By Brian Murphy
All right, all right. No more on-air morning rants for the KNBR social media guys to clip and post. Darn you, click-bait social team!
Ha. Of course the Jock Blog stands by Friday morning’s vent session. The daily-double loser of twin walk-offs in the City of Brotherly Despair last Thursday felt like season-defining stuff: a flawed roster in the hands of an inexperienced coaching staff. Nice mix. Next thing you know, Hector Borg is not only holding Drew Gilbert at third, but also giving off the “it’s cool, we’re good” body language as Gilbert is about to die an existential death at third base in the 10th inning of the nightcap nightmare.
Wait. Time to turn the page. I swear.
Today’s Jock Blog, then: IF we are not going to give up on a season May 4; IF we are going to be professional grinders about this and keep chopping wood; IF we are going to take inspiration from Rudyard Kipling’s “If” and keep our head when all others about us are losing theirs . . . how the heck can the Giants get out of this?
Is there a path back to .500 by the All-Star Break? Is there a scenario where September 1 rolls around and the Giants are within three games of a wild card? In other words: is this thing even salvageable, and if so, how can it be saved?
Geez. Now that we type out the words, it sounds daunting.
We don’t ask for much. 84 wins may do the trick. The Giants are 13-21. That means 128 games left.
To get to 84 wins, the Giants would have to go — let’s see . . . carry the ‘3’ . . . sweep the Rockies at home in July . . . do the math . . . — oh boy: go 71-57 in the last 128.
Gulp.
Does this look like a team that can play .554 ball from here until the end of September? Don’t answer that.
OK, back to our guy Kipling: IF you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run . . . IF you can get Rafael Devers and Willy Adames to post an OPS number north of .600 . . . IF the queen had testicles, she’d be king . . .
You get the drift.
Real talk, now. The season isn’t over. Is there a path to 71-57 in the final 128, and if so, where does it start?
Well, the Giants told you Monday morning it starts with a couple of Triple-A Sacramento RiverCats named Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez. The league’s worst offense got two new bats for tonight’s series opener against the Padres, and at the rate this dreary, desultory, mind-numbing offense has gone, almost *any* contribution from Eldridge and Rodriguez increases the Giants’ chances of winning a game.
It starts with Adames and Devers posting something north of a career-disaster season, yes. Can two highly-paid superstars fall off of a baseball cliff, simultaneously, like a pair of Wile E. Coyotes who look down and see no ground beneath their feet? Both gentlemen can start by taking the occasional day off, for one. And for two, both gentlemen can start the road back by grinding at-bats in a much more methodical manner, and bringing back that ancient thing called a base on balls.
It starts with the Giants going away from Ryan Walker in late and close situations. If Walker did his job either time the Giants asked him to on this road trip, a brutal 13-21 record would be a less-brutal 15-19 record. So no, don’t pitch Walker in these tight scenarios. Who do you pitch? Keaton Winn and Caleb Killian get their chances to shine. And perhaps, in Buster Posey and Zack Minasian’s fantasy script, the team gets help from off-season signings Sam Hentges and Jason Foley, both on the road back from injury.
And it starts with something the analytics crowd loves so very much: grit and determination. New manager Tony Vitello is being tested by the baseball gods, so much so that he’s dealing with umpires putting him on blast in St. Petersburg, Fla. about the relative merits of his MLB experience and that of his pitching coach, Frank Anderson. When the bully comes at you — is it fight or flight, Tony V?
All the sports memes and posters and inspirational speakers tell us we aren’t defined by how we handle success. We are supposed to soar when we handle adversity. Or, as that sabermetrician Kipling said: If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters the same . . .
The Giants know from Disaster. Is it too late to seek Triumph?
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