Yesterday, the Giants’ 10-game road winning streak ended in a dud of a game, with Logan Webb giving up 5 runs in the first inning and the Giants never really seeming like they were in the game after that. The game itself wasn’t really notable — hey, sometimes a guy has a bad inning — but the streak that it ended was. It was the first time since 1952 — 1952! 71 years! — that the Giants had won 10 consecutive road games.
It also didn’t really feel like anything.
The Giants also recently had a regular 10-game winning streak, during which, as you may recall, they won 10 straight games. That was exciting and fun and tense, and while it didn’t get any media attention because the Reds were busy winning 11 straight games, it was impossible to watch a game without getting kinda into it. They’re on a roll! Can they come back again! Gotta keep the streak going!
The road winning streak, meanwhile, was an afterthought. On Tuesday, the Giants came in having won 9 road games in a row and it was barely mentioned. Yesterday, because someone had found the 1952 nugget, it started to pop up here and there, but as a novelty. It wasn’t a serious thing, and we all understand why.
But do we really? The Giants have had another regular 10-game winning streak this century, back in 2004. They had 11-gamers in 1998 and 1991, more 10-gamers in 1982 and 1962, and a 14-game streak in 1965, and a 15-game streak that spanned the end of the 2002 regular season and the beginning of 2003. It’s certainly not common to see one, but it has happened multiple times during my lifetime.
This road streak has not happened before in my lifetime, or my dad’s lifetime, and yet it’s not as big a deal. I’ll put it like this: the Giants snapped the 10-game streak a week ago against the Padres. I turned on the radio very late in that game to hear Dave Flemming say, “If the Giants want to keep that win streak going, they have a lot of work to do. It’s a 10-0 game.” No one said that yesterday. It was universally agreed to just not matter all that much, not actually be notable.
Because there are baseball stats that are important and there are ones that are just information. There’s a whole Cespedes Family BBQ Twitter thread that’s nothing but arbitrary stats, all of which are delightful and none of which matter. (For example, the only players with both a cycle and a 5 hit game in a 10 day span are George Sisler in 1921, Max Carey in 1925, and Cedric Mullens in 2023. Meaningless! Outstanding!)
The 10-game road winning streak is just information. It is more impressive than a regular 10-game streak, if only because winning on the road is harder than winning at home. But it doesn’t feel as important. The streak was broken up twice, first during the brief 3-game homestand after the Giants swept the Rockies, and then with the 7-game homestand against the Padres and Diamondbacks. There was no momentum to build, no emotional attachment to form. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened.
To me, that makes it similar to a bullpen game. A normal baseball game with a normal starting pitcher has a story arc that’s compelling and easy to follow. A guy throws a ball, he gets into trouble, if he gets out of it it’s because he’s resilient, if he doesn’t get out of it it’s because he’s mentally weak, then the offense has to pick him up or they’re bad teammates, then the bullpen has to shut the opposing offense or else they’re not picking up their starter.
To crib from every screenwriting book, it works because the stakes are personal. A guy on your team will either be happy or sad, and conversely, the guys on the other team will either be sad or happy. We have a main character, and commonly understood relationships between him and the side characters, and the drama works.
But then you get started on a bullpen game, and it changes things. Instead of inherent drama, you have statistics and information. You have a series of guys, whose combined talents are likely to be better than the one main character, but who are gone before you can really care about them. You understand that this is an objectively better way to try to win a baseball game, but it doesn’t feel as important.
Trying to point at a road-only winning streak and saying it’s just like a normal one won’t work, just like saying that a bullpen game is as entertaining as one with a traditional starter.
It’s like constantly rooting for a sideshow. The sideshow might be pretty good! Maybe the sideshow has more talented people doing more intense things! But you know what happened in the main show? They won 10 games in a row. It was cool as hell, and no sideshow can compete with that.
Personally, I would call this Terse. At least as good as Pithy.
I agree! And of course, that matters!!