Sheesh. Another day, another loss for the Giants.
San Francisco is slowly fading out of the playoff picture, as their 7-1 loss to the Diamondbacks Wednesday pushed them back to the .500 mark (76-76) and dropped them 3.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot in the National League with 10 to play.
95.7 The Game’s “Willard & Dibs” offered their instant reaction to Wednesday’s deflating loss, which is the team’s fifth in the past six games on what’s become a horrendous road trip.
“In my estimation, that is a wrap for any realistic playoff hopes,” Mark Willard said. “Actually, I won’t even say, ‘realistic’ — that’s a wrap for their playoff hopes. They’re not going to the playoffs.”
Though president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler have the public support from Giants ownership, the leading duo is on their way to a fourth season without the playoffs in five tries. That 107-win season is looking like an outlier and there is a feeling that the clubhouse might be running thin on patience, given the series of reported “players only” meetings that have taken place this season.
“What should they do? They should be outraged and look to do wholesale changes,” Dan Dibley said. “What will they do? They’re gonna run it back. Which means Farhan’s back and Gabe is back.”
The Giants are also rubbing some baseball fans the wrong way for their micromanagement and lineup mish-mashing with a batting order full of mediocre hitters. The pitching staff has also been lackluster and unreliable this season, while the offense has provided little run support.
In short, there hasn’t been much to be happy about besides the young wave of talent that has reached the bigs this season.
“You look at them since July – this is disgusting baseball,” Willard said. “It's gross. It's terrible baseball. Not just because it's boring, there's not one thing that they're doing well. You don’t play defense well. You hit the ball well. You don’t pitch the ball well. You don’t pitch the ball long, you don’t pitch the ball short. You don’t have relievers you can rely on. And the only starters you can rely on get no run support. What do you do well?"