What to make of two wins against the Rockies

I mean, it's better than two losses. I guess we can start there.

For the second evening in a row, the Giants beat the Rockies last night, and for the second night in a row, they got there after spending much of the game playing from behind before a late-inning rally propelled them into a lead that they would never relinquish, despite a somewhat shaky performance from Camilo Doval in the ninth. It was a fun, stirring win, the kind that you typically will remember for a while. “Remember Casey Schmitt’s slide?” you’ll ask someone as into the Giants as you are. “That was awesome,” your friend will say.

And look, that all happened and it was good and cool. I’m not trying to dampen or invalidate any positive feelings you have about those games, which both did that delightful sports thing of going from Wreck Your Day Bad to Hell Yeah Good in the space of about an hour.

But on the other hand, the Giants should be beating the Rockies. Honestly, they should be beating them handily. The Rockies, as detailed in this space just a coupe weeks ago, are a horrendous baseball team. So the question, as you can see in the title, is what do we make of these two wins against such a poor opponent?

For those of you who don’t feel like clicking on the above link, or do feel like clicking but would also like an additional piece of information, here’s how bad the Rockies have been: the only reason they have even one (1) 10-game stretch this year with a .300 winning percentage is that they swept the Marlins in a 3-game series last week. Other than that, the Rockies have not played one 10-game stretch over which they won even 3 games. Even looking at that sweep, they lost the 8 games before it and the 5 games (so far) since. Before that sweep, they had won back-to-back games exactly once all season.

They’re astonishingly bad, is the gist.

So if the Giants are a good team — and despite what we’ve all seen from the offense lately, they’re in first place in the wild card and have the fourth best run differential in the NL, so until further notice they are good — they should be winning. In a 3-game series, they should have two convincing wins and one close one. Yes, I know that you can’t actually say that because the nature of baseball involves so much randomness blah blah blah you’re really boring when I’m making you a strawman, but we all know it’s true. A pretty good team should just stomp a historically awful one.

Some examples: In the previous series on this Rockies homestand, the Mets won their three games by scores of 13-5, 8-1, and 4-2. When the Phillies were in Denver, they won all four of their games, 9-3, 7-4, 9-5, and 2-0. The Tigers won 8-6 in 10 innings, then turned around and blasted the Rockies, 10-2 and 11-1. Even the Yankees, who did manage to lose a game in Denver, followed it up with a 13-1 romp.

Meanwhile, the Giants…won last night’s game by 3 runs and the game before by 1. Where is the offensive explosion in an offensive park? Yes, Matt Chapman is hurt, and that is a big blow to the Giants offense (Patrick Bailey is also hurt, which is less of a blow to the Giants offense), but the Giants should have at least one blowout win under their belts and it’s just not happening.

The Giants shouldn’t have had to come back from big deficits, because they shouldn’t have faced big deficits. They should be proving that they are much better than the Rockies instead of playing down to them. The offense should be able to score in the first 7 innings of games against the worst starting staff in baseball. It’s a little worrying that that’s not happening. You can excuse the pitchers for giving up runs in Coors Field, since it’s the Coors Field of ballparks. But the hitters are also hitting in the Coors Field of ballparks, and for some reason it’s taking more than two thirds of the game for them to figure that out.

The games have still turned out to be fun, and entertaining, and worthwhile, but as a fan, I can’t help but want more. I want to see the Giants prove they’re much better than a notably bad team. Because they are! For all their faults, the Giants are much better than the Rockies.

As an example, the Rockies’ cleanup hitter yesterday was Thairo Estrada. I will always like Thairo and remember him fondly, but he had a .590 OPS last year, is currently at .522, and no major league team should be batting him within 4 spots of cleanup. It’s an indictment of the Rockies organization that…well, the whole season is an indictment of the Rockies organization, but that’s just one more piece of supporting evidence. Thairo Estrada might not be a major league hitter right now, so he is certainly not a middle-of-the-order hitter. Yet there he sits, waiting for a pitch, which will likely not go great for him.

Generally speaking, any major league win is a good win. But in this case, that might be wrong. Do the Rockies even count as a major league team? Technically, sure, but in reality? Giants hitters need a blowout. Giants fans need a blowout. The Giants bullpen could use a little break from the pressure, and perhaps one effective way could be a blowout?

The Giants can and should do this. They do have enough talent to show up the Rockies, and they should be using it. After all, if you’re only a little bit better than the worst team in baseball history, well, that doesn’t reflect well on them but it really doesn’t reflect well on you.