{"id":678521,"date":"2026-04-18T17:33:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T17:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678521\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T17:33:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T17:33:27","slug":"the-other-times-the-giants-have-started-8-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/678521\/","title":{"rendered":"The other times the Giants have started 8-12"},"content":{"rendered":"

In case you missed it, the San Francisco Giants won their 8th baseball game of the 2026 season last night<\/a> and scored 10 runs in the process just to make us all feel even better about it. It was their 20th game of the season, though, so there\u2019s the whole matter of their 8-12 record. Heading into the game, their 7-12 standing generated this comment from writer Wendy Thurm:<\/p>\n

This is why there\u2019s gnashing of teeth. The Giants have declared they are a \u201cpostseason or bust\u201d team at all times, even when they hire a rookie manager who doesn\u2019t know a lick about spit and needs months \u2014 maybe even a full season \u2014 to get accustomed to managing a major league team. The team demands we pay attention to the results, and right now, the team is underperforming to an extent that they\u2019re running into a the weight of MLB history when it comes to teams that have a bad start.<\/p>\n

Now, the three Wild Card setup has certainly changed the math on playoff odds for teams with this sort of start and I would expect to see this list rise in the coming years, but let\u2019s keep with the historical theme and expand the look at the Giants franchise that I did after their 3-7 start<\/a>. In that post, I looked at three teams in the Oracle Park era that were able to turn things around. No, I won\u2019t be looking at the current team\u2019s standings and comparing to history every 10 games, but given their early struggles, it seems worth putting them in context for one of the winningest franchises in professional sports.<\/p>\n

The Giants franchise has started a season 8-12 seventeen times and had just five winning seasons afterwards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two things stand out with this list:<\/p>\n

The 100-loss 1985 team is not on it, which means the 2026 Giants might be winning their way out of that comparison finally \u2014 though, check back next week to see if they\u2019re 10-15 or 11-16.Only twice in the Oracle Park era has the team overcome this start to have a winning record. I looked at the 2015 in some detail with the previous post about their 3-7 start, concluding:<\/p>\n

If the 2026 Giants got to 84-78, they\u2019d be in a great position for a Wild Card spot. All they need is a couple of MVP-type performances and a couple of All-Star caliber performances from the lineup, absent stellar pitching.<\/p>\n

But what can I say about the 2004 team (which started 5-5)? Well, the only thing I firmly remember about that season is reading in the newspaper (people under 50 don\u2019t look up what that is) that the Giants had acquired Wayne Franklin near the end of Spring Training. And then I remember sitting along the first base line at Dodger Stadium on the penultimate game of the season and watching in the 9th inning defensive replacement Cody Ransom commit a critical error after Dustin Hermanson got squeezed, the Giants blow a 3-0 lead and Wayne Franklin surrender a walk-off grand slam to Steve Finley to knock the Giants out of the playoff race.<\/p>\n

So, personally, I hate the 2004 season and think any team that compares to it is haunted. But also\u2026<\/p>\n

That team had Barry Bonds on it. <\/p>\n

Therefore, you can\u2019t really make a comparison or say something like, \u201cSee, the Giants have been in this situation before and it has worked out just fine. Tony Vitello is going to figure out how to manage and the team is going to iron out all its mental lapses and the bullpen will be solid\u201d just because the 2004 team started 8-12 and wound up 91-71, more than enough to clinch a Wild Card in this era of baseball. You can\u2019t say that! It wouldn\u2019t make sense!<\/p>\n

That 2004 team scored 850 runs! The 2021 squad didn\u2019t even score that many (804). They played stellar defense (+28.4 Defensive Runs Above Average, per FanGraphs). Their pitching was in the bottom third by fWAR (+12.7 \u2014 21st) and 16th in ERA (4.34). The idea that the 2026 Giants will overcome mediocre pitching with top-5 hitting is a tough one to assert, just given the start. But even if people hit to their career averages, the front office\u2019s plan was the opposite: middling offensive boosted by stellar pitching. At the end of the day, of course, if the Giants got to 91 wins somehow, we\u2019d all be thrilled, and rightfully so, even if it meant a crushing loss to end the run.<\/p>\n

By the way, the last three games of the 2026 season are at Oracle Park against the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

The other Oracle Park era teams don\u2019t offer a lot of hope. 2008 was Tim Lincecum\u2019s first year, the first year without Barry Bonds, and with the team still trying to solidify its pitching and defense identity. 2018 was Bobby Evans\u2019 attempt to build a quasi-contender while dancing under the luxury tax line, so, the team added Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria and wound up having the worst month in franchise history<\/a>. With Bobby Evans back in the fold, don\u2019t be surprised if he\u2019s back to finish the job (advise in such a way that every month is the worst). 2019 saw Farhan Zaidi try to shake loose the championship era while also putting a somewhat entertaining team on the field. All that really happened was that Kevin Pillar revitalized his career. 2020 was ended by Trent Grisham hitting a walk-off grand slam for the Padres in Oracle Park.<\/p>\n

Basically, the Giants will have to overcome the historical significance of the bad 8-12 start in a way that defies their present look. It\u2019s a long season, of course, and it helps that the farm system might actually be able to supplement the major league roster with some legitimate league average help. That\u2019s certainly a different situation than the one other teams on this list found themselves in when they started poorly and maybe Bryce Eldridge, Carson Seymour, and, like Gregory Santos will be key contributors this season to actually elevate the team\u2019s performance. That\u2019s hope worth holding onto, even if history only offers anxiety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In case you missed it, the San Francisco Giants won their 8th baseball game of the 2026 season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,4,378,66,81843,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-678521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-giants","13":"tag-san-francisco-giants-analysis","14":"tag-sanfrancisco","15":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-giants","18":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116426913921645782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}