San Francisco Giants Are Snake-Bit 2 Ways, Remain in Contention

The San Francisco Giants remain in contention to defend their title into October, but the Arizona Diamondbacks and the injury bug are making that a very difficult task indeed.

A team needs to have all the breaks go their way and then still play good fundamental baseball in order to win a championship.  Injuries are part of the game and all teams deal with major and minor injuries throughout the season. 

Some teams have the depth of talent to persevere when a player goes down to injury, even when that player is a star.  Some teams have a dominant aspect of their team that is so good; it can carry the entire team and keep them in contention, which is what the Giants have in their pitching staff.

The Giants have lost two crucial hitters for the entire season to injury.  Buster Posey suffered a broken leg and ankle ligament damage and Freddy Sanchez dislocated his right shoulder.  Both players are expected to be ready around the start of spring training, 2012.

Buster Posey's injury in particular is especially galling taking into account his replacements.  While Posey would have certainly been good for around a .310 batting average, 20 home runs and 75 RBI, Eli Whiteside and Chris Stewart will end up hitting around .200 with five home runs and 20 RBI. 

When you lose your star player and have such an enormous disparity between his stats and his replacements stats, not many teams could rebound from that kind of a loss.

The Giants have done it with pitching, and if they end up playing ball again this October, it will be the pitching that gets them there. 

Their pitching has not been immune to injuries this year either, the key is that none of the critical pitchers have been injured and have all performed at or above their ability all season.  The injuries to Barry Zito and Jonathan Sanchez coincided with each pitching rather ineffectively. 

If the Giants were told at the beginning of the season that they would have to lose two of their starting pitchers to injury for significant amounts of time and they could pick the two, I'd assume that it would be these two.

The Giants really lucked out with Ryan Vogelsong who has been the most consistent starting pitcher since he took Zito's spot in the rotation in April.  Without his presence in the rotation, the Giants would not be where they are today, still fighting for the NL West flag.

The bullpen has been beyond dominant but has shown signs of late that they are starting to break down. 

Sergio Romo was placed on the DL recently with a sore right elbow and just today Giants fans everywhere held their breath as closer Brian Wilson was examined by renowned Tommy John surgeon Dr. James Andrews, who performed Wilson's TJ surgery while he was in college due to elbow soreness.  Dr. Andrews deemed it to be simple inflammation, and all Giants fans exhaled.

Losing Wilson would have been devastating; he's as dependable a closer as there is in all of MLB.  Somehow I feel like this team would have found a way to regroup and remain in contention even if they had lost Wilson.  The fight, the heart and the determination of this team has impressed me all year; I don't expect it to change now.

The "dog days of summer" have proven to be just that for this version of the San Francisco Giants.  They are limping through a tough road trip right now but are fighting every step of the way. 

This team will continue to ride the arms of Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong and the offense will continue to find just enough ways to score runs to stay in games and win more than they lose.

The end result will be another battle down to the wire, this time with the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks.  I think most Giants fans would have gladly accepted this situation in late May as Buster Posey lay writhing in pain at AT&T Park.  The injury situation has only gotten worse since then and yet they are still well within striking distance as August rolls toward September.