The San Francisco Giants were projected to come in last place in the NL West with a 25-35 record and a 9% chance of making the playoffs in the shortened 60-game season. 

Giants fans were spoiled the past decade as they got to see the team win three World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014 and form a dynasty in San Francisco.

Times have changed. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2016 and have been one of the worst teams in baseball since 2017. 

With their beloved manager Bruce Bochy retiring at the end of last season and losing fan favorite Madison Bumgarner to free agency in 2020, Giants fans were prepared to endure the brutal growing pains of a young staff and a new manager in Gabe Kapler. On top of that, San Francisco also lost superstar catcher Buster Posey when he opted out of the season after adopting twin girls in early July. 

The Giants faithful are ecstatic that a playoff run isn’t out of the picture in 2020. 

The Giants are battling with a 23-24 record and have a chance at making a postseason run. They currently hold onto the eighth seed Wild Card spot in the National League by 1.5 games in front of divisional rivals Colorado Rockies.

The Giants offense has been the epicenter of their success thus far in 2020. After finishing 27th in overall team batting average last season with a .239 average the Giants are fourth overall in 2020 with a .266 average. They are also sixth in runs scored (236) and fifth in hits (421). 

They scored a whopping 23 runs against the Rockies in early September where Alex Dickerson, who recently had a false positive COVID-19 test result scare, hit three home runs and batted in six runs. 

Mike Yastremzki has been a monster at the plate this year as the batting lead off most games. He’s sporting a .287/.392/.557 triple slash line with a .950 OPS and is the biggest reason the Giants are in a playoff spot. 

Pitching, however, hasn’t been a strong suit for the Giants in 2020. They are 20th overall in MLB with a 4.80 ERA and have looked horrendous on the field. They have made 35 errors so far in 2020, good enough for third most by any team and have a .979 fielding percentage landing them 29th in all of baseball. Not pretty. 

They got swept in the middle of August in a weekend series with Bay Area rivals Oakland Athletics where their bullpen blew back-to-back crucial games in the ninth. 

Trevor Gott gave up five runs, including a game tying grand slam belted by Bay Area native Stephen Piscotty, to lose 8-7. The next day the Giants choked again with Gott giving up four runs in the ninth to lose 7-6. The A’s bats stayed hot that Sunday, scoring 15 runs to close out the series and complete the sweep.

Although their pitching and defense has been bad, San Francisco has had a brutally tough schedule. They have faced the Dodgers, Astros, A’s, Rockies and Padres all of which are playoff contenders. The only teams they have faced with a record below .500 are the Angels, Mariners and Rangers. 

Their offense can carry them to the playoffs. 

With veterans Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria finally waking up after a cold start to the season the Giants can do damage going into the postseason if those guys can stay hot. 

Donovan Solano has also been a surprise stud at the plate this season having an outstanding .349/.388/.523 triple slash line in 149 at bats. He even had the longest hitting streak in baseball, hitting safely in 17 consecutive games.

The Giants pitching staff needs to step up and take some pressure off their offense to make a deep run in 2020. 

With just 12 games left in the regular season, the Giants can smell a playoff run brewing and are ready to get to work going into October. 

Nick Despotakis can be reached at orionmanagingeditor.com or @nick__despo on Twitter.