SF Giants’ ‘backs against the wall’ as they begin final fight for playoff lives vs. Padres
With 36 games to play and Giants 7.5 out, Evan Longoria says he is going to play through hamstring issues 'until it rips off.'
SAN FRANCISCO — Hosting the Padres on Monday to kick off a stretch of 17 games in 21 days against teams ahead of them in the National League playoff race, the Giants face their longest postseason odds of the season.
Whether they are still among those teams fighting for a playoff berth the next time they face the Padres, with three games in San Diego to close the season, will be determined by how they fare over the pivotal stretch of upcoming contests, beginning Monday night.
Entering play, San Francisco sat 7.5 games back of San Diego, tied for a season-high. The computers have given them the slimmest possible odds of erasing that deficit over their final 36 games. Played out 100 times, no projection system has them sneaking into the postseason in more than two scenarios: their most bullish odds, 1.7%, come from Baseball Prospectus, while FanGraphs pegged their chances at 0.7%, or not even one in every 100 simulations.
In other words, they’re sitting in front of the short stack at the card table.
“I don’t think our chances are great by any stretch, but I don’t think we’re dead,” manager Gabe Kapler said before Monday’s game, turning to a poker analogy. “As long as you have a seat at the table and as long as you have a chip on the table, you have a chance. …
“Our backs are more against the wall today that they have been at any other point in the season. … Right now is a moment in time for us where you’re going to see who the toughest competitors are.”
Nobody needs to tell veteran third baseman Evan Longoria, who might be fighting for the last playoff appearance of his career. Despite a lingering hamstring issue popping up again Sunday and forcing him from the game, Longoria has no plans of hitting the injured list for a fourth time this season.
Longoria, 36, sat out Monday but was optimistic he would be available with another day of rest. Rookie third baseman David Villar was here on taxi squad from Triple-A Sacramento, just in case.
“I’m gonna try to play through it until it rips off or I can’t move anymore,” Longoria said, with a fresh coat of bleach applied to his blond mohawk.
When healthy, Longoria has backed up the urgency of his words with his play on the field. He almost single-handedly willed San Francisco to a win last Sunday in Colorado with a vintage bat-and-glove performance and ended the road trip with the second-highest OPS on the team (.929, bested only by Joc Pederson’s 1.034).
However, those contributions largely went for naught as the Giants went 2-6 on the eight-game trip and fell as far out of playoff position as they’ve been this season. Despite facing two teams in last place of their divisions, the Giants failed to win a series. Besides Longoria and Pederson, who combined for three homers on the trip, the Giants hit two home runs and batted .190 over the eight games.
Kapler turned to an expletive to describe the trip, which can only be looked at as a missed opportunity, as the teams directly ahead of them in the wild card race — San Diego and Milwaukee — each went 4-5 over the same stretch.
The race to the bottom among the three teams fighting for the final National League playoff spot should give the Giants one reason for optimism, if they weren’t one of the same cursed trio trying to see how beleaguered they can enter the postseason.
On one day last week, the National League wild card standings showed the Braves and the Phillies in command of the top two spots, and every team below them until last-place Washington riding a losing streak of at least one game. One club had a winning record over its past 10 games (congratulations to the Chicago Cubs, 14.5 games out entering play Monday).
But the Giants have a seat at the table and chips in front of them.
“If you’re the player at the table in a poker tournament and you have a very, very short stack relative to the rest of the players at the table, you can make a run by doubling up and doubling up and doubling up. It doesn’t happen very often, and I think that’s fair to acknowledge as well, but it happens,” Kapler said. “There’s a good run of baseball left in this team. I’m not going to say our chances are perfect. I don’t think they are. It’s not like we’re very much within striking distance. … If you like poker, there’s the poker tournament analogy of a chip and a chair. I think that’s the only way to look at it and think about it. Everyday is an opportunity to fight and try to win that night’s baseball game and stay in it.”
Belt seeks second opinion
This time last season, it was Brandon Belt who stepped up offensively and carried the Giants across the finish line to inch out the Dodgers for the NL West title, slugging 18 home runs between August and September and batting .349/.451/.721 (an 1.172 OPS) over the final month of the season.
But as the Giants fight for their postseason lives, Belt’s problematic right knee has forced him to watch from the injured list. Before hitting the IL, the 34-year-old first baseman was still searching for his first home run since the All-Star break.
After one MRI showed no structural damage, Belt was set to receive a second opinion on his inflamed knee Tuesday with Stanford Dr. Timothy McAdams.
“His knee’s a little bit more swollen and a little bit more sore than it has been,” Kapler said. “Now the challenge for Brandon is … this is sort of the toughness that I was talking about. You have to find ways to contribute. You have to find ways to bring your best energy to the ballpark. You have to be dependable and you have to be consistent. That’s toughness in times that aren’t going well.”