As lumber slumbers, SF Giants thriving on pitching and defense

The San Francisco Giants' bats are ice cold. The Giants have been in a major offensive funk for over a month, but they've managed to do better than stay afloat. Perhaps no game represented how things have gone than Thursday's 1-0 win over the D-backs. The SF Giants got only one run and three baserunners, but they managed to win anyway. And once again, the Giants employed an unorthodox pitching strategy to do so. Scott Alexander got the "start" by going one inning, then Tristan Beck, who's been excellent, pitched four innings of "relief." The Giants rank second in MLB in ERA since May 1 despite having only two consistent traditional starting pitchers in Logan Webb and Alex Cobb.

Defense has also been key to the Giants' success this season, as they currently boast the third-best record in the National League. Last year, defense absolutely sunk the San Francisco Giants' season. This year, they've been one of the best teams in baseball by metrics like Statcast Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved. J.D. Davis, Thairo Estrada, Brandon Crawford, Patrick Bailey, and others have been very positive contributors as the Giants' defense has helped them win a lot of games.

Finally, an old ESPN article from the offseason is revisited. The article declared which teams were winners and losers of the offseason. The winners were the New York Mets and San Diego Padres, with both teams checking in as arguably the two biggest disappointments through more than 100 games this year. The biggest losers were the Giants, the Red Sox, and the Dodgers. The Giants and Dodgers are two of the three best teams in the NL so far, and the Red Sox are also over .500 and in solid position. It just goes to show that baseball, as always, continues to be extremely difficult to predict.

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The best daily San Francisco Giants podcast. Whether the Giants are winning championships or retooling for another title run, Locked On Giants host Ben Kaspick—a lifelong Giants fan and former contributor for RotoGraphs and Beyond the Box Score—breaks down every game, rumor, and transaction in a way that's data-driven and rational but also simple, passionate, and accessible to all.

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