In ordinary times, we’d be looking for the San Francisco Giants to regroup after a tough road series in New York by facing a tough, yet more familiar opponent in the Philadelphia Phillies.
But these are not ordinary times.
For the first time ever, the Giants won a series in the Bronx. Indeed, they seemed to have the concept of divinity on their side as they took two out of three from the Bronx Bombers and were competitive even in the loss. Will the Yankees be good this year? You have to figure they will be since they usually are and were just in the World Series last year, so it was a nice measure of where the Giants are at, talent-wise. Now, they go to Philadelphia for a four-game set facing another team they’d like to measure themselves against.
Last decade, the San Francisco Giants ascended to champion status by stepping on the face of the Philadelphia Phillies who were at the tale end of a successful run from the prior decade. The Phillies would win 102 games the following season after The Cody Ross Series, but after that, the Phillies took the rest of the 2010s to rebuild. From 2012 to 2020, they were 616-740. They’ve started to come out of the rebuild here in the post-lockdown years, their 363-300 record 7th-best in MLB. Last year, they won 95 games, their most since that 102-win season in 2011 and yet the vibes are that their window is already closing.
Meanwhile, though the 107-win season really skews things, the Giants are still basically 8 years removed from being a cohesive, consistent competitor. This early season roll they’re on has made it difficult not to hope for that cohesion. Would that mean that these are two franchises passing like ships in the night? Or, do the Phillies still have plenty of juice?
Yes, absolutely. The vibes that developed from last year’s NLDS exit is because Phillies fans are like me, expecting the worst but always one good bit of news away from unbridled joy. They are miserable unless the Phillies win. I appreciate that very much. But misery over losing is not the same abject horror as a bad roster, and the Phillies are far from bad.
While it’s true that their rotation and lineup are on the older side (both average 30+ years old), they have a nice mix of veteran and young players. One one side: a quartet of 32-year olds in Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Max Kepler, Kyle Schwarber, and then 33-year old Nick Castellanos and 34-year old J.T. Realmuto and on the other side, Bryson Stott (27), Alec Bohm (28), Brandon Marsh (27) and an under 30s bench. Their pitching staff, admittedly, isn’t quite so diverse, with the only sub-30 players being lefties Jesus Luzardo & Cristopher Sanchez in the rotation and Orion Kerkerking & Carlos Hernandez in the bullpen. They have a potential ace in the minors, 22-year old Andrew Painter, who could join the staff soon.
But sometimes average age isn’t everything. Sometimes, two of your 30-somethings are players on a Hall of Fame track. The Phillies have Bryce Harper on the hitting side and Zack Wheeler as their ace. They’re an All-Star team built for an All-Star team division.
The Giants can’t really boast the same in terms of the roster and that’s a separator in terms of the quality of both teams as we approach the postseason. But the gap between them might be narrowing and the NL West might be as tough as the NL East this season. It’s not the end of an era for the Phillies, but this series might be another key to unlocking whether or not it’s the start of a new one for the Giants.
Series overview
Who: San Francisco Giants at Philadelphia Phillies
Where: Citizens Bank Park | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
When: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (3:45pm PT); Thursday (1:05pm PT)
National broadcasts: None
Projected starters
Monday: Landen Roupp (RHP 0-1, 3.60 ERA) vs. Taijuan Walker (RHP 1-0, 0.00 ERA)
Tuesday: Justin Verlander (RHP 0-0, 6.92 ERA) vs. Jesús Luzardo (LHP 2-0, 1.50 ERA)
Wednesday: Robbie Ray (LHP 3-0, 2.93 ERA) vs. Aaron Nola (RHP 0-3, 5.51 ERA)
Thursday: Jordan Hicks (RHP 1-1, 5.87 ERA) vs. Cristopher Sánchez (LHP 1-0, 3.12 ERA)
Where they stand
Giants, 11-4 (2nd in NL West), 75 RS / 52 RA | Last 10: 7-3
Phillies, 9-6 (2nd in NL East), 60 RS / 53 RA | Last 10: 5-5
Phillies to watch
Besides Bryce Harper — obviously…
Nick Castellanos: As the American Experiment winds down, we can only hope that a Castellanos home run either 1) doesn’t occur or 2) accompany major news. Then again, the second game of the series takes place on the IRS filing deadline — so, who knows? And the other problem is that he, like so many of the Phillies, has been a pain in the Giants’ side for his entire career. In 33 games (134 PA) he’s slashing .310/.336/.476 with 5 home runs. His poor defense is usually a mitigating factor that neutralizes his overall value, and maybe his glove can actually help the Giants out — but that bat seems primed to hurt them.
Kyle Schwarber: Just… come on, dude. Stop. Stoooooooooopppppppp hitting home runs off the Giants. Please! It’s not fair! He has 17 home runs in 45 games against them, slashing .253/.370/.617. He also has 39 walks against 46 strikeouts. Okay, expect at least 1 dinger.
Jose Alvarado: The Phillies’ left-handed closer is throwing such a severe curveball that The Good Phight (SB Nation’s Phillies site) thinks it should be a screwball. In any case, it’s a tough pitch.
Giants to watch
Jung Hoo Lee: I suppose in my Giants-Yankees Series Preview I should have put Jung Hoo Lee as a player to watch, but I didn’t and so here we are. He was the biggest wild card heading into the season, and as much as the pitching and defense will matter a lot in terms of the team breaching the 81-win barrier, Jung Hoo Lee is, too, I think. There’s nobody else like him in the lineup and few in the sport with his swing type. We saw what he did in Yankee Stadium, which is favorable to left-handed hitters, but now we get to watch him across four games hit in the fifth-best park for left handed batters in MLB.
Erik Miller: There are five left-handed hitters in the Phillies’ lineup and they’re varying degrees of tough: Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are bona fide Giants Killers, while Bryson Stott has a little bit of a reverse platoon split in terms of OBP (.328 vs LHP, .311 vs RHP). The other two, Brandon Marsh and Max Kepler, have been dreadful against lefties for their careers and would, theoretically, give way to pinch hitters who are great against lefties. As the Giants’ sole left-handed reliever and this being a four-game series, his usage and effectiveness could swing at least one game in this series and the overall lefty-righty situation is something to watch.
LaMonte Wade Jr.: His bat speed is down to 69 mph, which is not nice. He didn’t really fill up a box score against the Yankees (1 hit in 7 PA) and he’s probably only going to get a couple of starts in this series with a pair of lefties going for the Phillies in the four games. Just something to keep an eye on here.
Prediction time
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