Gross underperformance against division rivals sank SF Giants' chances in 2025

After a 1-3 trip to Los Angeles over the weekend, the SF Giants' playoff chances are looking bleak. While not mathematically eliminated yet, most media and fans have started to focus on what went wrong in the 2025 season, what moves need to happen in the offseason, and what 2026 will look like.

While roster construction, coaching changes, and individual performances are all valid topics to be discussed (and they will be), one specific failure of the 2025 season must be addressed if the Giants are to have any success.

SF Giants need to perform better against NL West in 2026

There’s the old adage that in order to be the best, you have to beat the best. Nothing could be more true for the Giants' success in 2026. They currently sit in fourth place in the NL West behind the Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks, against whom the Giants went a combined 21-28 (a sad .429 winning percentage) this season. It’s hard to see these results and not think “what if?”

Since 2021, the Giants seem to have a magnet around the .500 winning percentage mark. Every five-game winning streak seemingly begets a six-game losing streak, followed by a 3-3 week, ad nauseam. Fans have become weary of the mediocrity. One of the keys to improvement in 2026, however, could lie in just maintaining that pattern when playing against NL West opponents (excluding the Rockies, whom all four other teams should sweep just about every time).

In 2025, the Giants have gone 4-9 against the Dodgers, 3-10 against the Padres, and 6-7 against the Diamondbacks. Even if they maintained an optimistic mediocrity against those teams and finished 7-6 against each, here’s how the season would currently stand:

Giants 85-71

Dodgers 85-71

Padres 81-75

Diamondbacks 78-78

Tied for the division lead with six games to go in the season? Any Giants fan would take that in a heartbeat! In addition, the Giants would hold tiebreakers, and they’d trail only the Chicago Cubs for the number one wild card spot.

All that is to say, that while there are plenty of flaws to this 2025 Giants team, if they could find a way to just get one game above .500 against their divisional opponents in 2026, we could be talking about a National League West Division title, something the Giants have only accomplished once in more than a decade, and something the new front office could hang its hat on.

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