Giants Lose Heartbreaker to End Their Season
The Giants were in the playoff race until the very last game of the season, which is something that no one would have predicted before the season began. Unfortunately, they were outplayed this weekend by the Padres, clearly the superior team and arguably the most exciting club in baseball right now and ended the final week of fun on the outside looking in.
After the Giants took the first game of Friday’s doubleheader 5-4, pitcher Sam Coonrod’s meltdown in the nightcap led to a gut-wrenching walk-off home run (the Padres were technically the home team) off the bat of Trent Grisham.
Saturday’s game was also close until the 9th, when Tony Watson forgot how to make an out and gave up two homers without retiring a batter.You don’t have to be terribly perceptive to notice a recurring theme here – bullpen implosions practically single-handedly cost the Giants a playoff spot this season. We’ll revisit that in a moment.
Drew Smyly was tabbed with the loss for Sunday’s game despite pitching quite well, racking up 10 strikeouts in just 5 innings of work. It wasn’t until the 7th inning that this felt like a game the Giants were going to lose. An unfortunate fielding error by Evan Longoria led to the Padres clocking in three unearned runs off of Jarlin García, bringing the score to 5-1. The Giants fought back valiantly, with Brandon Crawford and Wilmer Flores each homering to bring the score within one, but it was all for naught.
Trevor Rosenthal struck out the side in the bottom of the 9th, with the last out, Austin Slater, caught looking on a fastball that appeared to be (read: definitely was) below the strike zone. Have a look for yourself, courtesy of MLB Gameday –
Both the fourth and fifth pitches were called strikes outside the zone, but it was that fifth pitch that umpire Rob Drake deemed worthy of ending the Giants’ season. You could consider this reason to advocate for an automated strike zone, or you could chalk it up as a little 2020-themed cruelty courtesy of the universe. However you choose to cope, it doesn’t change the fact that the Giants’ season is unequivocally over.
Despite the way it ended, there are a lot of reasons to be positive about the Giants’ outlook heading into 2021.
The Bats
Their offense, in contrast to their bullpen, performed much better than could have been realistically expected. Everyday bats Brandon Belt, Donovan Solano, Crawford, Corey Dickerson, Mike Yastrzemski, and Flores each put up an OPS+ of at least 114 according to Baseball Reference, which is 14% better than the average hitter adjusted for their league and home stadium.
A couple of bench bats, namely Slater and Korean superstar Darin Ruf, also produced an OPS+ of 166 and 146, respectively. Belt led the pack with an eye-popping OPS+ of 182, far and way the best of his career – albeit in 50 games of work.; Belt has long been a streaky hitter with torrid hot streaks and ice-cold stretches, so the shortened season may have worked to his advantage. In any case, this season has done a lot to quell Farhan Zaidi and Giants fans’ fears about having Belt and Crawford under contract for next season. Add to that Buster Posey pairing with Joey Bart to form a potentially formidable backstop duo, along with top prospects Marco Luciano, Hunter Bishop and Heliot Ramos being that much closer to taking the league by storm, and there’s a lot to be excited about on the position player front.
The Arms
The pitching half of the equation is a bit murkier, which clearly is a big change from their championship-winning days of the early 2010’s.
As previously mentioned, the Giants’ bullpen arms weren’t all that inspiring this year, but one bad egg had a disproportionate say in this being the case. Trevor Gott, Gabe Kapler’s closer at the start of the year, single-handedly lost three games in four days in which the Giants took healthy leads into the 9th inning. His -0.8 WAR (wins above replacement) in a mere 11.2 IP this season was, in a word, impressive. Other young arms looked a lot better. Despite outperforming his peripherals, Shaun Anderson struck out 18 in 15.1 innings and showed flashes of being a back-end guy. Jarlin García, despite his three unearned runs in the season finale, put up a sparkling 0.49 ERA. Arguably the best reliever in the Giants’ system, Reyes Moronta, missed the whole season due to injury but should be 100% ready by Spring Training as well.
Take heart, Giants fans – better days are ahead. 2021 can’t come soon enough.
-Michael Swinehart
