For a team that identifies as fighters, the Giants don't appear capable of throwing a punch right now.
San Francisco has lost not one, not two, but three straight games to the lowly -- or so we thought -- Colorado Rockies at Coors Field after losing both games of Saturday's split doubleheader. Simply put, the way this series has gone, in the context of where the Giants are in the NL wild-card race and what they needed to do, is nothing short of a disaster.
It doesn't matter what happens in the series finale on Sunday -- the Giants flat out blew a golden opportunity to beat up on one of MLB's worst teams. Playoff teams don't allow that to happen. The Giants, for the moment, look like the furthest thing from a playoff team.
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But in manager Gabe Kapler's eyes, the Giants are fighters and -- for the umpteenth time this season -- will need to get back up after being knocked down.
"It was not our best baseball over the course of the last three days," Kapler told reporters postgame. "The timing is not good to not be playing good baseball three games in a row like that. We're a tough bunch, and I think the thing we need to consider right now is how many times we're able to get back off the mat. After getting knocked down, you keep fighting, right? Because there's still plenty of time left and there's still an opportunity to make a real impact in this race and come out on top. So you got to keep fighting."
At some point, it's fair to wonder just how many hits one team can take. If there's a number, whatever it might be, the Giants have just about reached it.
While the Giants still are in the thick of the wild-card race and are nowhere near being eliminated from playoff contention, they've proven that their ceiling as a team probably is not much higher than the .500 record they have flirted with for the past month.
San Francisco Giants
With 13 regular-season games remaining, San Francisco will need to win most of them in order to have a chance of sneaking its way into the playoffs. With two games left against the playoff-hopeful Arizona Diamondbacks, seven against the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers and three against the disappointing, yet star-studded, San Diego Padres, that certainly feels like too daunting of a task.
The Giants take pride in playing meaningful September baseball, and it's clear they will be in contention probably until the final series of the season -- as they were in 2022 and in 2020 with an anomaly 107-win 2021 season sandwiched in between.
As the Giants' playoff mettle continues to be tested each and every time they are punched in the gut, it's fair to assume that at some point, probably soon, a mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted ball club won't get back up off the proverbial mat.