San Francisco Giants: Is It Time for Fans to Panic?

In 2010, the San Diego Padres collapsed down the stretch allowing the San Francisco Giants to eek past them, winning the NL West on the last day of the season.  Is it possible that the 2011 season will mimic the 2010 season with the Giants playing the role of the Padres and the Diamondbacks as the Giants? 

I would be surprised if that happened, for several reasons.

The 2010 San Diego Padres were a young, inexperienced group that rode a fantastic start to the last day of the season.  Winning is absolutely contagious, it breeds confidence and that can make a huge difference on a young ball club.  The youthfulness and inexperience of that team showed when they hit a rough patch.  They lost a few games and then lost their confidence.  By the time they righted their ship, they had lost ten games in a row and the Giants took over first place from them soon thereafter.  It was a blow that the Padres were unable to recover from.

Experienced teams with a good mix of veterans and younger players who are accustomed to winning simply don't suffer ten game losing streaks in the middle of a pennant race.  All teams fall into funks from time to time and sometimes it happens in less than ideal circumstances. 

The Giants have currently lost five straight, the last two against their main competition, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and they transfer directly into a four game series against the Philadelphia Phillies after one more game with Arizona. 

Not exactly the best time to struggle.

Even if the worst-case scenario were to happen and the Giants limped away from the seven games against Arizona and Philadelphia losers of all seven, there would still be time and the Giants would be able to rebound.  Although the ten game home stand has started out disturbingly slowly, history suggests that the Giants will at least come away even on the home stand. 

They haven't made it easy on themselves by losing the first two games of the home stand, but that's what Giants baseball is about; torture.

Most teams experience a boost when a significant addition like Carlos Beltran is made mid-season.  The current funk that the team is in began the day after his arrival.  I think there is something to the chemistry of a team being a bit disrupted by new players arriving but Beltran and Orlando Cabrera are seasoned veterans with good reputations and should fit nicely.

The Giants seem to be pressing significantly.  Players like Andres Torres and Aubrey Huff have got to see the writing on the wall and realize that the team is making changes where they need to.  Someone like Huff is obviously going to be given every opportunity to start hitting, but if he doesn't, he will lose playing time as Andres Torres already has. 

This impending shake up can cause a clubhouse to become fractured and tense and it is up to the veterans to loosen things up, which I expect they will.

The Diamondbacks may not go away and if that's the case, the final two months of baseball will be gut-wrenchingly exciting, but the Giants aren't going away for sure.  They have a lot of challenges but they are a veteran team with solid veteran leadership and they are the reigning champions, expect them to stay in it to the end regardless of what transpires over the next two weeks.