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The Giants have sent their message on the field. In beating the Padres on Saturday, they improved to 20-13, which was tied for the best mark in baseball. They have turned an Oracle Park that crushed them mentally in years past into a legitimate advantage, now 12-3 at home this season. They have done damage to one divisional monster, going 5-3 against the Padres before Sunday’s series finale, and have another lurking in Los Angeles.
Both are craning their necks up at the Giants in the standings, where San Francisco holds a 2.5-game edge over both before the Dodgers’ Saturday game.
After Kevin Gausman and the Brandons starred, it was Brandon Belt who verbalized the message.
“I think people are realizing that we got a pretty good ballclub,” Belt said of a ballclub that is/was not supposed to contend for the playoffs, “and we’re here to stay.”
The latter might have been inferred to be a threat to Giants fans in past years. Belt, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey have been here to stay — and Evan Longoria, too — even as their bats declined, even as injuries reminded of their age as much as their results did. For years, 2021 has been viewed as the last year Farhan Zaidi would be hamstrung by the long-term deals that predated him. Trevor Story, Carlos Correa & Co. would be available, and the Giants could find a first baseman who would hit 20 home runs.
Here is when the caveats arrive. It is May 8; just 22 percent of the schedule is chewed up; the Giants have yet to play the Dodgers, who are a superpower; the Giants have the oldest set of position players in baseball, and the injuries have shined through (but not claimed Belt, Crawford and Longoria for lengthy stays yet).
But the Giants keep winning, and in ways both similar and different to how they have traditionally won with this core. Plenty of the names are the same, but the production is stunning.
The 34-year-old Posey has eight home runs in 21 games. He had 12 in 219 games in 2018-19. His OPS is 1.231, nearly double (.688) his 2019 mark.
Crawford and Belt are one homer behind. Belt has never hit 20; Crawford has only gone above 14 once.
In Crawford’s case, he was beginning to lose some at-bats as recently as a week ago. He was struggling, and the Giants picked up Mike Tauchman’s lefty bat that they could play in center field against righties, which would allow them to play Mauricio Dubon at shortstop against southpaws. In five games since returning from a bruised calf, Crawford has stepped to the plate 16 times and made five outs.
He’s doing some of everything and a lot of Giants-approved walking (with six). There are also three home runs and seven RBIs.
“I tried to just simplify my swing even more, and it’s led to a little simpler swing,” Crawford said about what has changed since the calendar flipped to May. “I feel like I have a little more direct path to the ball right now. So whatever’s thrown, I feel like I have a chance to hit it and I’m able to kind of just look over the middle and react to pitches right now, and I don’t feel like I have to cheat on anything.”
Neither does Belt, who dealt with offseason heel surgery, then contracted the coronavirus, then was infected with mono. The season started probably a bit earlier than he would have wanted, and he was hitting .125 after eight games. It’s been a steady climb since, and after he wasn’t retired in four plate appearances Saturday, his OPS is up to .858.
Prior to his big shortened season last year, the only time he had bested that OPS was in 2016, when he was an All-Star and posted an .868 mark.
“I think we had a few years in there where pretty much all of us were not healthy,” Belt said of himself, Posey and Crawford. “So I think just being healthy again and having everybody back in the lineup and just having a lot of good hitters around us — we got a lineup just full of really good hitters, so I think that helps.
“…It’s fun to see Buster get back up there and look like his 2012 self again — maybe even better. We’re just having a lot of fun right now playing baseball with each other.”
The veteran-led lineup has begun to come around, and a mustachioed Austin Slater has joined the fun. Donovan Solano is still on the mend, which Gabe Kapler reminded after the win, and Tommy La Stella will be out for weeks. But the bench is deeper than it was a few days ago, and Darin Ruf and Slater emerged from the dugout with quality plate appearances Saturday.
The rotation has been one of the best in baseball thus far, which Gausman emphasized while lowering his ERA to 1.97 in neutralizing the Padres lineup for a third time already this season.
The bullpen has been a consistent issue, but one that seems to be clarifying; Tyler Rogers’ arm is rubber, Camilo Doval’s electric, Caleb Baragar’s dependable, Jake McGee’s excellent when right. And perhaps Zack Littell, with a 0.00 ERA in five games, is claiming a job.
There are a lot of reasons to believe the Giants are not pretenders; that the Giants are here to stay. One of which is the Giants are now saying so.
