San Francisco Giants 60 Seasons from Worst To Greatest: 50-46

I should have realized that not to many people want to spend 10 minutes reading an entire article about one unmemorable season of San Francisco Giants baseball.

So, I’ll make this easier for everybody and divide the next several articles into slideshows of five seasons:

50: 1994, 55-60, 2nd NL West

1994 was a year of what could have been. Despite the tragic ending to 1993, the fan support was still at an all-time high, and there were high expectations for the Giants coming into the new season.

The Giants opened the season at home on April 4 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson and Kirt Manwaring all received their Gold Glove Awards prior to the game, and Williams hit a pair of home runs during the game, including one in his first at-bat. The Giants won 8-0, and they won each of their first four games.

The Giants were around .500 for the first month and a half of the season, but after a disastrous stretch from the middle of May to the beginning of July, they were 35-50. However, they were just nine and a half games back in the new smaller and weaker National League West. The Giants were still somewhat in it, and suddenly starting on July 7, the Giants started an incredible run in which they won 17 of their next 21 games.

The run was thanks in large part to the Darryl Strawberry, the former nut job of the Mets and the Dodgers, who hit .303, with four home runs and 16 RBIs in his first 20 games with the Giants. Not only that, but Matt Williams got hot and started hitting enough home runs to get him on a pace to break Roger Maris‘ single-season record of 61 home runs.

However, a far bigger issue loomed. The entire season had been played without a collective bargaining agreement in place, and the players had set Aug. 12 as a strike date. Despite a six-game losing streak, the Giants swept the Cubs in three games at Wrigley Field, but when Aug. 12 came, the players walked out.

The season was eventually cancelled, and everything was lost. The Giants were 55-60, which wasn’t great, but they were in second place and just three games behind the Dodgers in the West. The Giants were on pace to draw 2.3 million, which would have the second-highest total in franchise history. Worst of all, Matt Williams had 43 home runs and was on pace to tie Maris at 61.

49: 1995, 67-77, 4th NL West

1995 was nearly played with replacement players, but the strike, which wiped out the World Series the year prior, finally ended on April 2. As a result, the real players played a very quick Spring Training before starting the regular season on April 23 in Atlanta.

Opening Day was not the celebration it usually was. In fact, it was revenge for the fans. It was the day angry fans, who felt betrayed by their heroes, were able to air out their grievances at them. Tom Glavine, who started against the Giants on Opening Day, was booed by his own fans in Atlanta for being the main player representative during the strike. This was despite all he did for the Braves earlier in the decade.

Things still weren’t entirely back to normal. The umpires in both leagues were all locked out, and the games were umpired by scabs. The Giants lost both of their games in Atlanta, and the Home Opener against the Marlins only drew 26,403 fans. The new fans, and the excitement over the Giants being saved just two years prior were gone. Instead, 26,403 angry die-hards, as well as several locked-out National League umpires filled the stands on a gloomy grey day at Candlestick.

The real umpires returned to work a week later, but not before an exciting 15-inning win the Giants had against the Dodgers in Hideo Nomo‘s debut on May 2. The Giants played fairly decent ball over the first month and a half of the season, as they went 23-17 in their first 40 games, but they stumbled through a 15-31 stretch, which like 1994, put them quite a bit under .500 in July. However, also like 1994, the National League West was weak, which allowed the Giants to contend.

No matter how well the Giants played, because of the strike, it was back to old times at the Stick, where fans didn’t show up. The Giants only drew over 30,000 fans five times in 1995. Compared to the crowds that came to The Stick in the mid-1970s, that was actually pretty good, but compared to the 39 crowds they drew over 30,000 in 1993, as well as the 24 crowds of over 30,000 in 1994, it was pretty devastating

On Sept. 11, the Giants were 61-64, in third place and just five and a half games back with 19 games to go in their abbreviated 144-game schedule. Unfortunately, the Giants went 6-13 in the final three weeks to go 67-77 on the season, and that was it.

1995 wasn’t the worst, but considering the lack of fan support, following a time that it was its highest, 1995 really wasn’t a year to remember. But hey; at least the season was played to its conclusion.

47: 1977, 75-87, 4th NL West

In 1976, the Giants celebrated their second chance in San Francisco. Then in 1977, the Giants celebrated the return of one of their all-time greats, as Willie McCovey signed back with the Giants in baseball’s first off-season of league-wide free agency.

McCovey was back, and the Giants decided to go with a new look for 1977. They replaced the old and traditional lettering on their jerseys, which had gone from black to orange four years prior, with a cursive script, and they joined many other teams in giving into the fad of colored jerseys with pants that had elastic waistbands. The Giants wore white jerseys at home, and they alternated between orange jerseys with “San Francisco” on the front and black jerseys with the cursive Giants script on the road. No matter where they played, they wore the same white pants with elastic waistbands for every game.

On the field, the Giants were coming off three-consecutive losing seasons coming into 1977, and things didn’t get any better when “Sarge,” Gary Matthews left the team in free agency. Fans hoped the return of Willie Mac would help them return to their winning ways of the 1960s, but unfortunately, that was too much to hope for.

The Giants fell out of contention quite early, but they didn’t fall too far under .500 until the middle of the season. Until July 1, the Giants never fell more than eight games under .500. Nevertheless, the season had already been over long before July 1, and the atmosphere at the Stick was no different than it was in the three years prior. Like the previous three years, very few fans showed up to watch a subpar team in frigid weather.

The Giants went 75-87 when all was said and done, but there were bright spots. Willie McCovey hit .280 with 28 home runs in his first year back in San Francisco, and Bill Madlock, who was traded from the Montreal Expos prior to the season, hit .302.

46: 1983, 79-83, 5th NL West

Coming off the exciting but heartbreaking finish to 1982, the Giants hoped that 1983 would be the year where that they would finally return to the postseason.

The Giants had a group of talented players that contended in three of the previous five years. There were some adjustments to that group heading into 1983. The Giants traded Joe Morgan and relief pitcher Al Holland to the Phillies for pitchers Mike Krukow and Mark Davis. The Giants also signed utility man Joel Youngblood in free agency.

The Giants with with a new and more traditional look in 1983. They ditched their colored jerseys and pants with elastic waistbands in favor of traditional buttoned-up white and grey jerseys with belted pants. The new home jerseys featured block lettering, and the new road jerseys had piping with a new version of the Giants’ “SF” cap logo on the upper-left part of the chest.

The Giants also introduced a new marketing campaign that would prove to become famous in Giants lore; the Croix de Candlestick pin. It was a pen given to every fan who stayed for the entirety of an extra-inning night game. Many die-hard fans who braved the frigid conditions of Candlestick Park still have their Croix de Candlestick pens on their caps and jackets to this day.

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Mike Krukow started on Opening Day, and he didn’t make it out of the second inning, as the Padres beat the Giants in an epic slugfest by a final of 16-13. The Giants got off to a terrible 7-15 start, but a 10-1 stretch put them a game over .500.

The Giants hovered around .500 for much of the first half, and they went into the All-Star Break at 39-40. While the Giants were nine and a half games back of the Atlanta Braves in the National League West, they overcame an even larger deficit the year prior.

Darrell Evans, Atlee Hammaker and Gary Lavelle represented the Giants at the All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Unfortunately, Hammaker was on the wrong side of history, as he gave up the first grand slam in all-star game history to Fred Lynn.

Even though the Giants were not in contention, the team stayed mostly intact at the trade deadline, and why not? The Giants were 51-54 through 105 games, which was a game better than 1982, and they were nearly just as far back as they were in 1982. However, the Giants couldn’t find the magic of 1982, and they ended up going 79-83.

Next: Giants in perfect spot to take over division lead

Still, there were plenty of bright spots in 1983. Joel Young hit .292 in his first year as a Giant, and Darrell Evans had one of his best seasons, as he hit .277 with 30 home runs. However, there didn’t seem to be much hope on the horizon for the team as a whole.