1 week Ago
Seventeen games. No off days. Different time zones.
Contending teams. Even if the San Francisco Giants somehow won a series or two during the stretch, their bullpen would be gassed, shredded, broken or all of the above. It was an obvious bear trap as soon as the provisional schedule was released last July, and the 17-game stretch had been hanging over the Giants’ heads for almost an entire year.
Except instead of a sword of Damocles, it was a sword of damncanwegetanoffdayplease . Advertisement Now imagine if you knew a few of the details before the trip started. The East Coast swing featured wet and ridiculously cold weather, even more so than a typical April.
The getaway game on the East Coast started 30 hours before the next day’s game on the West Coast. On the same day the Giants lost their first game of the season, the Yankees hit nine home runs and scored 20 runs, while the Phillies scored “only” 11 in their win. That’s where their pitchers were heading, and when the road trip was over, they’d face two more contenders at home.
And that’s the story about how the 2025 Giants were eliminated from postseason contention. It was the 17-game stretch of doom in the conservatory with the candlestick. Wait till next year.
The Giants didn’t just come out of it OK, though. They thrived. They were 10-7 during the 17-game stretch of doom, which is a good record for a team at home, playing with off days and against lesser competition.
Except the Giants did it without an off day, on both sides of the country, and against contending teams. Did we mention that? It bears repeating because it’s true and more than a little remarkable. This isn’t to say there won’t be a May mayday, June swoon or July cry in store for the Giants later, but it was as gnarly of a gantlet as the schedule makers are allowed to create.
Just treading water would have been a moral victory. Instead, they ended the stretch in first place in the NL West. The final game was a 3-2 win against the Rangers to win the series, a game that ended with Heliot Ramos hitting a ball two feet from home plate .
It was the mutant love child of Grégor Blanco’s walk-off bunt and Ángel Pagán’s walk-off inside-the-park home run , with Willy Adames playing the part of Tim Flannery. The most encouraging part of the stretch just might be the bullpen, which is in remarkable shape considering the schedule. They threw nine innings in the series against the Rangers, allowing eight hits, zero walks and zero runs, and they weren’t ground into a fine powder during the 17-game stretch.
Those are the kinds of numbers you might see over a generic 17-game sample. Except they came in a 17-game stretch — and I can’t believe this is the first time it’s coming up — without an off day. The only left-hander in the bullpen, Erik Miller, threw 57 pitches in those games.
Just for yuks, compare that to Rangers starter Jack Leiter, who threw 37 pitches in the first inning on Sunday. Advertisement Here are the folks who get credit for a reasonable bullpen workload: • Manager Bob Melvin, who doesn’t treat any of his high-leverage relievers like a must-have security blanket in close games. He gets close with Tyler Rogers, but we all would.
He’s just so fun to watch. • The rotation, with each starter pitching into the fourth inning for every game. More than half of the starts went into the sixth inning or later.
That doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s 2025. Three Giants starters threw seven innings over the past 17 games, and 14 teams haven’t had that many seven-inning starts all season. There are three that haven’t had a seven-inning start at all this season.
• The bullpen itself which has strength in numbers. If a couple of high-leverage relievers were sucking eggs, the bullpen usage wouldn’t have been as evenly spread out. As is, there was just one struggling reliever over a two-game stretch, and he righted the ship toward the end.
Randy Rodríguez gets a special shoutout for giving Melvin another late-inning option whenever needed. • Christian Koss, who pitched a scoreless inning in the only blowout loss of the season. If the bullpen dominates throughout October, I’m going to claim that Koss’ inning is the reason they were fresh, and you can’t stop me.
It was about as good a 17-game stretch as could have been realistically expected. The bullpen isn’t gassed. The rotation is starting to stretch out.
Casey Schmitt went on the injured list, but the rest of the roster avoided injury. The players who needed rest got it. The hitters who needed better at-bats got those, too.
Adames played in every game, and he looked like a different, more focused hitter by the end. LaMonte Wade Jr.’s stats are still ugly, but the rotten-luck goblins were feasting on him by the end.
That shouldn’t continue for much longer. Advertisement If there’s any room for pessimism, it’s this: There are still 133 games left in the season. Boy, that’s a lot of games.
And when the Giants have their first three-game losing streak of the season — or even their third two-game losing streak — a lot of the goodwill from this stretch will evaporate instantly. When the rotten-luck goblins move on from Wade, they might start eyeing the rest of the team. Or they might call their cousins, the rotten-baseball goblins, and tell them to swing by.
They’re probably tired of Colorado by now. It’s too early for conclusions, proclamations or any kind of certainty about how the season is going to go. All you can do is point to what the Giants have done so far and note that it’s been much better than expected, and it all counts.
The 17-game stretch* could have been a disaster, with smoking labrums and broken spirits to undo the goodwill from the first two weeks of the season. Instead, the Giants finished the stretch in first place, even though they play in the toughest division in baseball, and there aren’t any reasons for them to feel less confident. There are only reasons for them to feel more confident.
* W ithout a day off (Top photo of Heliot Ramos: Eakin Howard / Getty Images).
