The Giants’ inconsistent offense leaves the team little room for error originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
Even after a 6-4 defeat to the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday at Great American Ball Park, the most optimistic Giants fans will still say there’s still time for the Orange and Black to come together and make the MLB playoffs.
They also have some evidence to support these positive thoughts.
With 50 games remaining in the regular season, the Giants have a 55-57 record that leaves them well behind the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers. And while it would take a miracle to make San Francisco a contender in the division, the wild card remains a viable option.
There’s also a good chance the Giants will make up ground in the coming weeks.
Among the teams on San Francisco’s schedule for next month are the Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins. All five are sub-.500 teams and are series that the Giants can and should win.
San Francisco will also face heavyweights like the Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves, not to mention division rivals like the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres, both ahead of the Giants in the NL West.
So while the task ahead is indeed an uphill climb, history suggests it is not impossible.
At this stage of the 2012 season, the Giants were 61-51, six games better than their current record. Still, San Francisco caught fire, made a great run down the stretch and won the World Series.
Similarly, in 2014, the Giants also had a 61-51 record in 112 games before advancing to capture their third World Series championship in five years.
These championship teams were anchored by a dominant pitching staff surrounded by a level of quality and consistent offense.
This year’s Giants team is also anchored by a dominant pitching staff, so good that president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi called it the best rotation in baseball.
As shown on Saturday, however, the 2024 Giants don’t necessarily have the right type of offense, leaving San Francisco with little to no margin for error when the pitch fails.
Following two complete and absolutely dynamic game endings ace Logan Webb and reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell (who presented his first career no-hitter Friday), Kyle Harrison took the mound at Great American Ball Park looking to keep up the long stretch of strong pitching, but couldn’t get past four innings.
The Reds hit four home runs off Harrison, who is still the franchise’s best pitcher despite an up-and-down season.
While Cincinnati hitters jumped on basically everything Harrison threw, San Francisco’s own hitters were silenced by Reds starter Hunter Greene.
Greene owned the Giants the entire time he was on the mound, and it wasn’t until his night ended after six innings that San Francisco was able to generate much at the plate.
Michael Conforto, Jerar Encarnación and Matt Chapman scored in the last three innings. At this point, it was too little, too late.
As long as San Francisco’s pitching is correct, the offense doesn’t need to produce much to get the win.
That’s one of the main reasons Zaidi didn’t want to trade any of his starters before the trade deadline. They can be so good.
When the pitching isn’t there, as was the case on Saturday, the offense has to be able to compensate.
For the Giants to be taken seriously as potential playoff contenders, they simply need to get a lot more out of their offense.
So while Zaidi perhaps did the right thing by holding back key starting pitchers, it now appears that his inability to add a big bat to the lineup was a big problem.
