Why The San Francisco Giants Will Win the NL Wild Card

(photo credit: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com)

With the Major League Baseball regular season quickly approaching its conclusion, the National League Wild Card race has become a tense, closely contested battle. As of Friday morning, the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants are tied for the lead with matching 81-72 records. Should those positions hold, both teams would both qualify for the one-game wild card playoff and would face each other. Not be left out, the St. Louis Cardinals, sit merely one half-game behind the both of them, one win shy in the victory column, at 80-72.

Since the league is in an even year (2016 for those with other information on their mind), expectations are high for the Giants, who have won the World Series in each of the last two even years, in 2014 and 2012. To keep up the pattern, they will have quite a bit of work ahead of them.

In their last nine games of the season, the Giants have three more games to finish a series in San Diego against the Padres, followed by finishing the season at home with three games against the Colorado Rockies and the last three against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

After starting the year 50-31 over the first three months of the season, San Francisco has slowly spiraled downwards. In July, August and September, the Giants have a combined record of 31-41, including a 4-7 stretch in their last 11 games.

Their second half swoon can be attributed to multiple factors, most notably poor hitting. Left fielder Angel Pagan is hitting just .165 in September after going .324 in August. Right fielder Hunter Pence has been consistently around .290 all year, though he missed all of June and July to injury. Second baseman Joe Panik is following an All-Star 2015 campaign (.312 BA, .378 OBP, .833 OPS) with an underwhelming 2016 season (.241, .317, .698), including hitting just .145 in September. First baseman Brandon Belt is at .245 for August and September. 

The pitching staff hasn't been terrific, either. Ace Madison Bumgarner had a relatively abysmal August, with and ERA over 4.00, a WHIP approaching 1.300, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio under three. First-year Giant Johnny Cueto also had a poor August, with a 1-2 record, 4.38 ERA, and 1.243 WHIP. Matt Cain had a horrible July and August, ERAs of 6.39 and 7.24, and WHIPs of 1.421 and 1.829, respectively.

Additionally, the relief pitching has been a disaster all season. Out of 71 save opportunites, the bullpen has blown 30 of them. No other team has more, and of the nine other teams with at least 20, only the Dodgers, Marlins and Mariners are not at least seven games under .500. 

All that being said, all is not lost for the Giants as they finish their season. To this point they have split their season series with the Dodgers and Rockies, and have an advantage over the Padres. Bumgarner and Cueto have returned to stellar form in their most recent starts, and a majority of the lineup have been through the entire postseason experience multiple times, so they are more than ready and comfortable in those pressure situations. The Mets finish the season with their last six games on the road, at Philadelphia and Miami. The Cardinals end with 3 games in Chicago against the Cubs (the best record in the Majors), and then two series against the Reds and Pirates, who the Cardinals have a combined 15-16 record against. 

If the Giants merely hit a little better for the last two weeks, and can manage a few good performances out of the bullpen, they stand a great chance at finishing as one of the wild card teams headed into the playoffs.