It was just four games, but the Giants splitting their opening four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers was big for many reasons. That includes playoff implications, too.
FanGraphs boosted the Giants' playoff odds to 15.3 percent after San Francisco took down the Dodgers, 3-1, on Sunday. That's higher than any point last season, even when they got red-hot before the July 31 trade deadline and held on to Madison Bumgarner.
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Prior to the season beginning, FanGraphs projected the Giants to win just 25 games and gave them only a nine percent chance of making the playoffs. But MLB expanding the playoffs gave the Giants a big bump in their odds of making the postseason.
Instead of only 10 teams making the playoffs, including the wild card play-in game, there now will be 16 total teams fighting to reach the World Series.
"I think in a year like this, that's already out of the norm in many ways, I like the idea of kind of having fun with a playoff format," Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi told reporters after the news. "Having a selection show and some things that we might not have in a traditional season.
"It also creates the opportunity to try new things and have everybody go, 'That was awesome, that may be something that we keep.' "
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[RELATED: Nine observations from the Giants' four-game split in LA]
In a normal season, four games would be an extremely small sample size. The Giants were outscored 22-10, yet they have the same amount of wins as perhaps the most talented team in baseball. Yeah, this is a weird game.
Nothing is normal right now, and that includes this Giants team somehow looking for a ring once again in an even year.
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