Good teams lose dozens of games a year, you know
But bless Giants Twitter for melting down every time anyway
I Just Can’t Stop Thinking About This Alex Pavlovic Tweet:
So far this year, the Giants have had one horrific stretch where they lost 4 games in a row, one absolute disaster where they lost 3 in a row, and 8 mini-apocalypses in which they lost 2 in a row. Obviously, Giants fans are worried that the team might have another stretch like that, where they expose themselves as the frauds they are.
I mean, sure, they’ve had the best record in baseball for months and have won 36 more games than they’ve lost, but what’s that matter? The sky might fall! And if the sky might fall, the sky will fall, and therefore it’s time to start acting like the sky is currently falling.
So when Pavlovic mentioned that a reporter called a two-game skid a “losing streak” and that Gabe Kapler rightfully blanched at that, well, it sounded familiar. Even some of the professionals can’t help expecting the other shoe to drop. Some of the other professionals are getting a little tired of all this negativity.
It’s all over Twitter, if you’re on during a Giants game. The team is doomed. They’re going to lose today’s game, and tomorrow’s game, and MLB will rule that they also lost yesterday’s game, even though there wasn’t a game yesterday. The Dodgers are inevitable. Third place at best. This team with a staggeringly powerful offense that routinely comes back from late inning deficits will be absolutely hopeless against today’s late inning deficit.
The Giants are good, which is nice. They are a significantly above average baseball team, and in terms of winning percentage, they’re having their best season since winning 103 games in 1993. It’s entirely possible that they’ll slip out of first, sure — the Dodgers are also extremely good at baseball — but there’s no reason to think that they’ll collapse or that this has all been a mirage. Every piece of evidence supports the Giants being one of the elite teams in Major League Baseball.
So why all the negativity? Why the absolute inability to have any faith in this team? Haven’t they spent the first five months of the year earning that trust? How many good teams do they have to beat before playing the next one isn’t a prescription for doom? Do Giants fans not remember that good teams also lose games sometimes? What is going on here?
At least some of this can be chalked up to habit. Before 2020, the Giants had been bad for three years, and just about the worst team in baseball in the second half of 2016 to boot. There is a good amount of pessimism that was earned honestly, through paying attention to teams that did not deserve your attention (Man, was I right about that 2016 squad). And then, in 2020, when all they had to do was win one game out of their last three against the Padres to make the fake playoffs, Sam Coonrod gave up a walk-off homer at home on Friday night and the Giants didn’t take a lead again that season.
So Giants fans have been burned before, repeatedly and in exactly the same place that they’re trying to avoid the fire this time. That’s not all of it, though; I think that negativity seems like it protects you from disappointment. I think it lures you in by promising to soothe the pain by expecting it. I also think that doesn’t work, that it’s just as bad to lose a game you’re expecting to lose as one you aren’t, and you don’t get to feel good during the middle of the game. But that’s a personal decision, between a person and their Twitter followers.
And then there’s the incontrovertible fact that the best years to be a Giants fan have already happened. I’m in no way saying that the team will collapse soon, or that this year’s success is sure to be short-lived, but please realize: The Giants will not win 3 World Series in 5 years again. When they did it, they were the first NL team to pull it off since the Cardinals in the ‘40s. The We Are Family Pirates never did, and neither did the Big Red Machine or the great Dodgers teams of the ‘60s. The burgeoning Cubs dynasty from 2016 never arrived, and the Braves of the ‘90s were only dominant in the regular season, and so on and so on.
It won’t happen again. It was phenomenally unlikely to happen the first time, and it took a tremendous amount of skill to build the teams, but also a ton of luck. That luck won’t be repeated. I think, in the back of our minds, most Giants fans know that. We know that even when the baseball is really good, it won’t be that good again, so the pessimism is a natural reaction. It makes sense.
But here’s the thing: watching those teams was worse than watching this team. The 2010 Giants were infuriating, which is why Kuip coined the phrase “Giants baseball: Torture.” The 2012 Giants were the first ones who were supposed to be defeated by a Dodgers superteam. They got Adrian Gonzalez in August! And Josh Beckett! And they already had a dominant rotation that included Clayton Kershaw AND Chad Billingsley AND Aaron Harang! The Giants were doomed!
And, of course, the 2014 Giants spent 2 whole months being the worst team in the majors. Didn’t like that then, didn’t like it when they tried it again in 2016. Bad idea, guys.
It’s important to remember to enjoy this team while they’re playing this well, because this is as good as it gets during the regular season. I’m going to repeat that: this is it. The ultimate. This is as good as you can feel about a baseball team’s talent level in August. Right here. If you want to bring up the ‘98 Yankees or the ‘01 Mariners, this team is already a once-in-a-generation outlier among Giants teams. Those teams were like 71-sigma outliers, which you can never expect to see, under any cirumstances.
I don’t know how the season will end. I don’t know who will win the NL West, or how that big showdown with the Dodgers next week will go, or how the million showdowns with the Padres in September will go. But right now, we’re in the middle of the good times. Even if your reflexive cynicism is comforting you, please, understand that. This is as good as baseball gets in August. Try to enjoy it.