In the first game of last week, the Giants scored 10 runs. That’s one more run than they allowed in all six games combined.
It was a successful week.
It was one of the better weeks of the season for the 2024 Giants, who are peaking when it matters least. They’re making you use words like “momentum” and “finishing strong” and “spoiler” and “where was this all year, you dorks?”
The Giants were eliminated. They are also finally playing like a playoff team. Such is life. Here’s the week that was, in which the Giants did the dirty work for the Yankees, Tigers, Twins and Mariners for nothing more than a little personal pride and the satisfaction of a job well done.
Encouraging signs from young pitchers
In five years, you’re going to be thinking about the 2024 Giants for some reason. There will be a word or a number or a feeling that will be associated with them. When I think about 2011, I think of Posey’s injury. When I think about 2009, I think about a waste of franchise-best pitching. When I think of 2016, I think of the bullpen. When I think of 2022, I think of some of the blandest baseball the sport can offer. You’ll have one of these shorthands for 2025. You might be tempted to boil the failures down to “they couldn’t hit.”
That isn’t the story of this season’s Giants, though. The league-average adjusted OPS is 100. The Giants’ adjusted OPS is 100. They’re a perfectly average offensive team that feels worse because of their ballpark and because the league’s offensive numbers are way down.
The Giants aren’t playing meaningful games right now because of pitching failures. Specifically, the concentrated struggles of a select few. The Giants have thrown 1,380 2/3 innings this year and allowed 625 earned runs. However, out of the 30 (!) pitchers the Giants have used this year, seven of them contributed a disproportionate amount of those runs allowed. They combined for 145 2/3 innings, 10.3 percent of the season’s total, but allowed 120 runs, 19.2 percent.
Give those six pitchers the gift of league-average run prevention, and the Giants’ season ERA goes down to 3.64, which would be tied with the Tigers and Guardians for the third-best team ERA in the baseball. The Giants’ Pythagorean winning percentage would be .586, which would put them just behind the Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies for the best record in baseball. Again, that’s if just seven pitchers — Keaton Winn, Mason Black, Spencer Howard, Kai Wei Teng, Mitch White, Daulton Jefferies and Nick Avila — were merely average instead of awful.
One of the Giants’ strengths this season was supposed to be their starting pitching depth. It did not work out that way.
This is all a long introduction to a positive development over the past week. Black and Landen Roupp pitched 10 2/3 innings and allowed exactly zero earned runs. Add in the positive contributions from Tristan Beck since he’s returned, and you can see how the Giants have a chance at that depth again next year.
Roupp, in particular, is hoping that he’ll be a name to remember next year.
“He’s been rolling.”
Bob Melvin praises Lauden Roupp’s recent focus and intensity on the mound pic.twitter.com/jH1zIwPX2Y
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) September 22, 2024
Keep your head up, London Romp. Keep your head up.
To serve youth
Marco Luciano was demoted to the minor leagues last week, and his 2024 season is likely over. While I simply would have used the remainder of a lost season to get him experience in the majors, it’s only fair to list all of the reasons why it makes sense that he was demoted with a week left in the season:
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Makes you think.
At least all of this will make the Heliot-ian All-Star appearance in 2026 that much more special for Luciano. Always look on the bright side, folks.
On the Baltimore Orioles, your new American League team
Some of you are A’s fans and Giants fans. You’re the sickos responsible for the split hats. Well, guess what? I grew up like that, too. Which means that if I weren’t a professional journalist, I’d have to look for a new AL team. Because it’s not like I’d follow the A’s to Las Vegas. Well, I’d follow them there if I had the chance to push John Fisher into the fountains in front of the Bellagio for charity. But my AL loyalties would be up for grabs.
The Giants playing in Baltimore was a great showcase for why the Orioles should be your AL team:
• Orange-and-black color scheme
• A beautiful ballpark with the potential for something super cool when a homer is crushed to right field
• A shared fondness for Jon Miller
• Bizarre field dimensions that turn home runs into doubles, triples or outs
That last one bothers me a little, though. I wasn’t a huge fan of Camden Yards when it was a launching pad to left field, but they went way too far. Not only did they push left field back 600 feet, but they made the wall absurdly tall, too.
What is this hot nonsense?
Giants fans aren’t allowed to complain about it, though, as they follow the franchise that created Triples Alley specifically to annoy the baseball world. Still, I have a modest proposal for the new Orioles owner that comes with the approval of the official rulebook.
Rule 2.01 – Layout of the Field — gives us the rules for park dimensions.
The distance from home base to the nearest fence, stand or other obstruction on fair territory shall be 250 feet or more.
Makes sense. And there’s nothing about the height of the outfield fence. That’s important because it means this would be allowed:
The fence jutting out from left field would be 10 inches tall and the middle of it would be 18 inches wide. It would be easy for a child to jump over, much less a professional athlete. It would be just one li’l hurdle for a left fielder sprinting in the opposite direction.
And if it lands in there? Home run, of course. Heck, fill it with water and call it a splash hit, although 18 inches is kind of like an airplane seat, so they could probably fit some seats in there and charge a bundle. There wouldn’t be a lot of balls hit for a home run, but there would be a few, some of them just line drives.
The benefits are obvious: More fielders falling down, a great chance of tomfoolery and silliness, extra excitement on a pitch hit to left. The benefits of a pit anywhere on a baseball field have been discussed at length, but this would help take the sting out of the new, unfortunate dimensions at Oriole Park.
I don’t know David Rubenstein personally, but if one of you could print this out and leave it on his desk, I’d appreciate it.
Home run of the week
I’m a sucker for a lot of things. Pure left-handed swings. Long home runs, especially when there’s a neat, old structure behind it. Leadoff home runs. This baby had it all. Mike Yastrzemski threw up the cape, and it was worthy of Will Clark.
I usually don’t post the runners-up, but I’ll make an exception for this week.
This is worth your time because of the announcer’s reaction, of course, but also because MLB.com estimates that it would have been a home run in 29 out of 30 MLB ballparks. The only one where it wouldn’t be a home run? Oracle Park.
So, I have a modest proposal for the Giants ownership group that comes with the approval of the official rulebook …
(Top photo of Ryan Walker: Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
