Marty: There is a story in today’s morning paper by one of the paper’s major sports writers concerning the Giants. It analyzes the club’s personnel and makes all the talent, or lack of talent, assessments that could have been made before the season started. It’s conclusion is that the team could “still make the post season as a wild card but the run won’t go as smoothly as in that giddy first month”. Nothing of great consequence respecting personnel has changed since the first day of the season except the injury to Ainsworth and emergence of Williams. A more interesting story would have revolved around the question, why do the Giants win, particularly if one had a reasonable answer to give.

Let me try to answer, what Glenn Dickey in the SF Chronicle couldn’t, in my analysis of the Giants.

Click below for more!To put the question in context, let’s look at the won-lost records of teams in both leagues. This morning Seattle’s record was 54 and 29, three games better than the Giants record of 51 and 32. The only other teams in either league with a better record than the Giants were the Yankees and Atlanta, perennial winners, and only a game and a half and a game,respectively, better than the Giants. The columnist emphasizes the Giants “giddy first month” but it is a truism that games won in April count as mucn as games won in September and October. It is more realistic to examine the team’s performance over the entire first half of the year. This is particularly true when one observes what the team has done this past month, facing the A’s, LA, and St.Louis. The Giants have more than held their own, even assuming that they are going to lose today, with a ridiculous lineup facing the Cards in order to rest a couple of aging players. The last three days of Cardinal opposition epitomizes the puzzle that defines this club. They have permitted the Cardinals one run in each of these games, winning them all. In these games they have started the best pitcher in the league, Schmidt, in one game, a 21 year old with a handful of major league starts im another and a pitcher who hasn’t been a starter in years and was pulled out of his spot as the long reliever in the bullpen. The Cards, by the way, are, by far, the best hitting team in the league. Let’s go back to last year when the Giants came about as close to winning the World Series as a team could, without winning it. There were unanswered questions at the end of last year respecting how the team went so far with their roster. At the start of this season the Giants had lost Kent, a major run producing force, and Ortiz, a strong pitcher who could be counted on in important games– witness the Series. In their place they produced Alfonzo, supposedly to pick up the slack Kent left behind and Moss, received in the trade for Ortiz. Alfonzo was signed for many dollars over four years and Moss was installed as the third pitcher in the rotation. Alfonzo, as could have been predicted, is about as far and away from being Kent as Moss is from being Ortiz. Jensen, the fifth starter last year, was quickly, and appropriately, sent to Fresno and Foppert placed in his spot in the rotation. Ainsworth, after a strong early start, gets hurt and is out for the year. Williams takes his place. Cruz was picked up before the season started, is put in right field and, after a good first month, has stopped hitting, and, particularly with men in scoring position, has trouble buying a hit. Aurilia is the same shortstop with limited range, and an inability to hit in run scoring situations. Bonds and Santiago are a year older. They have no reserve outfielders with any ability to play at a major league level. This team doesn’t look as good as last year’s and last years was seen by many as an aberration. Therefore, the question: Why is this team a winner? A winner it has certainly been to this point in the season. One can throw a blanket over the records of the Yankees, Braves and Giants, leaving none uncovered. That is pretty heady company the Giants are keeping. Are the Giants going to get in the playoffs only as a wild card, as was suggested this morning? No, they will win the division, if past performance is any measure. They have been tested already by LA. Twice LA has made a move and drawn even with them. Twice the Giants have beaten them, face to face, and then, for the next week or two, pulled away from them. It is LA which doesn’t have the heart for the fight. not the Giants. LA has fallen behind, again, some five games. They have seven games left to play with each other the last ten days of the season. By that time the Giants will probably have to take no more than one or two games in the series to clinch it. Arizona is a different story. They have come up with some good looking young players recently and have been winning without Johnson and Schilling. The latest word on Johnson is that his knee is still bothering him and he may not be back as soon as predicted. Without him, it is difficult to see them making a serious run at the Giants. All of the above having been said, the question, why do the Giants win, has not been answered. I have tried, over the season to date, to answer the question. Not successfully, I am afraid. There must be an answer because they do win. One factor does stick out. That’s Barry. He may not be having quite the years he had recently, but, then, nobody else is either. He’s having a good enough year to be a major concern to every team facing them. Every manager is thinking ahead, trying to anticipate what has to be done to lessen Bond’s apparently inevitable impact on the game they are playing. It is difficult to evaluate the benefit this gives the Giants but it appears to the not so casual observer that it is a meaningful advantage. And then, there is the actual fact that Bonds is someone the other teams do not want to face in clutch situations. It must seem to them that every time there is a game deciding situation Bonds is either getting up or you have to be worrying about the fact that in a couple batters away you will be having to face him. Aside from Barry, they have a pitcher who has turned into one of the few really dominating pitching forces in the game, much as Johnson has been in the past. It is comforting to know that there is a strong likelihood of winning every fifth game you play irrespective of the opposition. In addition to Bonds, this team has players who rise to the occasion, players who have been around and who know what it takes to win. It is difficult to put one’s finger on it but take Snow, for example. This is not a great player. He will never go to the Hall of Fame. He doesn’t hit the way a first baseman should, particularly, as he gets older, the occasional long balls get farther apart. He is still the best fielding first baseman in the game and that is worth more than appears on the surface.He had a great World Series. Durham is the best leadoff man the team has had since Butler. Santiago is playing better than any 39 year old should be playing and provides tremendous support to the pitching staff. Williams may be that unusual picher, one who at an early age, knows the art of pitching and is capable of dominating hitters. There are a few of them, coming up at rare intervals, the Fellers and Marichals, who don’t seem to need seasoning. But when one comes right down to it, the answer is still elusive. All one knows is that the team wins. Usually, when a team is a big winner one can point to four or five position players, a number of very strong pitchers, both starting and relieving. One can search up and down this roster and, after coming up with Bonds and Schmidt, there isn’t another All Star player on it. The manager helps but managers don’t win without the right players, no matter how great the manger may be. By the end of this season, if they continue to be successful, perhaps the answer will be self evident. Williams and Foppert may turn out to be fifteen game winners. Jeff Hammonds, just signed by the Giants, may be healthy. If so he may be a catalyst. He has always had the potential to be a force in a lineup. He can play any outfield position well. He can hit. He can fit in on a winning team. This may be a good move by Sabean. Sabean may pick up a closer and enable Worrell to be a setup man again. On the other hand, none of these things may occur. Will the Giants still be a winning team? I believe so. Just don’t ask me why.