Yes, you read that title correctly.
The San Francisco Giants are having a miracle season.
And no, the idea that 2011 has been a miracle season is not a delusion-generated confusion with 2010 following the utterly inept display of offensive futility from the defending champs over the past several weeks. The fact is, the Giants shouldn’t be eight games over .500 right now.
Why?
Because Friday night against the worst team in all of baseball, a team with a majority of its lineup made up of very recent minor league call-ups, the Giants were shut-out 6-0.
It was the second consecutive shutout loss for San Francisco, whose lineup was missing Andres Torres, Jeff Keppinger, Pablo Sandoval, Carlos Beltran, Orlando Cabrera, and Eli Whiteside. That’s six out of eight position players that would be starting for the defending champions under normal circumstances.
But alas, circumstances are far from normal. All of the above-mentioned players are either on the disabled list, or were out of action due to tightness, soreness, bruises, or muscle pulls of one kind or another.
The Giants are last in the National League in runs scored and on-base percentage, and second-to-last in batting average. Their now famous pitching staff, which has certainly been stellar in other areas, has nonetheless issued the second-most walks in the NL.
As of now, they publicly have no fifth starter in mid-August.
Their infamously-bearded closer’s ERA this month is 7.36. They’ve lost 15 of their last 21 games. And somehow, despite all of that, the San Francisco Giants are 2.5 games behind the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks with 36 games remaining in the regular season, including six head-to-head contests with the Snakes.
That sounds like a miracle.
And for the Giants, with all of the obstacles and adversity that have hampered them along their journey in defense of the World Series title, it will now take some semblance of a miracle for them to win their second consecutive championship.
But miracles seem to be following this band of misfits around.
With all that’s happened with this club since Opening Day 2010, now would not be the time to lose faith in the miraculous.
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