On a sunny San Francisco September afternoon, a Saturday made for taking in a bay area baseball game, I enjoyed seeing my SF Gigantes outplay the visiting St. Louis Cardinals at Oracle Park. It was the next-to-last game of the season for both clubs, as neither landed a spot in the playoffs.
Come Sunday, these two teams with win-loss records floating around .500 will close out their seasons with "wait-until-next-year" belly aches. Not sure about what led to the Cardinals losing steam after a first half 50-46 record. But for the Giants, injuries with inconsistent pitching and hitting doomed the team right from the start. There was some good, with young guys stepping in and contributing mightily. But the bad and ugly were all too common both early and late in the season. If you put together a collage of plays that consistently plagued the Giants this season, one theme runs through most of them:
plays with multiple men on base with one or no outs, and they end up popping out, striking out, or grounding out to end the inning without one runner crossing the plate.
I'm sure they rank high in the league on that all-telling baseball statistic (LOB), runners Left-On-Base. That, along with blown leads and strikeout at bats assured the Giants of watching another MLB Fall Classic playoff tournament from the couch.
For a Giants squad who at times demonstrated signs of competing with the big dogs this season, they lacked the threat of a clutch hit when needed the most. Also, when your clutch closer loses whatever dominating mojo he had to make him a threat in previous seasons, no close game is safe. But I won't blame the disappointing season on closer Camilo Doval. Every Giants player and coach has to take responsibility for coming up short this season.
I have been giving Giants manager Bob Melvin a pass since he arrived this season. I've criticized more than praised his judgement at times, thinking he took too long to make a pitching change or even call for a bunt with men on base. At times he seemed almost unattached or out-of-touch with the momentum swings occurring throughout the game. But what do I know, I've only watched managers like Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker somehow make the right call to fire up a Giants squad and get them to that final fall series of baseball.
But it does make one wonder when seeing Bob Melvin's old team in San Diego turn things around right after he leaves. One thing is a given when it comes to successful teams. Winning begins at the top and flows downward, onto the field of play. From putting together a team, to managing a team, to playing on a team. If there's a break or weakness in any part of a teams' chain of command, the battle is all but lost.
Thanks, SF Giants, for giving us fans a "torturous," yet exciting roller-coaster of a baseball season. "Maybe next year" we'll watch the Orange and Black chain of command exercise and execute their way right through October. GO GIANTS!!!
(82-79) Cardinals 5
(80-81) Giants 6
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