SAN FRANCISCO — In some fairytale far, far away, the Giants’ miraculous comeback Wednesday was the demarcation point of a turnaround on a larger scale.
The walk-off grand slam didn’t merely complete a comeback from a 9-1 deficit in the eighth inning, these heroics could be the first of many from their heralded rookie on an equally daunting uphill climb back to the postseason from where they stood when the day began.
Hey, in the words of Matt Chapman, stranger things have happened.
“Whatever little reset button our position players hit when there was some frustration with what was going on on the mound was perfect,” manager Tony Vitello said. “I hope we can carry that over.”
In reality, fans should cherish Bryce Eldridge’s face-of-the-franchise moment — a raucous ending to one of the zaniest games at the corner of Third & King — because it is more likely to be an exclamation point in the middle of a paragraph than the beginning of a new chapter.
As the Eldridge era begins, the Giants sit 13 games below .500, eight out of a playoff spot. All-Star ballots are out; it’s not early anymore. Only one team in baseball history has risen from these ashes to make the playoffs: the 1914 Boston “Miracle” Braves.
Eldridge may be the franchise’s savior. But he’s not a miracle worker.
In many ways, the Giants have begun to show their true colors over the past month or so. Their lineup was never going to be as bad as its performance in April suggested. On the flip side, the relatively stress-free first month from their underinvested pitching staff was a predictable mirage.
Take, for example, their most recent win.
As Vitello said afterward, “It’s not easy to repeat as many runs as we put up in two innings,” and nobody should expect the Giants to pull off another caper like this one. (They had been 0-30 when trailing by any margin after just six innings.)
It would be easier to repeat when trailing by, say, only three runs, which is what the margin was when Robbie Ray left the game with two on and two outs in the sixth. The inherited runners became the 32nd and 33rd to score against the Giants’ bullpen this season, tied for sixth most in the majors, before the Nats proceeded to pile on five more.
As underwhelming as the Giants’ offense has been to begin the season, their fate was probably sealed this offseason when the front office failed to address the bullpen after trading Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and losing Randy Rodriguez to elbow surgery.
Since ending April with the second-best bullpen ERA in the majors, Vitello’s any-role-goes relief corps has posted a 5.35 mark that ranks third from the bottom.
That isn’t a playoff-caliber bullpen when starting from scratch, let alone when needing to close the gap the Giants face.
Still, inside the clubhouse, Giants players are adamant they are a better team than their record indicates, despite their minus-51 run differential. And that may be the case.
“I don’t think our record reflects the energy in this clubhouse and how we feel about each other and we feel about our season,” Chapman said after their 2-1 win Sunday night against the Cubs in Chicago. “We feel like there’s a lot of baseball left, and there’s a lot of good that can happen.”
Chapman, Willy Adames and Rafael Devers all have long track records and have begun to show signs of life. The lowest OPS of the bunch now, at least, starts with a seven.
Eldridge, officially, has given Vitello every reason to keep him in the lineup every day — and maybe even move him up, a possibility the manager agreed there’s “potential for.”
They could have a homegrown All-Star represent them in Philadelphia if Casey Schmitt keeps up his breakout campaign. Barry Bonds was the last Giant to reach 15 home runs as quickly.
Jung Hoo Lee and Luis Arraez are battling it out among the National League batting leaders, giving the Giants two of the top five. They are the first pair of Giants teammates with active hitting streaks of 11 games or longer since Angel Pagan and Pablo Sandoval in 2012.
As a team, believe it or not, the Giants became the first to 1,000 total bases in their win Wednesday. (The Dodgers passed them later that night.)
They had a league-low 13 home runs through their first 23 games of the season. The walk-off blast by Eldridge was their seventh grand slam in their past 23 games — their 36th homer.
So they may be capable of providing more exclamation points.
But, still, it’s unlikely this story ends in the postseason.
