Sour cherries š
Rockies 7, Giants 6
Eighty-nine games in, Iām picking cherries.
If I handed you these morsels on March 6, Iād love to know where you think the Giants would be standing on July 6:
ā¢ Rafael Devers and Casey Schmitt are both on pace for 30+ home runs.
ā¢ Luis Arraez and Logan Webb are All Stars.
ā¢ Jung Hoo Leeās batting .315, and Bryce Eldridge has an .841 OPS.
ā¢ The Giants have the sixth best attendance in baseball, up more than 1,000 fans per game from last year.
The story of the season cannot be told through cherry-picked nuggets like these. But jeez, if I handed you these cherries, I think youād be thinking 52-37ānot 37-52.
The cherries are good. The tree is rotten.
Up next: The defending AL champs are coming to San Francisco, and an old friend is taking the hill Monday night. Itāll be Landen Roupp (5-8, 4.55 ERA) against Kevin Gausman (4-7, 4.19 ERA), who represents an interesting What If? for the Giants in this mediocre decade.
Gausman was excellent in 2021 and reportedly wanted to come back. Fresh off 107 wins, the team let him go to Toronto on a five-year deal. Gausman has a 3.57 ERA in that time, which the Giants would, um, take.
Larry āNiners Football is my Lifeā Kruegerās recent concerns about SFās reputation as a free agent destination makes me wonder if thatās a bad thing given that the teamās track record with free agents has generally been south of awful. Gausman would have been one of the better signings, but no.
And speaking of picking cherries, hereās one I plucked over the weekend: after another less-than-scintillating outing, Ryan Walkerās ERA stands at 6.66.
Write that on a baseball cap.
The lord works in mysterious ways!