Fresh off home series win over LA Dodgers, SF Giants face major road challenge
SAN FRANCISCO – After a winning homestand, which included taking two of three from the Dodgers over the weekend, the Giants will now aim to carry the moment on the road.
It won’t be easy.
Whether or not they make big roster moves at the trade deadline this month could heavily depend on how they perform starting Tuesday at Atlanta.
The Giants will play three against the Braves followed by three in Cleveland against the Guardians next weekend.
The road has been a major hurdle for the Giants, who are 16-25 away from their waterfront ballpark, where they are 25-19.
The Braves have won seven of their past 10 in Atlanta, and the Guardians have the best home record in the majors at 26-9.
On their most recent trip out of San Francisco, the Giants lost five of six in Chicago, Birmingham, Alabama, and St. Louis – a brutal stretch made worse by the death of franchise icon Willie Mays.
But they got well at home.
Playing in honor of Mays and later Orlando Cepeda, another franchise icon who died on Friday, the Giants found their form. They went 5-2 against the Cubs and Dodgers.
The Giants pummeled the rival Dodgers 10-4 in the final game behind a San Francisco record 10 doubles, enjoying a quality start from surprise starter Spencer Bivens and winning a series against Los Angeles for the first time since 2022.
In other words, a brutal road trip was followed up by a winning homestead.
It’s a sentence that the Giants are all too familiar with, and a trend 41-44 San Francisco will try to snap when it travels East this week.
First up are the always-competitive Braves.
Perennial NL East champion Atlanta isn’t quite the home run mashing juggernaut it was during last season’s 104-win campaign, but the Braves – sans reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña (torn ACL) – are still a respectable 46-36.
Highly-touted prospect Hayden Birdsong will make his second start for the Giants to open the series. The 22-year-old went 4 ⅔ innings in his debut against the Cubs, allowing three earned runs and striking out five.
After the right-handed Birdsong (0-0, 5.79), Jordan Hicks (4-4, 3.36) and Logan Webb (6-6, 3.12) are expected to start the other two games against the Braves.
If there’s one Giants hitter who should be comfortable at Truist Park, it is Jorge Soler, who captured the 2021 World Series MVP for the Braves after hitting three home runs against the Astros.
As one of the team’s big offseason additions, it has taken Soler a while to become acclimated to the West Coast, where he is one of the few players who is better away from home (.242/.331/.435/.766 with six HRs) than at Oracle (219/.292/.365/.657 with six homers.)
Soler’s bat has been heating up, though. He went 5 for 14 with four doubles and two RBIs in the three-game series against the Dodgers.
Things don’t get any easier for the Giants when they travel to AL Central-leading Cleveland, which is 52-30 and leads the American League with a .634 winning percentage.
Fremont native Steven Kwan will test San Francisco’s spotty pitching, the Washington High alum leading MLB with a .368 batting average. He produces both at home (.378) and away from it (.362), something that cannot be said for the visiting Giants.
By McCovey Cove, the team has looked like the playoff contender it was expected to be after signing several high-profile free agents. Only three teams in the National League have more victories at home.
But on the road, the Giants have stumbled, with only the bottom-feeding Marlins and cellar-dwelling Rockies earning fewer victories away from home.
The batting splits at Oracle (.254/.316/.390) and away from the Bay Area (.241/.318/.391) are negligible aside from batting average. The Giants have also scored just 12 more runs in three additional games.
So it’s clear that the gulf in quality between pitching on the road and away has been the biggest culprit. Inside pitcher-friendly Oracle, the Giants have a 3.94 ERA. That figure balloons to 5.15 on the road.
Solving that issue will go a long way to getting the Giants up the competitive NL West standings, where they currently sit fourth.
“We have to start winning series,” manager Bob Melvin said after Sunday’s game. “We’ve got to roll some games together leading up to the break. This was a good start in what is a tough stretch right now.”