Your 2025 San Francisco Giants simply hate losing series. That’s a quality you want your favorite baseball team to have. The Giants have played 12 series so far in six weeks of play, they’ve only dropped three. Two sweeps, five series wins, one split four game set, and three losses.
For the first time since 2022, the Giants are 10 games above .500. That’s the resounding good news. The not so good is that 10 games over .500 in the 2025 National league West is worth a handful of pennies. The Giants’ 24-14 mark is good for… Third place in the vaunted division. It’s close at the top, and it’s still early May, but it’s fair to say that the Giants will need to keep winning at a clip similar or better than this one in order to keep pace with the Dodgers and Padres. The Diamondbacks have treaded water around .500, but are more than formidable as well. Aside from the punching bag that is the Colorado Rockies, there’s no reprieve in the NL West.
If it’s going to be anything like the four month sprint that was 2021, Giants fans need to buckle up.
There’s a very sound argument to be made that Robbie Ray has been the Giants’ best pitcher to this point. The Giants just win when he’s on the mound. I’ll invoke Herm Edwards, even though he played an instrumental role in ripping apart the football program at my beloved Alma Mater Arizona State. Edwards once said as coach of the Jets, “You play to win the game!” Robbie Ray has exemplified that simple moniker through his first eight starts.
He’s compiled a 2.84 ERA in 44 innings, going 5-0 with the Giants pulling out late inning wins in his three no decisions. Ray has struck out 46, good for an excellent K/9 just over one.
He’s been especially hot of late.
The closer situation has been an unwelcome point of discussion for Melvin and the Giants this season. In 2024, Ryan Walker firmly won the role and came into 2025 poised to hold it for a team that figured to win its fair share of close games. Things haven’t gone quite as planned. Walker blew his third save of the young season at Wrigley Field in game two of the Cubs’ series on Tuesday night. The Giants were able to pick up their closer with a gargantuan nine run 11th to secure the win, but the bad taste of another blown save lingered.
Bob Melvin, the ultimate old school skipper, maintained the utmost trust in Walker the next afternoon. He gave him another shot to protect another two run lead. This time, Walker shook off a leadoff single by inducing a 6-4-3 double play and then a game ending ground out. Still, the struggles beg the question of when or if Camilo Doval were to re-assume the closer role he lost to Walker in 2024. Murph & Markus discussed the conundrum on the morning show Thursday morning.
All in all, every fan would have taken 24-14 through the season’s first 38 games if offered that during Spring Training. It’s more than good enough for Buster Posey’s first month and change in office. But good enough won’t nearly be good enough in the NL West or even National League as a whole this season. Onward to Minnesota, for a three game set with a Twins team the Giants should feel like they need to take two out of three from, and maybe sweep while they’re at it.