All offseason, the San Francisco Giants were afterthoughts.
It’s hard to disagree with that thinking.
The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series, the San Diego Padres took the champions to the brink in the NLDS and the Arizona Diamondbacks went to the Fall Classic in 2023.
Meanwhile, the Giants have only made the playoffs one time following their 2016 campaign, finishing with a winning record just once and going .500 in 2022.
It’s been a tough stretch for San Francisco, but they were silently confident this spring.
And based on how they’ve played to start the year, that’s for good reason.
“If you don’t know by now, we’re pretty good. And we’re going to be good,” starting pitcher Landon Roupp said, per Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area.
The Giants are heading back home with a 5-1 record, having taken two out of three from the Cincinnati Reds before sweeping the Houston Astros in emphatic fashion where their pitching and hitting dominated the perennial World Series contenders.
Entering play on Thursday, San Francisco is tied for seventh in runs scored — taking out the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs who have played more games than anyone else — and is fifth in ERA.
This is what everyone envisioned when the roster was put together over the winter.
New president of baseball operations Buster Posey landed Willy Adames and Justin Verlander in free agency. Jung Hoo Lee returned from injury and Heliot Ramos had another offseason of preparation. The young arms have paired well with the veterans, and this team looks like a formidable one under the leadership of manager Bob Melvin.
The problem is Los Angeles is off to a historic start for a depending champion, sitting with an 8-0 record while the Padres are also undefeated with a 7-0 record themselves.
What’s impressive about what the Giants have done, though, is their wins have come on the road.
Facing a Reds team that has high hopes about their playoff outlook and the Astros who have high-end talent at multiple positions, it would have been understood if they got off to a slow start like last year.
Instead, San Francisco has made a statement in this new era of the franchise, and they’re not looking to slow down anytime soon.
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