WELL WELL WELL

WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL

It was the bottom of the third inning last night and the Giants were down 2 runs. I was listening on the radio and I knew, in my heart, that I had been watching this game for two weeks. No, those games weren’t against the Padres, but spiritually they were. No, this game wasn’t over, but spiritually it was.

Then the Padres scored 3 more runs in the top of the fifth. And look, I am aware of what math is. I know that that is not a good or helpful event for a team already down 2, especially when it has been weeks since they scored 5 runs in a game. I know that, when playing baseball, you want your opponent to score as few runs as possible I knew all of this at the time, too. And yet, I still thought it would be a good idea to post this on Bluesky:

BASEBALL, BITCHES!

Okay, just to be totally transparent: I wrote this in the bottom of the fifth when the Giants were down 5-0, but by the time I fixed a typo and debated with myself about how readable that “the part of me that belives baseball’s purpose is to make no sense” clause was, Patrick Bailey was already at bat on my TV, and since my feed is about a minute or so behind the actual game, by the time it posted, the score was probably 5-1.

BUT I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE THIS COUNTS ANYWAY

For those of you who are not aware, the Giants did in fact come back to win last night, 6-5, after not scoring more than 4 runs in a game since May 16, a span of 16 games. In those 16 games, the Giants averaged 2 runs a game, and still went 7-9, thanks to their excellent pitching staff.

That stretch ended in the DFAs of Good Giant LaMonte Wade Jr and Best Giants Huff In Living Memory Sam Huff, as well as Christian Koss being optioned to Sacramento. For their corresponding moves, the team called up Andrew Knizner to serve as backup catcher, signed Dom Smith for a very LaMonte Wade Jr-esque role as a first baseman, and called up Daniel Johnson, and outfielder who, like Jerar Encarnación last year, tore up the Mexican League and then hit well in AAA to earn his promotion back to the majors.

Were these the facts that convinced me that the Giants, even down 5, had a chance when every piece of common sense should have been screaming that they did not? Was there some bit of arcane trivia about the performance of teams facing 5-run deficits that I leaned on? Or did I just research the Padres bullpen and find that the Giants would have a decisive late-inning advantage?

Folks, the answer to all of those questions is no. I just read the vibes.

Here’s the crucial part, I think: While it had been 16 games since the Giants scored more than 4 runs, it had also been 11 games since they allowed more than 4 runs. They had fallen into a prison of low-scoring pitcher’s duels. The Giants were irrevocably trapped in this prison, but their opponents were not. It would therefore take an opponent scoring lots of runs to break the Giants out of it. Once the Padres did that last night, the Giants were finally able to respond.

Is this a perfect theory? Oh, absolutely. It works on every level and has zero flaws. Most importantly, it’s what Giants games have felt like for weeks. Not just low-scoring, but hopelessly low-scoring. Not just a miserable experience for both offenses, but predictably miserable. The Giants were in a rut, and did not have the ability to get themselves out of it, but the Padres did, and the Giants were able to ride their coattails and then steal them and say, “Guess what, sucker? These are our coattails now!” Then they fled town before the Padres could remind them who won their first four matchups this season.

But I’m getting off-topic here. The topic is: I made a spectacularly unlikely call, and it paid off. I looked smart, and I was a Baseball Knower, and there may have been Useless Internet Points involved. It was extremely satisfying, I got lots of positive attention for it, and it worked out for everyone.

Well, everyone but the Padres, but who really cares about them?