The Giants 2015 Season: Wrestling With A Million Emotions Like A Crazy Person

Any kind of sports fandom is truly maddening. It took me a long time to acknowledge that, but damn, is it true. Despite this reality, baseball fandom is my life. Giants fandom is in my blood. It's easy to forget about the maddening part during blissful moments, but it's there, always lurking. Right now I'd describe my Giants fandom as just that: maddening.

Last night's Giants game left me with only one question: "What is baseball?" I asked this due to the fact that the Giants should not have won last night's game. The lineup made no sense whatsoever to anyone who knows a lick about baseball. It was a Nicholas Cage movie made within at least the last decade. It was ridiculous. Chris Heston threw a ton of pitches, but somehow amassed a lot of strikeouts and was effectively wild. Ehire Adrianza walked three (!?!?!?!) times. Buster Posey was not in the lineup. Angel Pagan homered. But last night made me love this stupid Giants team in what can really only be articulated as a stupid season.

I had figured that by late September, the Giants would be so far out of the division that the end of the season would be, dare I say, pleasant. At least it wouldn't be stressful, or, as previously mentioned, maddening. It wouldn't be the most dangerous possibility of all: hopeful. Here we are, with 13 games left, and the Giants are 6 back of the Dodgers in the NL West. As for the Wild Card, I wouldn't even want the Giants to get mixed up in that, because it's too good as is. Plus, the Giants are stupid behind in that race; they see the dust cloud and know that bus is never coming back. But (but!!) the NL West division remains a hail-mary long shot. I wish I could stop believing. I want nothing more than to close the door on this silly Giants season and move on. But hope will not allow me to, my fandom will not lay dormant. Here are a few reasons why the Giants might (but definitely, probably WILL NOT) tie things up in the NL West:

Exhibit A: The Dodgers have hit a speed bump lately. They lost a series to the Pirates and Kershaw lost at home. Now they are, at best, about to lose a series to the Diamondbacks. I'm pretty sure this hasn't happened all season, as the Giants are the only team in the NL West to lead a season series against the Dodgers. Granted, sometimes the Dodgers starting pitching beyond Kershaw and Greinke looks about as great as the Giants, but still. Paul Goldschmidt was a darling and decided to save his home runs for LA and not San Francisco. He is doing good work, that annoyingly amazing man. But I digress. Greinke was just listed as being scratched tonight with calf soreness. The Dodgers other starting options are not great, which means Arizona could possibly sweep. This would help.

Exhibit B: The Giants schedule is favorable, including a series against the A's. The A's could help the Giants get within 4 games of the division by the time the Dodgers come to town. That would make the Dodger series more meaningful, and possibly, at the very least, not allow the Dodgers to clinch the NL West in San Francisco. Until the Dodgers recent troubles, that was all I'd asked for.

Exhibit C: The Giants have the ability to go on an inexplicable hot streak. Yes, the Dodgers would also have to continue their struggles, but I've seen far weirder things than that. If the Giants can win a World Series without Angel Pagan and Matt Cain while having Travis Ishikawa as their left fielder, anything is possible. Hell, that's the kind of thing that makes me believe in unicorns. With all that said, it wouldn't be easy for the Giants to do this, but still, remotely possible.

I'm guessing that Dodger fans feel about the Giants how Mets fans feel about the Nationals: you know a different outcome than what's predicted is highly unlikely, but you're still worried. You're still looking over your shoulder, wondering, even if logic says otherwise. So I'm hoping against logic and predictability, because the Giants have had a stupid season, damn it. And the stupidest way of all to end it would be to win the NL West. The Giants (and hope in sports teams) are like a bag of Skittles you find under your car seat; you know they're probably bad, but you just love Skittles so much, you can't help but have some.

The Giants = Family Healing

I've been a fan of the Giants going as far back as I can remember. It's in my blood. Despite this, I came to my current rabid fandom only within the last ten years or so. I was living out of state during the horrors of the 2002 World Series, keeping up with it, but thankful that I did not have cable at the time. Everyone in my family is a Giants fan except one of my two brothers. He was never a sports guy, and if he enjoyed any sport at all, it was hockey. Certainly not baseball.

My feelings about the Giants aren't necessarily unique, but proof that sports can be healing. Championships can make the unbearable seem survivable, if only for a few weeks. My brother, the non-Giants/sports fan, died in 2009 from metastatic melanoma at 34. I was living in Los Angeles at the time of his diagnosis, and spent a lot of time driving back and forth between there and home to be with him. At that time I didn't have cable and other than the internet (I wasn't on Twitter at that point), my main source of baseball information was the sports section of the Sunday edition of the LA Times. Suffice to say, at that point, baseball was the furthest thing from my mind. The seven months between my brother's diagnosis and this death were the worst seven months of my life.  I was certain for at least an entire year that I could never feel any kind of joy again. For anything. 

While the first half of the 2010 Giants season was a bit of a blur (my life was a blur at that point), I remember the second half pretty well. If the Giants had won their first World Series title in San Francisco during 2009, I wouldn't have been able to really enjoy or appreciate it. It would've been too soon. But this was 2010, when we all needed something positive to hold onto. I can't properly explain what the Giants meant to my family in 2010, even if most of us couldn't verbalize it. When the Giants won the NL West division in September, it was the first time I'd felt alive in a long time, which had to do both with my brother's death and other things from the last few years. 

What's odd about 2010 is that what I remember most, besides the last out of the NLCS (which I got to experience with a fellow Giant fan) and the World Series, is Thanksgiving a few weeks after the World Series was over. My family had something positive to talk about, something great bringing us together. If my brother had been a Giants fan, I would've perhaps felt guilty that he wasn't there to see it. It would've been bittersweet somehow. But he wasn't a Giants fan, and yet I felt in some small way that he had something to do with the Giants finally winning a World Series in San Francisco that year. Like he was looking out for us in some weird way. I know that makes sense to no one but me, but it's the things you tell yourself when you go through something like that. It's the only way to make sense of the absurd.

We were no less confounded by the two World Series titles the Giants have won since 2010 when we got together for those Thanksgivings. We might be baffled by different players, but the song is the same. The Giants are in some way responsible for my family being able to survive the worst experience of our lives and I will be forever grateful to them for that. And flat-out bewildered. 

I Have No Idea What The Giants Should Do This Offseason (And Neither Do You)

It takes a team like the San Francisco Giants to remind you that you don't know much about a particular sport. At least you don't as far as acquisitions and trades are concerned. I have read countless articles since the World Series ended (I still can't comprehend that the Giants won it AGAIN) about what kind of offseason moves the Giants should make, will make, etc. and I can see any one of the possibilities mentioned happening; I can also need none of the possibilities happening. Writers with experience covering the Giants should know better than anyone that you simply cannot anticipate what Brian Sabean and company will do. And last year's World Series title further proves that there is no formula or pattern that works for this team.

Here are some obvious holes the Giants need to address (or have in weird ways):

Third Base: I can't even talk about Pablo Sandoval going to Boston because it's too soon. I can't even decide what to do with the garden gnome made in his likeness that's still sitting in our sunroom. Sigh. But the Giants have traded for Casey McGehee for some reason, so that's taken care of. How well it will actually work remains to be seen, but it's better than Matt Duffy/Juaqin Arias/whoever. And McGehee is a free agent after 2015, so not much harm is done. It's an even year this season though, so our new third basemen could play out in any number of ways. *shrugs*

Starting Pitching: Now that the Giants have re-signed Jake Peavy (yay!) I would think re-signing Ryan Vogelsong would be just down the road. Maybe they try to get a James Shields too? After being snubbed by Jon Lester, I don't know how good the Giants chances are of getting a decent free agent pitcher. If Matt Cain is healthy this season (that's a BIG if, obviously) and even if the Giants don't sign any other starting pitcher, the idea of a rotation with Bumgarner, Cain, Peavy, Hudson and Lincecum isn't the worst ever. But which Tim Lincecum are we going to get? That big question mark should motivate the Giants to sign at least one of other reliable starter but only Larry Baer and Brian Sabean know who that will be. Also, no one knows how well Tim Hudson will hold up in the final year of his contract (and most likely, his last year in baseball) so an added starter would help alleviate any potential problems he might have.

Left Field: Not surprisingly (though I'm still a bit bummed) Michael Morse did not re-sign with the Giants and instead went to the Marlins. I wasn't really expecting the Giants to re-sign him, but he sure made an impact in 2014, despite his injuries during most of the second half of the season. I'll miss the big fella, but the Giants do need someone to platoon with Gregor Blanco who is not just Juan Perez/Gary Brown/whoever. Yes, 2015 is an even year, so if you're going to try that silly idea out, it might as well be now…but do you NEED to? I'm still holding out hope for Ben Zobrist, though honestly I'm more into his cool name than him as a player. And much like the starting rotation being unsettled with Matt Cain coming back from injury, we won't know how the outfield will look until Angel Pagan is really back in action. Mr. Zobrist looks like the most viable candidate right now and his name has been linked to the Giants for awhile, so who knows. Just leave Andrew Susac out of it, Mr. Sabean. Please.

All that having been said, January is a dark time for fans of any baseball team. You've gotten through December, but Spring Training still feels a long way off. And, if you're like me, you feel clobbered by college sports. Sigh.