Even with a 162-game regular season, baseball can sometimes have the slimmest of margins.
The Giants extended their season-long win streak to nine games midway through their series with the Padres but their NL West lead over the Dodgers was cut to a single game after a pair of losses in less than 24 hours. And now they have the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves coming to town.
The good news? Atlanta is also coming off a pair of losses, and didn’t get a true day off Thursday, even though it didn’t play: The Braves-Rockies game scheduled for early afternoon in Atlanta was called off as Truist Park’s field was too soggy to play on.
The Giants are a sizzling 11-4 this month, but the Dodgers have been almost as good at 10-4.
Giants (95-52): Split four games with the Padres at home.
All was going right for the Giants through Tuesday night as they had just clinched a playoff spot, were riding a nine-game win streak and still had two games left against a Padres team that had lost five straight. Two losses later, Giants fans may be holding their collective breath again.
A stretched bullpen couldn’t successfully cover nine innings Wednesday night as the Padres jumped on opener Dominic Leone, Jarlín Garcia and Zach Littell for five runs in the first two innings. Then, Thursday afternoon, Kevin Gausman gave up four runs in five innings as the Padres took an early lead. The Giants made a push to get back into the game, scoring twice on wild pitches, but three runs allowed by Tony Watson in the seventh put the game out of reach.
Next up: Three home games against the first-place Braves.
Dodgers (94-53): Swept a three-game home series with Diamondbacks.
Remember that nine-game Giants’ win streak from earlier this week? Well, two days later that seems like ancient history and the Dodgers are riding six straight wins of their own. Monday’s win for the Dodgers marked the return of Clayton Kershaw after he missed more than two months with forearm tightness. The two-time Cy Young winner only went 4 1/3 innings, but he struck out five D’backs in a 5-1 win. The following night, Los Angeles joined the Giants in clinching an NL playoff spot, with another starting pitcher who recently returned from the injured list: Tony Gonsolin, who went five scoreless innings in his second start back. Julio Urias became the first MLB pitcher this year to reach 18 wins Wednesday night to complete the sweep, and the Dodgers’ full five-man rotation appears strong heading down the stretch, but a nine-game road trip awaits.
Next up: The first three of that trip in Cincinnati against the wild card-contending Reds.
Padres (76-70): Split four-game series at Giants.
All was going wrong for the Padres through Tuesday night as they were riding a five-game losing streak and saw themselves sliding further down the NL wild card standings as they’d scored six runs in the prior five games combined. Less than 48 hours later, they’d won two straight and kept themselves in strong contention for that second wild card slot, a half-game behind the Cardinals and a half-game ahead of the Reds. San Diego’s bats jumped on Giants pitching early Wednesday, taking a 5-0 lead in the second inning of San Francisco’s bullpen game. Thursday afternoon, the offense came in drips and drabs, with the lone home run Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 39th of the year.
Next up: Three-game series at St. Louis, a battle for wild card position.
