The Giants Baseball Blog

 We've had about a week to digest the rough loss to the Dodgers in the NLDS and it's about time to start shifting our focus towards the offseason. It seems like every winter we head into is a crucial one for the Giants but this one is easily the most important of the Farhan Zaidi era. Both Gabe Kapler and Zaidi spoke in a season ending press-conference on Monday at Oracle Park where they fielded questions regarding their priorities in the coming months. Before they can even delve into the free agent or trade market this winter, they have to first deal with their own impending free agents. Two of those guys are Brandon Belt and Kris Bryant, who were both talked about on Monday. In terms of Belt, it looks pretty clear that the Giants probably won't want to go too long with him, and he very well should get a bigger offer on the open market should he get there. Farhan did seem to hint that the Giants were leaning toward offering him the qualifying offer, which if accepted would

 It certainly wasn't the way you wanted to see it end, on a check swing that I think everyone, even Dodger fans, could agree that Wilmer Flores indeed checked his swing. However, as Buster Posey said postgame, "there's no good way to end it." The Giants hung with the Dodgers throughout this whole series and were a big hit or two away from taking it. They were able to come up with those big moments in the regular season to hold off and win the west, but they didn't get enough of them when it mattered the most. First off, once again, I want to mention how sick Logan Webb is. This guy came into this season just trying to crack the starting rotation and stick around. He figured it out pretty early on and was one of the best pitchers in baseball for the final four months of it. That did not slow down in the postseason, as the youngster held the Dodgers to just 1 run on 9 hits and a walk over 14 2/3 innings (with 17 punch-outs). He willingly placed his nasty sinker, his

 Both the Giants and Dodgers had historic regular seasons. They're long time heated rivals and they've never faced each other in the postseason. It's kind of storybook that their first series go the distance, and that's what we'll get Thursday night at Oracle Park.  The Giants and Dodgers will battle one more time, once and for all, to see which team really was the best in 2021 and for the right to move on to the NLCS and face the Braves. I mean, we all had to see this coming. These two teams were neck-and-neck all season long, all the way down to the wire to figure out who would win the NL West. It's been that way in this series as well, to an extent. While the Giants have played beautifully in their two victories so far, getting their timely big fly's and their tremendous pitching and defense, the Dodgers have looked straight up dominant in their wins. When they've been on, they've gotten their hits in bunches and they've kept the pressure on t

Well it certainly was a tale of two completely different games at Oracle Park to kick of the NLDS this weekend. Things couldn't have been drawn up any better in Friday's win while everything seemed to come unraveled a bit in game two. Before discussing what went wrong on Saturday, I just wanted to touch on Friday's game a bit. I think Giants fans have seen it all year long, so we weren't too surprised, but it's safe to say that Logan Webb solidified his spot as a legitimate ace with that performance. It was easily one of the best starts by a Giant in the postseason that I've seen and has been mentioned in the same sentence as guys like Tim Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner. That's pretty good company. Not only did he have great stuff, none of his pitches were straight, but most importantly he was putting the ball where he wanted to and was getting ahead of hitters. The Giants essentially did what they'd done all year to get them here on Friday. They got the

If you watched how this season transpired you knew it was only right if the Giants and Dodgers faced each other in the postseason. The teams with the two best records in baseball, that battled for their division neck and neck all year long, will get to truly see who the best in the west is. Of course both teams will enter the series without their first basemen, both of which were anchors in their lineup. The Giants lost Brandon Belt in the last week of the season to a broken finger and the Dodgers lost their all-star first basemen, Max Muncy on the very last day of the season. However, both these teams won over 100 games this season, and both have the talent to overcome the losses, so there will be no excuses. The Giants announced Wednesday that Logan Webb will get the ball in game one, and the Dodgers will counter with their young stud, Walker Buehler. In game two the Giants will hand the ball to Kevin Gausman, and that had to be a tough decision for Kapler and the staff. On one hand,

If I were to briefly sum up the Giants strengths throughout this incredible season, I'd say the Giants utilized the home run ball and their terrific pitching to cruise to 107 regular season victories. In the final game of the season with the division on the line, they got both of those things. Logan Webb, perhaps the most important man on that pitching staff moving forward, really had himself a day to finish off his terrific season. The 24 year-old righty pitched into the 8th inning, allowing just two runs (although he was charged with an additional 2 after leaving the game) to a very potent Padres offense. He punched out 8 and perhaps most impressively, didn't surrender a free pass all day long. He also helped himself out and really put the game out of reach with a 2-run big fly in the 5th inning. Webb has been putting forth performances like this one every since he really turned the corner back in May and he hasn't looked back. With the clutch outing Sunday, Webb caps off

The good news, no matter what happens tomorrow, the Giants will be participating in playoff baseball next week. However, whether that's needing to go through the Cardinals in a Wild Card game, or heading right into the division series will be decided on Sunday. The Giants held their destination in their hands Saturday and it looked like things were going to go their way with Kevin Gausman turning in one of his vintage performances and mowing down the Padres. Unfortunately though, the Giants just couldn't get enough offense going vs. Joe Musgrove and company and wound up on the short end of a 3-2 nail-biter. Of course, a Dodger loss at any point over the next couple of days would seal the Giants' fate as the NL West champs but the Dodgers are comfortably leading Milwaukee on Saturday night. They also have their best young arm, Walker Buehler, going Sunday so they have to feel confident about their chances. The Giants will be throwing a young potential ace of their own though