We have ten games left in the regular season. There is a lot of anxiety in the land of the Orange and Black, but hope is fading fast.  The G-Men are in 4th place in the NL West, playing .500 ball, and are 2 and a half games out of the wild card behind the Mets, Padres, and (after losing 2 out of 3 to both LA and the Snakes over the last 6 games) the Snakes. Not only that, but the Giants lost the first game last night against the Dodgers. The Giants are further underwater than Jacques Cousteau.

The playoffs are a long shot, with playoff odds around 4-11% (depending on the source) but winning 10 of their last 11 games has woken up the fan base, ignited the team in the dugout (don’t you love the chest bumps between Drew Gilbert and Matt Chapman after the rookie homers?) and kindled hope at China Basin that a wild card may be there if things break right for the rest of September; after all, we are only 4 games out.   The G-Men have a relatively favorable September schedule; witness the sweep against the Rockies over the last three days and they are going into Saint Louis over the weekend against a Cardinal team that can be had (but nevertheless is over .500 and 1.5 games behind the G-Men for a wild card of their own).  However, it depends a lot on what the Padres (with a September schedule that includes the 1st place Brewers and Mets, as well as the Rockies) and the Mets (with a September schedule that includes the Padres, 1st place Phillies, Rangers, Cubs, and Marlins) do over the next three weeks.  For the Giants, who close out the season against the Rockies at home, it all comes down (as it should) to the six games against LA. We will be nail-biting right down to the end of the month.  Every game should be considered to be a playoff game.

Watching the G-Men over the course of the last two weeks has been like experiencing a roller coaster going off the rails and then hanging on by two wheels at the curve.  First the G-Men lose 4 series in a row (Nationals, Padres, Rays and the Padres again) before taking two out of three from the NL Central leading (currently the best record in baseball) Brewers (including today’s terrific come from behind nail-biter). 

The Giants were sellers at the deadline.  Gone are Doval, Tyler Rodgers and Yaz. The new faces are Butto (from the Mets for Rodgers), who is the only one on the current roster, and 7 players who reported to the River Cats. Was this a good deal? We won’t know for a while (and maybe not until next year). This is Buster building for the future and trusting in what he has now.  Does that mean he has given up on this season? According to him and the rest of the brain trust even though the G-Men are in 3rd place in the NL West, 9 games behind LA, they still believe that with a successful August and September there is a shot at a wild card.  Stranger things have happened and, as Hunter Pence pointed out, in 2010 they were further behind than this team, made the playoffs and we all know what happened then.

This has been a difficult two weeks for the G-Men. The 6-game losing streak (going back to the Dodgers series 2 losses and followed by being swept in Toronto by the red-hot Blue Jays (in front of the Yankees in the AL East) and a loss to the Braves was snapped yesterday and today by back-to-back W’s. What changed?  First off, Devers moved to first base and is suddenly playing like the superstar he should be (2 dingers in the win today).  Second, the team (over the last two games anyway) is looking loose and playing like they enjoy the game. Third, today was the first win of the season for Verlander. It’s about time.