Just a few days ago, I contemplated writing a “Will they do it?” article about the possibility of the San Francisco Giants racing into the postseason fueled by an absurd winning streak in September. Dropping 2 out of 3 to a moribund St. Louis Cardinals team drained the fuel out of my tank and made it virtually impossible for the Giants at this point, but rather than skip out on the idea I’ve decided to write one that’s far less urgent.
We’ll stick with the postseason, though, for the truly fanatical
fans out there who won’t believe the team missed the postseason this year until they read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle in late January when Buster Posey is interviewed and talking about how they’re looking forward to putting together a team that has a chance of maybe scaring teams for possibly getting into a position to maybe threaten to get close to backing into the postseason as the third Wild Card — after all, it’s only September 8th! It’s still early! Still plenty of season to go!
They entered the final month of this season with a 68-69 record and were scheduled to play 25 games. To get into the postseason, it’s safe to say that it’s unclear what the final win total would need to be. Last season, the 89-win Diamondbacks missed out entirely. The year before, their 84 wins were enough for a postseason spot and they wound up in the World Series. For the purposes of this post, though, let’s figure the floor is — and I’m being especially generous to the Giants here — 86 wins; so, 18-7. They’ve gone 4-2 in their first 6 and stand at 72-71. They’d need to go 14-5 the rest of the way. The best 25-game results to end a season:
- 2021 SF Giants, 20-5 | Record on September 1st: 84-48 | Final: 107-55`
- 1951 NY Giants, 20-5 | Record on September 1st: 76-53 | Final: 98-59
- 1916 NY Giants, 20-4 | Record on September 1st: 56-58 | Final: 86-66
- 2002 SF Giants, 18-7 | Record on September 1st: 77-58 | Final: 95-66**
- 1967 SF Giants, 18-7 | Record on September 1st: 70-64 | Final: 91-71
- 2012 SF Giants, 17-8 | Record on September 1st: 74-58 | Final: 94-68**
- 2004 SF Giants, 17-8 | Record on September 1st: 73-61 | Final: 91-71
- 2003 SF Giants, 17-8 | Record on September 1st: 82-53 | Final: 100-61`
- 1982 SF Giants, 17-8 | Record on September 1st: 66-66 | Final: 87-75
- ` = made playoffs, ** = made World Series
I went to ten because there are many times this century where the Giants have ended their season on a high note. You’ll note that some of these results are a little off, but keep in mind that I limited my search to the final 25 games of a season, and so that’s why you’ll get better than 20-5 when you look at the gap between the start of September and the end of the season for the 1951 Giants.
Point is, historically, the Giants have the ingredients for these runs. I may not think the 2021 Giants are much more than a fluke of history, but they are undoubtedly one of the best teams to ever wear the uniform. The 2025 Giants are not anywhere close to that 2021 team, nor are they akin to the 2002-2004 or 2012 teams. Three of those teams had Barry Bonds and the other team had Buster Posey’s MVP season.
Now, if Rafael Devers wants to become Barry Bonds for the next few weeks, he’s welcome to it. Since the start of August, he’s slashing .289/.389/.602 (.991 OPS) with 12 homers and a 2:1 strikeouts to walk ratio. Not Bondsesque, but if the Giants’ lineup can collectively stay hot (8th in runs scored over this same span) or get hotter (3rd in runs scored since August 18th), then I suppose something miraculous is possible, given the expanded playoff scenario.
On the other hand, the 1982 Giants were an unspectacular team that treaded water for most of the season until the final month and found themselves just a game out of the playoffs with only the Dodgers in their way. That’s more or less the case this season, too, with 7 games remaining against LA, but that might be the best comp in recent history. And, as a matter of history, the 1982 and 2004 Giants had painful ends to their seasons thanks to the Dodgers, so, the best case scenario might be these 2025 Giants running flying too close to a blue sun and getting absolutely melted by Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell.
And this is my greatest concern. The bigger miracle for the Giants, I think, is winning enough games to end the season over .500. A 14-11 mark seems completely plausible, and given that they’ve already won 4, that’s just 10-9 the rest of the way. You might think they’re on track to finish better than 82-80, but I don’t! I don’t take 13 of their last 19 against the Diamondbacks or Dodgers as a certainty they’ll go 7-6 or 6-7, even if I believe the final 3 games of the season at home against the Rockies is very easily 2-3 wins. Factor in at least 1 win against the Cardinals in that final homestand and it looks like it’d be very hard for them to avoid 10 more wins, based on the way they’re playing the past few weeks.
But Arizona has been as hot as the Giants over this same span and the Dodgers are very close to winning enough games in the rivalry to finally overtake the Giants in the all-time head-to-head. They’re also getting healthier as the playoffs approach. Giants’ relief pitching is shaky and it seems a-historical to expect the lineup to continue to produce. It’s not difficult to imagine 4-5 wins out of those 13, which would mean going 6-0 or 5-1 against the Cardinals and Rockies in the season’s final week. I don’t think it’s wise to bet on the Giants needing to sweep to accomplish anything.
I’ll admit that this “above .500” thing is probably not a concern for most people. But in the history of the Giants franchise, they’ve never had more than four consecutive losing seasons. I count the 81-81 season as a “losing” season in that it was not a “winning” one, and so that would make this season the fourth straight. Still within the franchise’s history, but I don’t think they’re setup to win more games than lose next season and, so, I’d rather they just reset the streak this year when they’re so close.
To have a shot at the postseason, the 2025 Giants will need to go 14-5 the rest of the way against the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Rockies. That seems highly unlikely, and history doesn’t really support the notion of a shaggy Giants team getting white hot to push through to the playoffs in September. The 2010 Giants went 16-9 over their final 25, sure, but they were already 73-60 heading into the final month. This squad doesn’t feel like that one nor does the playoff chase environment really matchup 1:1. Above, I’m presuming that 86 wins is the absolute minimum, but that might not be the case, even if people want to believe that the Mets will complete their collapse (14-23 since July 28th).
Meanwhile, 19 Giants teams out of 123 completed seasons have won 14 games in their final 25. so, better than .500 to end the season feels more likely. And the notion that they could win more than that? Well, history tells us — though, to be clear, it’s not at all predictive — that the Giants have won 14+ games over their final 25 games in 63 of 123 seasons (51.2%). It’s been the Giants’ great play of late that has reconditioned us to look a bit more towards the positive and history tells us that a highly improbable run this season is still plausible in the historical sense. “Anything can happen” is most true for people who examine very few facts, so maybe my unshakable need to see them beat .500 and reset their consecutive losing seasons counter is a way of emotionally guarding myself against setting expectations too high.
Then again, a winning season is something we’ve rarely seen since 2017, so, it would be quite welcome. It would not only reset the aforementioned counter, it would reset franchise expectations. Bob Melvin’s hot seat cools down and Buster Posey & Zack Minasian’s offseason checklist doesn’t have to be so long and seemingly dire. Hope. That’s the benefit of a great September, playoffs or no. A rekindling of hope.
