Giants' midseason review: What's gone right, wrong in bumpy season

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants never expected to win 107 games last season or even approach that number, which set a franchise record. It was the result of literally just about everything going right over six months, and as this season has shown, that's incredibly rare. 

A roster that is largely the same got off to a hot start but has been under .500 since the end of April. As the issues have piled up, manager Gabe Kapler has tried to put some distance between 2021 and 2022. 

"It's not always the best thing to look back to last year and compare yourself to a 107-win team that had a lot of things go right," he said recently.

That's fair, but even the most modest of expectations for 2022 had the Giants playing better than ... well, whatever this is right now. 

With Thursday's 2-1 loss at Petco Park, they've dropped 13 of their last 17 games. About three weeks ago, they were 10 games over .500, but then they got walked off on back-to-back days in Pittsburgh and Atlanta and just about nothing has gone right since. The Giants hit the midway point of their season at 41-40.

It has been a disappointing first half overall, and there are a lot of reasons for concern going forward. There have also been some bright spots, though. As the Giants get ready to start the second half of their season, here are five things that have gone wrong through half the season and five that have gone right:

Gone Wrong: Running It Back

After setting a franchise record for homers and ranking second in the NL in runs, the Giants decided to essentially run it back with the exact same group, with Joc Pederson added but Buster Posey retired. It was a bold strategy given that they had the oldest roster in the big leagues last season. It has, uhh, not worked out very well offensively.

Betting on a group of mid-thirties hitters to repeat last year's success turned out to be pretty risky, and while the Giants are still fifth in the NL in runs per game, the offense doesn't have nearly as much consistency or punch as it did last season, in large part because nearly every key player has taken a step back.

Brandon Crawford was fourth in MVP voting last year but currently has a .669 OPS, a drop of more than 200 points. After hitting 29 homers last year, Brandon Belt is slugging .338. Joey Bart wasn't able to replace much of Posey's production and was sent down to Triple-A before Curt Casali's injury brought him back. Darin Ruf's OPS is down from .904 last year to .698. Mike Yastrzemski has dropped to .729 after a recent slump, and Tommy La Stella is at .656. 

Up and down the roster, production has dropped. And most of the fill-ins have struggled, except ...

Gone Right: Another Find

In 2020, Yastrzemski emerged as a down-ballot MVP candidate. A year later it was LaMonte Wade Jr. who was the breakout star, getting so many clutch hits that he received one of the coolest nicknames in the game and a bobblehead day. The Giants appear to have done it again with Luis Gonzalez. 

Acquired last year in a slick move, Gonzalez has a .301/.361/.447 slash line with three homers and seven stolen bases. He was the NL Rookie of the Month in May and took over an everyday job before a back strain landed him on the IL. Gonzalez will be back soon -- if the Giants open up a roster spot -- and they certainly could use his energy and old-school ability to manufacture runs out of thin air. 

"It's fun to kind of get lost in those thoughts for a little bit and think about what might be, if we have a regular Major League outfielder on our hands in Luis Gonzalez," Kapler said earlier this season. 

It appears they do. 

Gone Wrong: The Defense

There are a lot of ways to sum up how bad the defense has been, but perhaps the easiest is to point out that earlier this week the Giants allowed a runner to score from first on a sacrifice bunt and it simply fit right in with the type of defense they've played for most of the season.

They rank 29th in Defensive Runs Saved and dead last in Outs Above Average, and there are no obvious solutions. Cleaning it up even a little bit would go a long way in the second half. 

Gone Right: Expanded Postseason 

Rob Manfred has taken a lot of heat during his tenure for throwing a bunch of baseball traditions aside, and rightfully so. But the Giants certainly aren't complaining right now about the change in the new CBA that added an extra Wild Card team in each league.

After a horrible homestand and a six-game losing streak, they came from behind Wednesday to get a win that got them back to within one game of the third Wild Card spot. At the halfway point of their season, they're currently only two games out.

Gone Wrong: The Offseason Pitching Plan

The Giants have had a lot of success in signing veterans to one-year contracts and helping them turn their careers around, but the turnstile stopped last offseason. After backing out of the bidding for Kevin Gausman, they brought Anthony DeSclafani back on a three-year deal and gave Alex Wood two years. Alex Cobb, who fit the profile of previous additions, also signed for two years.

It was a plan that made sense in a lot of ways, but it's hard not to wonder where they would be right now had they re-signed Gausman (who leads the Majors with a 1.67 FIP) to pair with Rodón and Logan Webb and continued to fill the back end of the rotation with flyers on one-year deals. Some in the organization might argue that Rodón filled Gausman's salary slot, but this is a team with enough money to have both.

DeSclafani made just five starts and posted a 9.95 ERA before having season-ending ankle surgery. Wood and Cobb have had a lot of bad luck, but both have admitted they need to find a way to get better results, too. The rotation was supposed to be the strength of the roster, but there's been too much inconsistency through 81 games.

Gone Right: The "Big" Additions

Since Farhan Zaidi took over, the Giants have just about entirely avoided the more expensive aisles in free agency, but they did sign a couple of former All-Stars this offseason at much more palatable prices and both moves have looked brilliant. Both players likely will suit up for the All-Star game in a couple weeks.

Joc Pederson got just $6 million on a one-year deal and has 17 homers and the highest OPS+ (144) of his career. He's likely to be voted in as an All-Star starter. Rodón signed a two-year, $44 million deal and has a 2.87 ERA and 2.24 FIP. He ranks seventh in the Majors in strikeouts and is a legitimate Cy Young candidate. 

The Giants nailed both signings, although now comes the hard part: re-signing them. Pederson seems like a candidate for an in-season extension, but Rodón almost certainly will opt out and chase a $100 million deal.

Gone Wrong: No Help In A Pinch

Twice in the last week, Kapler sent Austin Slater and Darin Ruf up to pinch-hit against a lefty in the late innings with the Giants trailing. On Wednesday, Ruf's two-run homer tied the game, but his double play last Friday was much more in line with what Giants pinch-hitters have done this year. 

A year after setting an MLB record with 18 pinch-hit homers, the Giants are once again leading the Majors in substitutions, but they're batting just .217 with two extra-base hits. In 92 pinch-hit at-bats, the Giants have 31 strikeouts, one homer and one double. A year after getting 51 RBI from pinch-hitters, they're on pace for 28. 

Gone Right: He's For Real

Logan Webb was brilliant for the final five months of the 2021 season and burst onto the national scene with two dominant NLDS starts. There was no reason to doubt him going forward, but just in case anyone wanted to see more, Webb has continued to pitch like a homegrown ace. 

With eight strong innings in San Diego on Thursday, his ERA is down to 2.98. He's sixth in the NL in innings and on pace to pass 200 for the first time. Webb's strikeout rate is down from last year, but in just about every other way he's the exact same pitcher who earned a Game 1 start last October and an Opening Day assignment. The Giants can continue to build around the 25-year-old, who may make his first All-Star team. 

Gone Wrong: Pen Problems

Sam Long got the save Wednesday in Phoenix. Mauricio Llovera pitched the bottom of the ninth on Thursday night with the Giants hoping to extend the game against the heart of San Diego’s lineup. Both pitchers excelled, but this is not exactly what the Giants had in mind when they ran it back with a group that led the NL in ERA last year and was getting a full season of Camilo Doval.

Tyler Rogers and Jake McGee were supposed to team with Doval to form a lockdown trio, but Rogers has allowed 42 hits in 38 innings and McGee has a 6.64 ERA. Jose Alvarez and Zack Littell, so good in the middle innings last year, have both struggled, with Alvarez hitting the IL twice and Littell getting sent to Triple-A last month. Even Doval has had some issues closing out games.

The relievers have combined for a 4.29 ERA, which ranks in the bottom third of the league, and the group likely will need reinforcements. John Brebbia, who has been very good in his first full year back from Tommy John, leads the NL in appearances and Rogers and Doval are also in the top six. 

Gone Right: Expanded Postseason 

Yes, we are doubling up here, which is in part because of how the Giants have played baseball the last two weeks and in part because this truly is the best thing they have going for them right now. 

For the vast majority of the season, the Giants have looked like a .500 baseball team, and they've been much worse in recent weeks. You could make the case that their best route at the Aug. 2 deadline would be to sell Rodón, Pederson, Dom Leone and other potential free agents and add some athleticism to the roster.

RELATED: What we learned as Webb gets no support in another Giants' loss

But, you could also very easily make the case that there's still a huge opportunity here. 

This is a flawed team and there will be no NL West repeat, not when the Giants are 11 1/2 games behind a loaded Dodgers club. Things would look even darker right now if they were trying to chase down the Braves and the Padres in a traditional postseason format, but the extra postseason spot is huge. 

As it stands right now, the Giants are two games behind the Phillies and Cardinals, who are on pace for about 86 wins. They're not the 107-win team, or anywhere close, but even getting somewhere in the upper 80s should give them a strong shot at making the postseason, and once there, they'll throw Webb and Rodón at an opponent in a short series. At a time like this, that's a big reason for optimism. 

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