The Giants get their 81st win and thus avoid a losing season. It's not a winning season, of course. But it's not a losing season, either! That's something at least.
Willy Adames gave the home crowd a thrill with a leadoff homer. Nice move by BoMel to put him in the first slot. The home run was his 30th and that breaks the infamous team-wide 30-homer drought. Barry Bonds hit 45 in 2004 and that's the last time a Giants player has cracked the 30 mark. Brandon Belt had 29 in 97 games in 2021. Matt Chapman had 27 last year.
Logan Webb started but was pulled after 5-1/3 innings. The team hung on to complete the shutout and Webb got his 15th win for the season. That matches his career high from 2022. Webb finishes with 207 IP, the most in MLB (Garret Crochet had 205-1/3). He also has the most starts (34) and is tied with Crochet and Christopher Sánchez for the most Quality Starts (22). He struck out a career-high 224 which trails only Crochet (255) and Tarik Skubal (241) for the MLB lead (it's the most in the NL).
Spencer Bivens earned the save with two hitless innings. He gave up a walk in the 8th but struck out the side in the 9th. He entered with a 2-0 lead and the Giants got two more in the 9th. That's two saves this weekend for Bivens and 53 appearances (79 IP) overall. He's got some gnarly-looking stuff and it looks like he'll be in the mix for a high-leverage role in 2026.
Here are the Giants W-L records for the last four seasons (since they won 107 and the West in 2021): 81-81 in 2022, 79-83 in 2023, 80-82 last year, and 81-81 this year. I think that is the very definition of "mediocrity." At least they aren't the Rockies! Anyway, it would be nice to see this group win some games next season. There's enough talent to compete with teams like the Reds, the Mets, the Cardinals, and the Diamondbacks. The five-way scrum for the final Wild Card ended up with the Giants on the bottom! They were a better team than that and should have finished strong with a real shot at the post-season.
There will be plenty to talk about in the off-season, of course. We'll get around to it, I'm sure. In the meantime I will root for Milwaukee to go all the way. How can you not root for a club called the BREWERS? If not them then someone like Cleveland or Seattle.
Thanks for reading along,
--M.C.
3 comments:
Melvin on the hot seat?
I am not sure if Melvin is on the hot seat but he should be. Teams that are less than 10 games out of the playoffs at the trade deadline have a decent chance to make the playoffs if they have a strong August and Seotember. Losing Miller, Rodriguez and Waites to injury and getting rid of doval and rogers didn't help this year. By having many less bullpen games this year I expected about 5 or 6 more wins than last year but it did not co.e to fruition.I red an article in the SF paper suggesting trading Ramos, .atos and Schmidt. Unless they get something game changing back it seems like a bad Idea. I would really like to see .atos get a real shot. Although this team looks like it had pieces for a good platoon team, it seems as if the fans, and players are against it. We also have encarnacion, McCray, Gilbert. Do we sign Dom Smith and or Wilmer? Posey wi have an interesting off season. We need a solid rotation piece. We also need a bullpen upgrade.
That was a piece on MLBTR. I'm OK with Melvin, but you have to figure there's some heat on him. Next year is a make or break--they dumped Kapler after two .500 seasons.
Yeah they need another starter for sure. And the bullpen was a mess at the end. I'd like to see Schmitt at 2B and Matos and/or Gilbert in the OF. They need one or two of the young players to step up.
Wilmer will be gone next year. There are only six players under contract: Devers, Chap, Adames, Webb, Lee, and Ray. That's a lot of room to work with. They should be able to sign the guys they'll need.
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