The All-Star break is a great time to take a step back and reevaluate where the San Francisco Giants stand in the race for the playoffs.
While San Francisco is sitting just below .500 and are just three games back from a Wild Card spot, do they actually look like a legitimate contender to win it all? Most people would likely say no.
A social media account, BrooksGate, shared a graphic the current Top-10 rankings across different major statistical categories, something stood out. The Giants are one of the few teams that aren’t shown once, meaning they have not excelled at any one giving thing so far through this campaign.
The stats covered were ones largely considered crucial to success: batting average, OPS, OPS with RISP, home runs, starter ERA, bullpen ERA, batting average against and outs above average.
If a team is not among the top half of the league in any of those statistics, it usually points to some underwhelming performance on the field. The only other squads to not be shown were the Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals, Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins.
Tampa Bay is the only team on that list that has a better record than San Francisco, but even they look unlike to crack the playoffs in the American League.
In terms of offense and defense, the Giants players have fairly average this season. While they aren’t in the top-10 of any of those categories, they also aren’t in the bottom half. The same goes for runs scored, which was not shown on the graphic.
The problems comes when the team is struggling and doesn’t have one thing that they excel at to lean on.
It’s made even worse by the fact that the pitching has been far below average.
Not only are they not in the top-10 for anything mentioned, they are in the bottom-10 or bottom-five for every major pitching category outside of strikeouts.
To be fair to the staff, they’ve battled through a ton of injuries that have caused some players to be rushed into the majors. Not everyone that has pitched has been fully ready.
The spotlight has been on Blake Snell, and rightfully so, but he hasn’t been the only issue. Keaton Winn, when healthy, imploded after a couple of solid starts. Camilo Doval has started to show some concerning signs out of the bullpen.
Maybe when Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray show up –as they haven’t made an appearance yet — things will start to look better. For now, though, the pitching must improve for things to finally fall into place for the Giants.
