If you happen to believe there’s no such thing as a curse, the San Francisco Giants are probably testing your faith right now.
Odd years have been a thorn in the Giants’ side for a while now, interrupting their World Series dynasty plans with playoff-less autumns. And something unfortunate always seems to befall them in those years, prompting the belief in an odd-year curse.
This season has been no different. Each of the team’s starting outfielders has missed a significant chunk of time due to injury: Hunter Pence and Nori Aoki to broken bones, and Angel Pagan’s knees may be shot beyond repair. All-Star second baseman Joe Panik is on the shelf with a back injury with no timetable to return. The rotation has suffered the losses of Matt Cain, Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson, and Mike Leake throughout the year. Even key reserves like Andrew Susac have missed a lot of time.
Yet somehow the Giants still find themselves in the thick of the pennant race, currently 2.5 games behind the division-leading Dodgers and 3.5 out of a wild card spot. With injuries piling up and so many question marks on their roster, do the defending champs have enough gas left in the tank to make it back to the postseason?
Madison Bumgarner snapped their recent cold streak last night by dominating the Astros, but he can’t pitch every night (well, probably not). Chris Heston has pitched well beyond expectations but may be hitting a rookie wall, and while Peavy has bounced back from an early season injury to be an effective pitcher, Cain certainly has not. Leake made one good start before a hamstring injury sidelined him, so the jury is still out on the trade that brought him to San Francisco. And Ryan Vogelsong is probably better suited for relief at this point in his career.
With so many question marks in the rotation, the Giants are going to have to hit their way back into the playoffs. Luckily for them they have one of their most dangerous lineups in recent memory, even without Panik for the time being. Swapping out the broken down Pagan for Gregor Blanco is a net positive, and the middle of the order consisting of Matt Duffy, Posey, Pence, Brandon Belt, and Brandon Crawford is as dangerous as any other in baseball. They can score, and score a lot.
Whether or not that will be enough to get them over the hump is up for debate. A Wild Card berth is looking like a pipe dream with the way the teams in the NL Central are playing. A head-to-head battle with the Dodgers seems inevitable, and both teams have deep flaws in their pitching staffs to contend with.
But the Giants, beaten up and struggling to find replacement parts, lack the depth the Dodgers have. They may make an August trade or two to get better – Chase Utley and Rajai Davis come to mind, for instance – and if the pitching staff can turn things around, they have an excellent shot of winning the division. They certainly have the offense to score 5 or 6 runs per game, every game. Whether or not their pitching staff can avoid giving up 6 or 7 runs is the question.
Maybe they should revisit that whole “Bumgarner pitches every day” thing, too.
