Obsessedsportsnut's Blog

The San Francisco Giants have gone 6 years without a postseason appearance. Yes, the post-Barry Bonds era has been really tough for the men in orange and black. But for the first time since 2003, the Giants have the National League West title right in their grasp.

At the beginning of September, the Giants were 4 games behind the San Diego Padres. A Padres slump combined with a strong Giants performance resulted in the Giants up by 1/2 game over the Padres with only 9 games left in the season.

It’s going to be a dog fight until the very end of the season, and its highly probable that the NL West will be decided on the very last day of the season. As it stands, the Giants have a 1/2 game lead over the Padres and a 3.5 game lead over the Colorado Rockies.

The last 9 games of the season are going to be extremely important. The Giants close with 3-game series against the Colorado, Arizona, and San Diego (who have a combined winning percentage of .501). San Diego closes with Cincinnati, Chicago Cubs, and San Francisco (.525 winning %) and Colorado closes with San Francisco, Los Angeles Dodgers, and St Louis (.521 winning %). Every game matters. However, Giants should take comfort in knowing that 1) the Padres have a 3 game series against a strong team in the Cincinnati Reds and 2) Ubaldo Jimenez, the likely CY Young winner for Colorado, wont be pitching against the Giants this weekend.

The Giants pitching. Wow. I always knew that this pitching staff of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Barry Zito, Jonathan Sanchez, Madison Bumgarner, and Todd Wellemeyer was amazing. Until I did some research, I didnt know how dominant this pitching staff was.

1) Going into the series against Colorado, they have gone 17 straight games of giving up less than 3 runs while going 11-6, a record dating back to 1920.
2) The Giants staff are 1st in the Majors in ERA (3.39), saves (52), strikeouts (1239), and opponents batting average (2.37).
3) The Giants staff are 2nd in the Majors in quality starts (91 – 6 innings of no more than 3 earned runs) and fewest earned runs (520).
4) They are currently tied for 4th for shutouts (16)

Only 7 Giants pitchers have started a game this year, which shows how consistent the pitchers have been (and how lucky they have been to avoid injury). Cain, Lincecum, Zito and Sanchez have each started 31 games, with Bumgarner and Wellemeyer sharing duty covering the 5th position. Joe Martinez got one start as well.

In the past 7 postseason-less years, the Giants have averaged 10 different starters a season, as low as 8 in 2006 and as high as 13 in 2003. Between 2003 and 2009, Giants pitching has been marred by injuries and inconsistency. Surprisingly (or not), the last time the Giants started fewer than 7 pitchers was in 2002, when they started only 6 players: Livan Hernandez, Russ Ortiz, Kirk Rueter, Ryan Jensen, Jason Schmidt, and Kurt Ainsworth (who only had 4 starts). Looking back, I vaguely remember that this was one of the most solid and consistent 5-man pitching rotations in baseball with Tim Worrell and Felix Rodriguez setting up the closer, Robb Nen. Non-coincidentally, the Giants made it to the World Series. It was also the last time they made the playoffs.

Like the 2002 Giants team, this 2010 team has been blessed with an amazing pitching staff. If the Giants are to make the playoffs and make a good run in the postseason, it’ll have to be on the strength of their starting pitching staff, cause we all know that the Giants offense is too inconsistent in providing run support for our pitchers.

Let’s go Giants!!!