Not long ago I asked this Giants team to tap into a unifying spirit or identity — a guiding principle that would allow them to grind out wins despite massive lineup turnover and a pitching rotation that’s falling apart at the seams.
And the Giants have done exactly that.
Is it sustainable? Probably not.
But it’s the only route toward good baseball for this team, at least until they find some equilibrium on the roster.
As of Thursday morning, the Giants have won four straight series, including one this week against the NL-best Phillies, putting them in a Wild Card spot in the National League.
That deserves a big thumbs up. (One the fanbase seems to be giving them, for what it’s worth.)
Now comes the tough part: the final 105 games of the season.
How long can the Giants keep this up? There are signs it’s already slowing.
Over the last two weeks, the Giants starting pitchers have only thrown 46 percent of the team’s innings.
And now the young hitters who helped put a charge in this team are starting to find out that staying in the big leagues is just as tough — if not tougher — than making it.
If the Giants are, in fact, a team whose identity is grit and grind, they’re going to need to get grittier over the next few weeks. Luckily, they have some recent practice.
Down: Luis Matos
The Giants find themselves in a pickle with Matos, who has taken over as the team’s everyday center fielder since Jung Hoo-Lee dislocated his shoulder on May 12.
The start was stellar. He had a .990 OPS through his first eight games in the role.
The last seven games have been significantly worse — .315 OPS.
The truth likely lies in the middle, but can the Giants afford to ride the roller coaster?
Heliot Ramos, meanwhile, has been much steadier and he’s played plenty of center field at the minor-league level. With Austin Slater’s return imminent, I wonder if the Giants will opt for Ramos and Brett Wisely over Matos when the roster crunch comes.
Up: Luke Jackson
It’s been a while since we’ve seen Jackson’s slider show as much bite as it has over the last week, but with it, he’s a plus reliever amid a bullpen that has a preponderance of good options these days.
On Wednesday, Jackson threw that slider two-thirds of the time over two innings to the Phillies and had them generally flummoxed.
The emergence of Sean Hjelle, the (possible) return to form of Jackson, and the 100-mile-per-hour fastball of Randy Rodriguez added to a group of known and trustworthy arms puts the Giants in a position where they have arguably the best bullpen in the division. (Though San Diego and the Dodgers boast excellent pens, too.)
And seeing as the Giants are leaning on their ‘pen early and often this season, that’s a great development.
Down: Jorge Soler
I still believe the breakout is coming.
This man can make a ball cut through even the thickest of marine layers.
The issue is that he’s not making contact with the ball nearly enough and when he does, he’s well underneath it. (Average launch angle of 20 degrees, well above his career average of 15.5.)
This is just a matter of adjustment and finding a rhythm at the plate. Soler has too long a track record of hitting the bejesus out of the ball to think he won’t make those adjustments and find that rhythm. It will be spectacular when he does.
But the challenge now is that — particularly with Marco Luciano falling out of favor in the field but not at the plate — it’s difficult to give Soler the at-bats to find his game. In his last 19 at-bats, he has two hits. He’s boasting an embarrassing .505 OPS in his last 15 games.
This is the downside of signing a DH. If he’s hitting, there are no problems, but if he’s not, he provides the team no additional value in the field and seriously jams the lineup by taking away a spot to give position players half-off days.
The breakout is coming, but it needs to come soon or the Giants will be in a position where they can no longer play him everyday.
Up: Spencer Howard
The one-time top prospect in the Phillies and Rangers organization, Howard was called upon to make his Giants debut and be the bulk-innings pitcher in Tuesday’s game against Philadelphia.
And he was pretty good!
Good enough to try that once again.
I don’t see Howard as any sort of solution, but if he can provide four or five innings once a week amid a game that features an opener (or two), that’s a win for a Giants team that currently has — let me check my notes here — maybe two reliable starters.
Kyle Harrison exploded. Jordan Hicks makes me uneasy — it feels like the bottom could fall out at any moment. The less said about Blake Snell, the better (though I fully expect him to figure out his fastball command).
So while Howard has a stuff-plus fastball of 68 (a laughably bad number — Rodriguez’s grades at 135) and doesn’t have plus secondaries, he does show some control and, frankly, it’s all better than what Daulton Jefferies (73 total stuff-plus) gave the Giants earlier this season. Let’s see this out. I’d estimate the Giants can coax 10 more innings out of him. That’s nothing to scoff at.
Down: Kyle Harrison
The young pitcher is finding out that throwing an average (at best) fastball two-thirds of the time isn’t a good idea, and without a reliable, plus secondary pitch to fall back upon, things are going to get worse before they get better.
The issue: Harrison isn’t in a position to add a new pitch (or two) at this juncture of the season — at any level of baseball. That’s an offseason project. Plus, the Giants can’t afford to lose another starting pitcher from the rotation.
Folks, this is a bad situation. And, to quote the legendary Swedish garage band The Hives, I hate to say I told you so.
So Harrison is going to have to bulldog it and find ways to get outs with stuff the league has figured out until the Giants have enough starters. I don’t know if that day will come this season.