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The Arizona Diamondbacks fired manager Chip Hale and general manager Dave Stewart on Monday after the team failed to reach expectations following an offseason of high-profile moves. 

Fox Sports Arizona’s Jody Jackson shared a statement from the Diamondbacks:

ESPN.com’s Dan Szymborski thought Stewart deserved more blame for Arizona’s disappointing 69-93 record:

Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra wrote more changes are needed in order for the Diamondbacks to turn things around:

Hale is a victim of circumstance more than anything else. He took over the Diamondbacks ahead of the 2015 season and led them to a 15-win improvement during his first year in charge, which gave the organization hope of contending this season.

In turn, the Arizona front office made a couple of blockbuster moves. It signed prized free-agent starting pitcher Zack Greinke to a monster long-term contract (six years, $206.5 million) and acquired fellow starter Shelby Miller from the Atlanta Braves as part of a trade in which it gave up 2015 first overall pick Dansby Swanson.

The Miller trade by itself was a fireable offense. In 38 games with the Braves this past season, Swanson batted .302 with three home runs and 17 RBI. The 22-year-old looks like a franchise cornerstone for Atlanta. 

Miller, meanwhile, was demoted to the minors in the middle of the year because he was badly struggling. He finished the year 3-12 in 20 starts with a 6.15 ERA.

The arrivals of Greinke and Miller, paired with some minor roster tweaking, considerably raised expectations heading into this season. As it became clear the D-Backs weren’t going to compete for a playoff berth, frustration began to mount in the desert.

One could sense the letdown in comments from Hale passed along by Michael Wagaman of the Associated Press after the team traded closer Brad Ziegler to the Boston Red Sox in July.

“I don’t [have] really any words to say about it, it’s just something that has to happen,” he said. “It’s partially [because] we haven’t played well enough to keep him. We should have played better and these things wouldn’t be happening.”

Ultimately, somebody had to take the fall for Arizona’s failure to contend, and ownership identified Hale and Stewart.

It’s difficult to pin most of the blame on Hale. Greinke (13-7, 4.37 ERA) didn’t pitch like an ace and spent time on the disabled list after suffering an oblique injury, and Miller was downright terrible. Meanwhile, losing outfielder A.J. Pollock to a broken elbow for most of the year was a huge blow to the offense.

Stewart, on the other hand, was the engineer of his own demise, and his replacement will have a difficult time undoing the damage he did to the roster.

The Diamondbacks couldn’t stand pat given the hype they entered the season with, so a complete overhaul is necessary this offseason.

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Colorado Rockies manager Walt Weiss has resigned, the team announced Monday.

Weiss, 52, just completed the final year of a three-year contract. 

The Rockies have gone 283-365 in Weiss’ four years as manager, failing to reach the postseason during his tenure. The team went 75-87 this past season.

His disappointing record may have been enough for the Rockies to decide a change was needed. But as Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post reported Sunday, the manager’s relationship with general manager Jeff Bridich had also become strained:

A significant gulf has developed between Weiss and Bridich, according to multiple sources within the organization, some of whom said Weiss has been been left out of the loop regarding major decisions dating to the offseason — when he was not consulted about the acquisitions of relievers Jason Motte, Chad Qualls and Jake McGee or outfielder Gerardo Parra, all of whom have had disappointing seasons this year.

That relationship made Weiss’ decision to resign more predictable, as did his comments when asked if he was bothered about managing this past season without a contract extension in place.

“It doesn’t necessarily bug me,” he said, per Saunders. “I only want to be where I’m wanted. If I’m not wanted, I just leave. It’s one of my rules in life. I don’t stay anywhere where I’m not wanted. I just go, I just disappear. … I want to make sure that people want me, from top to bottom. If not, I don’t want to be here.”

Weiss told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports that he spoke with Rockies owner Dick Monfort about the relationship with Bridich, adding that it “wasn’t healthy, wasn’t productive.” Weiss said he talked about “possible compromises” before stepping down.

With the four losing seasons under Weiss, the Rockies have now had six straight losing campaigns. But the team has plenty of talent, namely offensively, led by Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu, Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story and Carlos Gonzalez. There is reason for optimism in Colorado, though it will be a new manager’s job to harness the team’s potential next season.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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The San Francisco Giants are headed back to the postseason for the first time since 2014, clinching the final National League wild-card spot Sunday thanks to a 7-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on the last day of the regular season.

MLB shared the news on Twitter:

Dating back to 2010, the Giants have won the World Series every other year, and Sunday’s victory kept the streak alive at least for another few days.

The Giants’ Twitter account was well aware of the team’s recent success:

Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports believes in San Francisco’s ability in the playoffs:

The Giants will play the New York Mets at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon for an opportunity to advance to the National League Division Series for a meeting with the juggernaut Chicago Cubs.

Wayne Randazzo of WOR 710 discussed the pitching matchup for the Wild Card Game battle:

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com provided an interesting note on the regular season’s final game:

Veteran pitcher Jake Peavy addressed the home crowd after the win, as the Giants shared on Twitter:

Meanwhile, the real celebration took place a short time later in the locker room:

The Giants, who have won three World Series titles in the past six years, were coming off a disappointing 2015 campaign in which they missed the playoffs with an 84-78 record. They overhauled their starting rotation, bringing in new signings Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to support ace Madison Bumgarner, which immediately made them a more threatening team.

Behind their impressive pitching staff, the Giants were the class of the National League for the first half of the season. Through July 10, San Francisco was 57-33, the best record in the big leagues, and was 6.5 games up on the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League West. 

But after the All-Star break, things fell apart, and the Giants went 11-25 over the next month and a half, squandering the division lead to the Dodgers for good.

Los Angeles clinched the division for the fourth straight season Sept. 25, forcing the Giants to fight for their postseason lives in the wild-card race with the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. 

The Giants and Mets tied for the top spot, although New York will be at home Wednesday thanks to its 4-3 advantage during the regular season. The Cardinals ended up one game out of the playoffs.

Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area noted the Giants are streaking at the right time:

When the Giants defeated the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 World Series, they were an 88-win wild-card team that had gotten hot at the right time.

However, playing the Mets, who rely on home runs, the Giants might not have the power to keep up. San Francisco didn’t have one player record 20 or more home runs this year.

If they get past the Mets in the Wild Card Game, the Giants will have to rely on their pitching and the winning experience of Bumgarner and Cueto to limit the high-powered offensive lineups of other National League contenders in the postseason.

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Throughout most of the second half, the San Francisco Giants have been cursed by black magic rather than blessed by the strange magic that led them to World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

But if Saturday is any indication, they may finally have a handle on that strange magic once again.

Once the St. Louis Cardinals dispatched the Pittsburgh Pirates earlier Saturday afternoon, the Giants knew they needed a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers to keep their one-game lead for the National League‘s second wild card spot. With Clayton Kershaw opposing Ty Blach in just the second start of his major league career, the odds scoffed and said, “Yeah, right.”

Cue the Giants coasting to a relatively easy 3-0 victory, much to the delight of the 40,000 or so fans packed into AT&T Park.

The Giants didn’t put a hurting on Kershaw. Angel Pagan sure did when he opened the scoring by taking the three-time Cy Young winner over the wall in left in the fifth inning. But that was one of only two earned runs the Giants netted off Kershaw in his seven innings. 

The other came in the seventh when Pagan scored from first base after Justin Turner picked up an infield dribbler by Brandon Crawford and chucked it up the right field line. Crawford landed on third base as a result of that and came home on a sacrifice fly by the newly acquired Gordon Beckham.

If this sequence sounds oddly familiar, that’s because it’s a sequence that’s just so very Giants.

Whether it’s Hunter Pence hitting a bases-clearing double on a broken bat or having a sacrifice bunt turned into a walk-off, weird runs just seem to happen for the Giants whenever the pressure is at its highest. Some of that is them being really good at putting the ball in play, thereby frequently finding themselves in spots where anything can happen. Otherwise, it’s just…well, strange magic.

Whatever the case, another staple of the Giants’ even-year runs is them getting unlikely boosts from unheralded young players. Blach became the latest to abide by that tradition on Saturday.

Although Kershaw didn’t pitch poorly in Saturday’s contest, there’s no denying he got out-pitched by the Giants’ rookie left-hander. Blach logged eight shutout innings, allowing only three hits and a walk with six strikeouts.

“We just couldn’t figure him out,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said afterward, via MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick and Chris Haft.

No kidding. Blach gave the Dodgers pitches to hit, throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of 27 batters and, as Brooks Baseball shows, rarely going outside the strike zone in general in throwing 67 of his 99 pitches for strikes. But he was deceptive from start to finish, working all sides of the zone with his four-seamer and sinker and getting hitters off-balance with his changeup and slider.

Like Crawford, Joe Panik and Matt Duffy before him, Blach didn’t arrive in the San Francisco spotlight by way of the upper crust of Major League Baseball prospects. Baseball America had the 25-year-old Creighton alum ranked No. 20 in just the Giants’ system coming into the year, remarking that he “has a ceiling as a No. 5 starter, but he still has plenty to prove.”

But after struggling with a 4.46 ERA for Triple-A Sacramento last year, Blach found his groove with a 3.43 ERA for Sacramento this year. It could turn out to be just one great start in the long run, but right now his victorious duel against Kershaw looks more like an exclamation point on a breakthrough season.

“Getting to watch that was pretty incredible,” Giants ace Madison Bumgarner said, via Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. “He was lights out the whole day going against one of the best pitchers in baseball. It was definitely something he will never forget.”

Meanwhile, the Giants are not yet out of the woods. Or into the woods, for that matter.

Saturday’s stunner did accomplish one thing: it ensured the Giants will play at least 163 games this season. They haven’t yet clinched a spot in the wild card play-in game on Wednesday at the New York Mets. But should they lose game No. 162 on Sunday while the Cardinals win, the Giants will get a shot at a play-in game for the play-in game on Monday.

A win on Sunday and a trip straight to New York, however, is certainly a possibility. The Giants have outscored the Dodgers 12-3 in the first two games of the series and will be going for the sweep with Matt Moore on the mound. He struck out 11 his last time out.

And in general, the bad times that have forced a 29-42 record on the Giants in the second half seem to be fading. They’ve won three in a row and four out of five. An offense that had been a ball and chain on one ankle and a bullpen that had been a ball and chain on the other ankle are shaping up. The Giants offense entered Saturday’s game with an .895 OPS in the last week. Their bullpen has a 2.65 ERA in that same span.

The Giants haven’t taken the easy road to the doorstep of the postseason, but they couldn’t have picked a better time to start looking more like their usual even-year selves. They’re in a position to get in, and we know what they can do once they get that far.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Though sports are fueled by speculation, opinion and debatable assertion, baseball—to borrow a tidbit from our country’s Declaration of Independence (h/t to Thomas Jefferson)—holds certain truths to be self-evident.

Among them is that playoff baseball is a different brand of the game, one that’s dominated by pitchers. The parity in the sport increases because teams only need to win a handful of games—three in the division series and four in both the league championship and World Series—in stark contrast to the test of a 162-game regular season. A starting pitcher has so much influence over a single game that his team can be offensively inept yet still ride the coattails of his dominance during the much shorter playoff schedule.

If you’ve made it through this rhetoric, then you understand why the Chicago Cubs aren’t overwhelming favorites to win the World Series, and why it’s fair to suggest that the San Francisco Giants, more than the New York Mets or St. Louis Cardinals, are the biggest threat to derail the Cubs among NL wild-card hopefuls.

Having clinched the NL’s best record, Chicago will face one of the three aforementioned teams in the NLDS.

But Cubby Nation should hope, pray and plea that it’s not the Giants, because San Francisco’s pitching stands as the most threatening.

The Cardinals’ 4.13 ERA ranks eighth in the NL, behind every other team that would be in the playoffs. In fact, if St. Louis doesn’t play October baseball, the top five teams in NL ERA would end up as the league’s playoff teams.

When the 2016 season began, many thought the Mets had the game’s best starting staff, boasting a group of power arms that would satisfy New York’s most demanding fans.

Then ace Matt Harvey was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome. He was ruled done for the year. Righty Jacob deGrom underwent elbow surgery this month. He’s done for the year. Most recently, lefty Steven Matz, who hasn’t pitched since Aug. 14 due to elbow inflammation, was—drumroll…OK, you guessed it—ruled done for the year.

That all leaves right-hander Noah Syndergaard, who might own the organization’s most promising arm but has dealt with bone spurs this season. One pitcher is hardly enough for the offensively inept Mets, anyway. Even with its 12-run extravaganza Tuesday night, New York ranks 26th with 654 runs scored this season.

We may talk about the Mets as an October threat in future seasons. But injuries have swallowed their chances in 2016.

Which brings us to the Giants, the team that boasts starting pitching capable of dominating any series. While one dominant pitcher won’t satisfy a team’s October needs, two is just enough. And if those two are at the top of their games, three may not matter.

That’s important because southpaw Madison Bumgarner (2.71) and righty Johnny Cueto (2.79) own the fourth- and fifth-best ERAs in baseball, respectively, this season.

Cueto is nursing a groin injury and missed his start Sunday. But his expected return for the playoffs would undoubtedly make the Giants among the biggest threats to Chicago.

The Cubs, it should be noted, do have MLB’s best ERA (3.10), and starters Kyle Hendricks (1.99) and Jon Lester (2.28) own baseball’s two best individual marks in the category. Chicago’s reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, Jake Arrieta, ranks seventh with a 2.85 ERA.

This isn’t a dispute as to whether the Cubs are better than the Giants, though, only one that suggests that San Francisco’s pitching presents a tougher matchup for Chicago than that of St. Louis or New York.

That said, both Bumgarner and Cueto have fared well against Chicago.

In two games against the Cubs, Bumgarner only allowed two runs and issued two walks. Cueto only pitched one game against Chicago, but allowed just one run in seven innings of work. His career numbers at Wrigley Field—3.07 ERA and 1.26 WHIP—give reason to be optimistic about his potential to help San Francisco steal a game on the road.

Bumgarner and Cueto have four World Series rings between them. The former won three with the Giants, and the latter earned his last year with the Kansas City Royals.

Lester is the only player among the Cubs’ top three pitchers who owns a World Series ring. Hendricks and Arrieta got their first taste of playoff baseball just last season.

Of course, the Giants need to win the one-game NL Wild Card matchup in order to get their shot against the Cubs. If he’s available, Bumgarner, the team’s ace, is likely to get the call.

But even in that scenario, Cueto would be available to pitch Game 1 of the NLDS, thus allowing the duo to pitch a combined three possible games in that series—the exact number a team needs to win.

So, in essence, if Bumgarner and Cueto dominate as they can, it won’t matter what happens in the other two games.

Of course, that puts all the pressure on the duo. But one could argue based on numbers and experience that there isn’t a pair of pitchers in baseball a team would rather have at the top of its rotation.

Given what it takes to win in the playoffs, the Cubs certainly aren’t the only team with the players—check that, the arms—to make an October run.

All stats current through Tuesday’s games.

Seth Gruen is a national baseball columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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The 2016 season has not gone according to script for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On Sunday afternoon, though, all the punch-up artists in Hollywood couldn’t have written it any better.

With their magic number whittled to one, the Dodgers defeated the Colorado Rockies 4-3 in 10 innings. It was legendary broadcaster Vin Scully’s final home game, and he got to call a walk-off home run by utilityman Charlie Culberson—in extras, no less. Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register offered:

Even with the MLB mood darkened by the tragic death of Miami Marlins‘ ace Jose Fernandez, it was a special scene.

At nearly the same moment, the San Francisco Giants lost 4-3 to the San Diego Padres just down California’s I-5 freeway. Call it a double clinch.

The Dodgers have now won four straight NL West titles. During that span, they’ve never advanced past the National League Championship Series, and have been dropped twice in the division series.

Now, they’re gunning for redemption and angling to bust the franchise’s 27-years-and-counting championship drought.

There are no guarantees, not with formidable foes such as the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals lurking.

The Nats are cemented as LA’s first-round opponent. The good news for the Dodgers is that they’ve gone 5-1 against Washington this season, sweeping a three-game set in L.A. June 20-22 and taking two of three in the nation’s capital July 29-31.

They’ve also fared well against Nationals ace Max Scherzer. Current Dodgers hitters with a history against Scherzer own a collective .282 average, per ESPN.com.

Ace Clayton Kershaw, meanwhile, has kept Nationals bats under wraps to the tune of a .217 average and .557 OPS.

Stats and matchups aside, this Dodgers squad has weathered injuries and controversy and emerged—resilient and triumphant—on the other side.

Sure, it’s helped that the Giants have imploded. After posting the best record in the first half, San Francisco has gone 25-41 since the All-Star break.

Give Los Angeles credit, though. They’ve secured a 90-win season and another October foray. And they’re coming together at the right time, with momentum in the dugout next to the sunflower seeds.

Let’s begin with the starting rotation, which has been a veritable MASH unit for much of the season. We won’t recount every ding and disabled-list stint; the fact that Los Angeles has used 15 starting pitchers should tell you all you need to know.

The biggest ailment, obviously, was the herniated disc that cost Kershaw the entire months of July and August. For a while, it was uncertain whether Kershaw would return at all. On July 21, manager Dave Roberts suggested surgery was on the table, per ESPN.com’s Doug Padilla. 

Thankfully for the Chavez Ravine faithful, Kershaw never went under the knife. He returned to action Sept. 9, and has appeared to get progressively stronger. He threw seven shutout innings in his most recent start against the Rockies, scattering three hits and striking out six.

The Dodgers trailed the Giants by eight games on June 26, the date of Kershaw’s final pre-DL start. On Sunday, they moved eight games up on San Francisco.

Kershaw is joined atop the rotation by Japanese import Kenta Maeda, who has been the constant in an otherwise revolving cast of hurlers. Through 30 starts, Maeda owns a 3.20 ERA with 171 strikeouts in 169 innings.

Add trade-deadline acquisition Rich Hill—who battled frustrating blister issues early in his Dodgers’ tenure but owns a 1.53 ERA in five starts with LA—and you’ve got a formidable top three.

Offensively, Los Angeles has benefited from the rise of shortstop Corey Seager, the odds-on favorite to claim NL Rookie of the Year honors with his .313 average and 26 home runs. 

Others—including third baseman Justin Turner, first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and center fielder Joc Pederson—have helped the Dodgers score the second-most runs in the NL since the All-Star break.

But the team also wrestled with the Yasiel Puig controversy. The mercurial outfielder was beset by injuries, inconsistency and behind-the-scenes grumbling and was ultimately demoted to Triple-A in early August, prompting yours truly to wonder if he’d ever again don Dodger blue.  

Sure enough, Puig returned Sept. 2 and has been a boon, notching four home runs and 10 RBI. 

It’s been that kind of stretch run for the Dodgers, with hardships turning to blessings like sand getting polished into a pearl.

The postseason push won’t be easy. Los Angeles will face the  Nationals in the NLDS, as mentioned. 

If LA survives that test, the young, loaded Chicago Cubs will be waiting, assuming Chicago wins its series against the NL Wild Card Game winner. And let’s not forget Kershaw’s past October struggles.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though. For now, the Dodgers should celebrate. They are, per the team’s official Twitter feed:

I threw out a word a while back: “resilient.” Left-hander Brett Anderson invoked it recently, too.

“It’s probably the most resilient team I’ve been on,” Anderson said, per the Associated Press (h/t New York Times.). “We’re never out of it.”

It describes this Dodgers club. But it also harkens back to one of the franchise’s defining moments, in 1988, when Kirk Gibson stepped to the plate on two bad legs and launched a two-run, walkoff homer in Game 1 of the World Series.

Los Angeles beat the Oakland A’s in five games and hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy. More than a quarter-century later, they’re hoping for a similar spark—and similar glory.

The Dodgers have already written one Hollywood ending. Now, we wait to see what the sequel has in store.

All statistics current as of Sunday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are National League West champions for the fourth consecutive season.

They clinched the division crown in dramatic fashion Sunday, as second baseman Charlie Culberson hit a walk-off home run in the 10th inning to send them to a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies. The Dodgers reacted to the win and the National League West crown that came with it:

It will be a moment Culberson will likely remember for the rest of his life:

The team also shared the celebratory embraces and the after-victory party:

Sunday was the final home game of the season for Los Angeles, which means it was the last time legendary broadcaster Vin Scully called a game in Dodger Stadium. Scully will retire after the year, and Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com thought it was the perfect ending:

Boston Celtics announcer Sean Grande underscored just how long Scully had been with the Dodgers:

Jesse Spector of Sporting News reacted to the walk-off:

Helping fuel the Dodgers’ playoff berth was a solid offense that ranked sixth in the National League in total runs heading into Sunday, per ESPN.com. Justin Turner and Yasmani Grandal each have 27 home runs, and rookie shortstop Corey Seager has provided a critical boost to L.A.’s offense, slashing .310/.370/.514 with 25 home runs and 70 RBI coming into Sunday’s game. Stephanie Apstein of Sports Illustrated believes he is a “lock for the National League Rookie of the Year.”

It isn’t just the offense that has spearheaded the Dodgers this season.

The starting pitching staff features six-time All-Star and three-time National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw. While he did miss significant time earlier in the season with a herniated disc, he is back and healthy with sparkling numbers. The southpaw has a 1.65 ERA, 0.71 WHIP and 168 strikeouts in 142 innings. Had he not missed so much time, he could be the clear-cut National League Cy Young front-runner.

Elsewhere, Kenta Maeda and Rich Hill provide some depth to the rotation. The Dodgers acquired Hill via trade from the Oakland Athletics this year, and he has a head-turning 1.53 ERA and 0.68 WHIP in five starts for his new team. Kershaw and Hill give Los Angeles a formidable duo that will make it a difficult out in any postseason series.

The Dodgers can also shorten playoff contests with closer Kenley Jansen and a bullpen that touts the best ERA in baseball, per ESPN.com. 

While the focus will turn exclusively to the players in a few weeks’ time, Scully is perhaps the marquee figure associated with the organization until the end of the regular season. He announced he won’t call playoff games in his final season, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times, means his career will end on Oct. 2 when the Dodgers visit the San Francisco Giants.

At least he will be calling games for a postseason team after the Dodgers clinched the division crown Sunday.

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San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Johnny Cueto was forced to exit Tuesday night’s start against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a groin injury. 

Continue for updates.

Latest on Cueto’s Timeline for Return

Thursday, Sept. 22

Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News reported Cueto will try to play catch Friday and isn’t ruled out for Sunday’s start.

Cueto Among League’s Best in Rebound Season

Cueto, 30, signed with the Giants in the offseason after going 11-13 with a 3.44 ERA, a 1.13 WHIP and 176 strikeouts for the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals—with whom he won the World Series title in 2015. He struggled in his short stay in the American League, however, posting a 4.76 ERA and 1.45 WHIP in 13 regular-season starts.

The Giants were banking on a return to the National League rejuvenating Cueto, who established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball in his seven-and-a-half seasons with the Reds. In 2014, he was an All-Star and finished as a runner-up in Cy Young voting.

He also went 2-1 in the 2015 postseason, including a complete-game, two-hit, one-run victory over the New York Mets in Game 2 of the World Series.

He’s 17-5 this season with a 2.79 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 187 strikeouts in 212.2 innings pitched.

In San Francisco, Cueto joined an excellent rotation that includes Madison Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija and Matt Cain, while the team acquired Matt Moore at the trade deadline. The Giants—watching as the Mets reached the World Series behind the trio of Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard—felt that upgrading the rotation was a priority in the offseason.

But despite that impressive depth, the Giants will hope Cueto is able to return in time for his next start with the team fighting for its life in a wild-card race that figures to come down to the wire. 

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Brandon Crawford has developed into one of Major League Baseball’s best all-around shortstops in recent years, but the San Francisco Giants may be without their star middle infielder after he suffered a finger injury during Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  

Continue for updates.

Crawford Out vs. Padres

Friday, Sept. 23 

The Giants announced Crawford will not be in the starting lineup against San Diego on Friday.

Crawford’s Bat Essential to Giants Lineup

The 29-year-old veteran is currently hitting .267/.333/.423 with 12 home runs and 80 RBI, and he also provides Gold Glove-caliber defense in support of his pitchers.

Crawford has been in the league since 2011, but it wasn’t until 2014 that he truly started to break out. He hit .246 with 10 home runs and 69 RBI while helping the Giants win their third World Series title in five years.

That momentum carried over into 2015, as Crawford had the best statistical season of his career, setting personal marks with a .256 batting average, 21 home runs, 84 RBI and 65 runs scored. Crawford was also named to the All-Star team for the first time and took home both the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards.

Crawford was rewarded for his spectacular season in a big way, as the Giants signed him to a six-year, $75 million contract extension.

Crawford has dealt with a few nagging injuries over the course of his career, missing an average of 15 games per season from 2012 through 2015, and the Giants are hopeful that his current ailment is nothing bigger than that.

The Giants are a team capable of battling through adversity and remaining in the race even when they lose players, and they’ll have to draw on their winning experience to ensure that is the case.

Crawford’s value to San Francisco is tough to measure, but there is no question that his presence will be missed both at the plate and in the field.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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The late innings have become a minefield for the San Francisco Giants. On Monday, there was another explosion.

In a crucial, borderline must-win game against the archrival Los Angeles Dodgers at Chavez Ravine, the Giants carried a 1-0 lead into the ninth inning.

Ace Madison Bumgarner did his thing, twirling seven innings of no-run, one-hit, 10-strikeout ball and getting into an inevitable benches-clearing staring contest with Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig.

The Giants, meanwhile, plated a single run against Clayton Kershaw when third baseman Eduardo Nunez tapped an infield single, stole second, advanced to third on a throwing error and scored on a wild pitch.

It had the makings of a momentum-shifting win for the Giants, who came into the game trailing Los Angeles by five games in the National League West and locked in a tight battle with the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets for a wild-card slot.

Instead, an eerily familiar monster reared its ugly head. The Giants bullpen coughed up the game.

Lefty Will Smith and right-hander Derek Law combined for a scoreless eighth. But Law gave up a single to Andrew Toles to start the ninth, and southpaw specialist Javier Lopez surrendered a base hit to Corey Seager to put runners at the corners.

At that point, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy summoned Hunter Strickland, whose fastball can touch triple digits. Strickland got two strikes on Justin Turner, but he ultimately allowed a game-tying single.

By the time Adrian Gonzalez knocked in the walk-off run with a two-bagger, it all seemed a foregone conclusion.

This San Francisco pen has been a gaping liability, no two ways about it. And the club is running out of time to stop the bleeding, even year or no.

The Giants have now blown 28 saves on the season—eight in September alone—putting them in the mix with the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox for the MLB lead.

Former closer Santiago Casilla owns nine of those blown saves and has lost his gig to a tepid closer-by-committee approach.

So far, the committee is mired in bureaucracy.

There are pieces, including veterans such as Lopez and right-hander Sergio Romo, who have played a role in all three of the club’s recent championship runs. Strickland, with his radar-gun-singeing fastball, has closer potential. Really, the bullpen hasn’t been entirely dreadful, as it ranks exactly in the middle of the NL pack with a 3.65 ERA.

But as Monday’s loss demonstrated, the Giants don’t have the secret formula to lock down close games. They are vulnerable in the final frames, when so many pennant-race and postseason games are decided.

“It’s been the most trying season for me getting the bullpen in order,” Bochy admitted, per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Now, he’s running out of time. Yes, the Giants (79-71) are tied with the Cardinals for the second wild-card position entering play Tuesday. But five of their remaining 12 games are against those same first-pace Dodgers, while the Cards and Mets have softer schedules.

Even if San Francisco manages to back into the postseason, its bullpen woes make the team vulnerable.

The rotation has Bumgarner, backed by co-ace Johnny Cueto, trade acquisition Matt Moore and Jeff Samardzija. The lineup has October-tested bats such as Buster Posey and Hunter Pence.

Unless the relief corps congeals quickly, however, it might not matter.

The words “dumpster fire” come to mind. Just ask Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post:

As mentioned, we’re in a year divisible by two. In 2014, the Giants won the National League Championship Series on a home run by former first base prospect-turned-emergency-outfielder Travis Ishikawa. So it’s tempting to predict some sort of out-of-nowhere turnaround.

Heck, the Giants signed 41-year-old former prospect Joe Nathan, whom they traded to the Minnesota Twins in 2003. He could capably fill the Ishikawa role.

Things don’t have to work that way, though. There isn’t any even-year magic; not really. Just ask the Tooth Fairy.

The Giants have an unsettled bullpen, to put it kindly. They have a crummy bullpen, to put it harshly. And they have two weeks to figure it out.

They’re twisting through a minefield. They could make it. But bet on more explosions.

All statistics current as of Monday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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