his best major league start, but it was pretty close. He’s still making his way back from being hurt or simply being overworked, and pitching a mile high isn’t going to help with the fatigure factor, but at the same time, let’s see if he can do it again.
Heliot Ramos: Dingers? Dingers, please?
Wilmer Flores: If you get the chance to go 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles and a homer against Austin Gomber, you’d better take it, Wilmer.
Anyway, let’s get pumped up! The Giants are back. The playoffs are near. LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!