Friday, September 24, 2004

 

This Is It

For the San Francisco Giants, the playoffs effectively start tonight.

Last night's loss was huge, and puts them in a deeper hole than they needed to be in. Here's the situation now: The Giants are 1.5 games back of the Dodgers in the NL West. They are 0.5 games back of the Chicago Cubs in the wild card race.

There are only nine games left, and six of those are against the Dodgers. If the Giants win enough of those nine games to make the playoffs, that means they'll have beaten the Dodgers enough to win the division. The wild card is now, for most scenarios, irrelevant.

Here are the possible outcomes of the remaining 6 games with the Dodgers:

Giants win all 6: Giants will lead NL West by 4.5 games and win the division outright, regardless of the outcome of the Padres games.

Giants win 5 of 6: Giants will lead NL West by 2.5 games, and will win the division outright with any combination of 2 wins over the Padres, or 2 Dodgers losses to the Rockies.

Giants win 4 of 6: Giants will lead NL West by 0.5 games. Even if they sweep the Padres also, the Giants will need the Dodgers to lose one against the Rockies. Alternately, if the Dodgers get swept by Colorado, the Giants win the NL West. Any other combination of 4 Giants wins vs. SD or Dodgers losses vs. COL will give the Giants the division.

Giants win 3 of 6: Giants will stay 1.5 games behind the Dodgers. The Giants would need a lot of help from the Rockies, who would have to win at least 2 of 4 against the Dodgers to keep the Giants in the division race. Even then, the Giants would need to sweep the Padres.

Giants win 2 of 6: The Giants still have a chance to tie the Dodgers for the NL West lead. But it requires that the Giants sweep the Padres, and the Rockies sweep the Dodgers.

Giants win 0 or 1 of 6: It would take a total Cubs collapse for the Giants to make the playoffs.

Bottom line: The Giants have to win this six-game split series against the Dodgers, and preferably win it big. They need to start by sweeping this weekend series at home. That's right, sweeping. The Giants play their last 6 on the road. They haven't played well against the Padres, in particular, so the Giants MUST put themselves in the catbirds seat before they arrive in San Diego.

It's a cliche, but the Giants have to treat each and every game as a must-win. They simply cannot afford another loss like last night's. To avoid Gagne, the Giants need to take early leads and then keeping adding on.

Like I said, if you're the Giants, your playoffs start tonight. Treat the following 9 games accordingly. And good luck, gentlemen.

Jefferson 7:49 AM

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