If there were ever a game to reset your expectations for the 2023 Giants, Wednesday’s game was it. It’s been a confusing, messy season for the Giants, with losing streaks and winning streaks, reasons to believe and reasons to panic. In the series finale against the Nationals, they weren’t going to have the chance to convince you they were a title contender. But they would have the chance to convince you they were, c’mon, at least better than the Nationals.
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The Giants are 16-20. They’ve been outscored by 23 runs this season. The Nationals are 16-21. They’ve been outscored by 21 runs this season. It is absolutely not clear that one team is better than the other. The Nationals just blew out the Giants and won a rubber match 11-6 Wednesday. The Nationals are a franchise that held an estate sale two seasons ago, and they have a roster that gives off extreme expansion-team vibes. The Giants are spending money and scrambling to get back to their division-winning heights from two seasons ago. But it’s not clear that one team is necessarily better than the other.
It’s always risky to pay too much attention to a single series, much less a single game, but describing this series as sobering feels like an understatement. If there was hope after taking series from Montezuma, the Astros and the Brewers over the span of a week, a feckless series loss to the Nationals at home was the best (read: worst) way to squash it.
While it’s also risky to offer simple diagnoses of what’s wrong, the Giants are doing their best to convince you that it’s not complicated. In 60 percent of their games this season, the Giants have been an imperfect yet dangerous contender. In 30 percent of the games, they haven’t been very competitive at all. The missing 10 percent will come up later.
That’s because in 60 percent of their games, give or take, they’re starting one of Logan Webb, Alex Cobb or Anthony DeSclafani. The trio has combined for 22 starts and a 2.83 ERA. The Giants are 11-11 in those starts, which is where the “imperfect” comes from in the description up there. The three starters have been excellent, for the most part, but the Giants aren’t doing enough behind them to be dominant. There can be bullpen weirdness that fouls things up, or the bats just might take the night off. Still, when Webb, Cobb or DeSclafani starts, the Giants have a chance to win.
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In just under 30 percent of their games so far, the Giants are starting Ross Stripling or Sean Manaea. These two have combined for 10 starts, 15 appearances and a 7.51 ERA. The Giants are 2-8 in their starts. The top five starters in last year’s rotation allowed 62 home runs in 762 2/3 innings. Stripling and Manaea have allowed 15 homers in 51 2/3 innings. They’re a quarter of the way to last year’s total from last year’s top five starters in just under 7 percent of the innings.
In these games, there is no bullpen weirdness or cold lineup to blame. There’s an early, dinger-and-walk-fueled deficit that’s impossible to overcome, and those types of games aren’t usually filled with nuance. You can call out Blake Sabol for making a silly base-running play to give away an out in the bottom of the sixth inning, and you can wonder if Cole Waites is going to be an answer to any of the bullpen questions this season, but those are footnotes and tidbits buried in the 17th paragraph of the Wikipedia entry on Wednesday’s game. The first 16 paragraphs are “maybe don’t walk so many batters, then allow a lot of hard contact after you walk them” written in different fonts and languages. All three batters Manaea walked in the series finale scored. Not ideal.
Because I’m an opinion columnist cosplaying as a beat writer for a day, it’s impossible not to give my opinion on these two shakiest pitchers in the rotation. They’re probably fine.
They’re possibly fine.
Manaea’s walk rate and home run rate have nearly doubled from his career averages, even though there’s no downtick in stuff. Stripling’s home run rate has exactly doubled from his career average. They’re both having serious problems with command, and they’re both leading the league in Pitches We Want Back, but I’ll still be the annoying Pollyanna here. Liked both pitchers in the offseason, still optimistic that their problems are fixable instead of disqualifying. The problems are probably mechanical and tactical rather than physical.
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Probably.
Possibly.
This leads us to the remaining 10 percent up there, which are starts that have been taken by Alex Wood (along with one bullpen game). The Giants are 3-1 in those starts, and Wood is on a rehab assignment in Sacramento. He’ll be back soon, and he’s not the only option for the Giants for the rest of the season, as Kyle Harrison is resuming his career as a bat-misser extraordinaire, and he’d probably love to get away from the robot umps in the Pacific Coast League. Keaton Winn is already on the 40-man roster, and he just had a brilliant start in Las Vegas. His BB/9 is just 4.3 in Sacramento, which deserves a medal, so it’s not wild to think the Giants aren’t boxed in here.
I’m not sure what the answer is. You can’t just plug a starter into a long-relief role and assume the tweaks and fixes will translate back into the rotation. Stripling has done the yo-yo role before, but Manaea hasn’t.
One thing I’m sure about is the contract status should not be a consideration. If the Giants had a magic button that could have gotten them out of DeSclafani’s contract last year, they might have mashed it like they were trying to question a “Jeopardy!” answer. Except it turns out DeSclafani is more talented than most starting pitchers, and he has something to offer when he’s right and healthy, and he’s helping the Giants now. Stripling and/or Manaea have a history of being good at throwing baseballs, and maybe there’s a way for them to reclaim that and help the Giants in the future. Focus on the now and hope that the future works out.
Because if they don’t, those 30 percent of their starts could combine with all of the Giants’ other issues to dig a hole they can’t climb out of. A substantial problem for the Giants this year is they haven’t been healthy enough to offer their full Lefty-Destroying Lineup.
Well, about that.
Austin Slater was removed from the game after appearing to injure himself on this play pic.twitter.com/VZvEBYGdDg
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 10, 2023
Austin Slater is a major part of the Giants’ plans, and if he’s sidelined (along with Mike Yastrzemski) for an extended period of time, it is a miserable outcome for a team that doesn’t need additional problems.
At best, the Giants are a flawed contender. At worst, they’re a team that can drop a home series to the Nationals, including a rubber match in which the home team scores six runs. The Giants were 119-34 in games at Oracle Park in which they scored exactly six runs. Now they’re 119-35.
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There are issues to address with this team, but the biggest one is to figure out why two games out of every five, they’re chasing other teams from behind, even if those teams are jetlagged, young and rebuilding. The depth was never in question, but the question now is when it’s time to tap into it. Probably not yet. Possibly not yet.
Casey Schmitt has given the Giants a charge in his two games, with line drives all over the field. The next wave of happy-fun times for the Giants probably includes younger players getting a chance.
It’s still an open question what the 2023 season will be remembered for, but “younger players getting a chance” is rising up the charts. It turns out that sourcing a team from free agents is impossibly difficult and erratic. The answer might be calling from inside the house.
(Photo of Casey Schmitt: D. Ross Cameron / USA Today)