San Francisco Giants: Ups and Downs of Opening Week

It’s been an emotion filled Opening Week for the San Francisco Giants having already played seven games against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers.

The season got off to both an exciting and concerning start. The Giants won back-to-back games against the Dodgers, which is great, but they also only managed to score a total of two runs in those wins.

Things didn’t get much better offensively as they were shutout in their next two games against the Dodgers, scoring a combined two runs in the four-game series.

The downs continued as the Giants lost their home opener to the Seattle Mariners 6-4.

However, things picked back up as they played maybe their most complete game of the season on Wednesday beating the Mariners 10-1.

After a postponement on Friday, which could be considered a down, the Giants kept on rolling with a win over the Dodgers on Saturday.

But it wasn’t just any kind of win, the Giants walked it off in 14 innings. Andrew McCutchen finished off a six-hit night with a 3-run, walk-off home run after an epic at-bat.

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The opening week ended with a bit of a downer on Sunday as Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers held the Giants to just one run in 10 innings. This time the Dodgers ended up on top in an extra innings affair.

So through the first week of the season, the Giants are 3-3 against their rival and the preseason favorite to win the National League West. Overall, they’re 4-4, which isn’t great, but you have to keep in mind that there are a lot of new players in this lineup that are still learning to play together.

And, we are without our best starting pitcher.

The offense has certainly struggled at times, but they’ve also faced Kershaw twice already this year. They’ve faced some pretty tough pitching in the first week.

Still, they are in the top half in the league in batting average and home runs. I think a lot of fans would have taken that through the first week of the season, having played the Dodgers six times already.

It has definitely been a fun first week of baseball. I think the Giants have shown they can compete all year, but it’s not going to be easy. But I don’t think anyone thought it would.