Man. Buster Posey said he wanted the Giants to be in the “memory-making business”, but did he know he’d be in the “Jock Blog-making business” as well?
By my count, this will be my *fifth* consecutive Giants-themed JB, which has to be a record for one team since at least the days we used to glaze the Jimmy Garoppolo era.
The Jock Blogs have spanned the gamut of Giants emotions. On May 29, we wondered how Buster would react to the first losing stretch of his executive career. On June 5, we reacted to Buster’s big move of designating LaMonte Wade, Jr. for assignment and jolting the team to a seven-game win streak with Dom Smith at first. On June 12, we wrote about going to Dodger Stadium looking for some smoke. And then —boom! — on June 20 we marveled at Buster pulling off the big one, trading for All-Star slugger Rafael Devers.
So in one month, we went from consternation to action to wins to Dodgers showdowns to bold, brassy moves.
Which brings us to . . . confusion.
As in: How can Buster Posey orchestrate a monster trade that jolted everything, landed an impact bat at a relatively low cost … and then watch the Giants go 3-6 in a nine-game homestead against the Guardians, Red Sox and (gulp) the MARLINS??
No getting around it. That was a brutal welcome to the Devers Era.
In reality, 6-3 would be about the minimum you’d want with the Devers add and the favorable home schedule. Losing six of nine is simply unacceptable, and leads to many questions: How? Why? What the . . . ?
We can list them all, many tried and true: It’s baseball. (check) It’s a marathon, not a sprint. (check) You’re going to have stretches like this (check).
More to the point: the Giants pitching, and in particular the bullpen, did not perform to their elite MLB stat line. Hitting remained furiously quiet, including Devers — until his breakout game in Thursday’s loss. And the cumulative effect of missing Matt Chapman’s daily presence likely began to add up.
I have to believe that the 3-6 stretch with Devers was the outlier, not the norm. As constituted before the Devers trade, I had the Giants as an 85-86 win team, likely to stay in the hunt through September and entertain us all.
But adding Devers? Gosh, that was arrow up all the way. An offense desperately missing a presence suddenly got a presence, and you had to immediately think the Giants could win 90 games and secure an October reservation.
This unexpected skid coinciding with Devers’ arrival leaves the Giants at 44-37. Eighty-one down, eighty-one to go. If you want to do the easy math, you go 44-37 again and you win 88 games. Teams like — oh I don’t know —the *2014 World Series champion Giants* won 88 games.
Digression: Oddly enough, the 1978 Giants of Mike Ivie pinch-hit grand slam fame won 89 games. In the cruel days of pre-wild card, all they got for logging more wins than an eventual WS champ was a pat on the back and a day pass to Marine World Africa, USA. Life is all about timing.
Back to the current situation.
The past month has been a whirlwind of lows (late May) to highs (trading for Devers) and now another low (swept by the Marlins). I’d try to venture a guess that playing three at the lowly Chicago White Sox is a chance to build positive momentum, but try telling that to Agustin Ramirez, Kyle Stowers and Heriberto Hernandez, who were last seen laughing hysterically on their way to SFO, brooms in hand.
Either way, Buster Posey is creating memories. Some of them are infuriating, but they are memories nonetheless. Hey, any buzz is better than no buzz, right?