Giants-Padres series preview: Back for more, right? – Who is Rookie of the Year: Tyler Fitzgerald or Jackson Merrill?

The San Francisco Giants could win the season series against the San Diego Padres this weekend. If you had taken that sentence back to March, you'd be feeling pretty good about the Giants' chances of making the postseason in 2024.

Oh.

Still, that's how far apart the Giants and Padres are now in terms of competitiveness, lol Padres. The Giants really struck out last weekend in San Diego and now they have a chance to do it again this weekend in San Francisco. The Padres went 32-16 (.667) in the second half with a team ERA of 3.70, but in the small sample size of a 3-game series, the Giants won two of three and the Padres had a team ERA of 4.67. Small wins for a small Giants team!

Let's talk a little more about these disappointing Giants.

The star of the second half was Tyler Fizgerald, who has hit 12 home runs since the All-Star break but hasn't hit a single since August 14. Still, his triple slash of .304/.356/.571 (208 PA) leads the active roster with a 157 wRC+ (technically, Jorge Soler's 50 PA of 207 wRC+ is higher). He also has 10 stolen bases. Compare that to the Padres' Jackson Merrill, the presumptive favorite for NL Rookie of the Year, and he's still ahead:

MichaelJackson
.301/.332/.601 (155 wRC+) | 11 HR 37 RBI 6 SB 5.3% BB%, 18.6% K%, +1.2 Def, +2.2 fWAR

Tyler Fitzgerald
.304/.356/.571 (157 wRC+) | 12 HR 24 RBI 10 SB 6.3% BB%, 28.4% K%, +1.4 Def, +2.6 fWAR

This is just a comparison of the second half, where Merrill is making headlines with his big success. If you expand the scope to the entire season, you run into the pesky problem of the Giants' poor roster management limiting Fitzgerald's playing time, but the numbers still show him ahead. In terms of OPS alone, it's .880 for Fitzgerald to .810 for Merrill. Now I ask you: Who is the better Rookie of the Year?

OK, fine, it's probably still Merill. And if you're choosing between the two of them as to who will be more successful in the next few years, it's Merrill, if only because of the age difference: Merrill is 21, Fitzgerald is 26. The Giants are still in the phase where they can hope that a single season performance isn't a mirage, but Fitzgerald, Ramos and Birdsong are all players we should keep in mind as we look back at what did or didn't happen this year. They could contribute to the next good Giants team – or not, who knows? Nobody knows when the Giants will be good again, least of all the Giants.

But they have a chance to win a season series against a good team. Sure, if they win one game, the job would technically be done while falling to 73-77, but try to imagine a sweep that puts them at 75-75. In any case, winning the season series against a division opponent outside the Rockies is definitely a notable accomplishment. The Giants haven't done that since 2021, when they won all four season series against division opponents.

Series details

WHO: San Diego Padres vs. San Francisco Giants
Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
When: Friday (7:15 p.m. PT), Saturday (6:05 p.m. PT), Sunday (1:05 ​​p.m. PT)
National broadcasts: None.

Expected starters
Friday: Dylan Cease vs. Logan Webb
Saturday: Joe Musgrove vs. Mason Black
Sunday: Martín Pérez against Landen Roupp

Where they stand

Padres, 82-65 (2nd in NLWC), 699 RS / 628 RA | Last 10 games: 5-5
Giants, 72-75 (4th in NLW, -8.5 WC), 630 RS / 645 RA | Last 10 games: 4-6

Padres in focus

Manny Machado: You see, the Padres have been in a bit of a slump the last few weeks. Sure, they've won two-thirds of their games here in the second half, but in their last 20 games they've gone just 10-10 and lost 4 of 6. Machado has taken off, though. In that span, he's hit 24 of 78 with 6 home runs and 3 doubles and 8 walks with just 12 strikeouts. Good enough for a triple slash of .308/.372/.577.

He had a two-home run game against the Giants in the Padres' only win last weekend in San Diego, and he's a player I often forget about based on his consistency alone. He's just always there, always good, and even when he's not that good, he's usually a big-time threat. But I'm making up for that omission from last week here. In 98 career games against the Giants, he has a batting average of .295/.353/.519 with 18 home runs. That's as many as he hit against the Rockies (but in 105 games), and he's only hit more against the Red Sox (19), Yankees (22), and Dodgers (23). At Oracle Park (52 games): .296/.350/.481 with 5 home runs. He really hates the Giants!

Luis Arráez: Somehow he's only played 3 games at Oracle Park (he was 4-for-9 with the Marlins last season). In 14 career games against the Giants, he's 21-for-58 with just 2 extra-base hits (both doubles) and the Giants have never struck him out (allowed 3 walks). Please, Giants, don't let anyone pass him by.

Dylan Cease: Oracle Park seems to be a perfect fit for his tremendous talents. In 2 career starts (this year with San Diego and 2022 with the White Sox), he has a 2.45 ERA in 11 IP with 11 strikeouts against 5 walks. If Frankie Montas could solidify the Giants' lineup, I don't think he would have any problems, even though the Giants got him pretty easily last weekend.

Well, unless the Padres are in the losing stretch of their season. They were, in my opinion, the team most likely to falter in the home stretch to give the Giants a chance to get back into the playoff race. As mentioned, 10-10 in their last 20 games. The Giants? 8-12. Imagine if the Giants were actually a good team! This series could have made a big difference!

Giants to watch

The starting pitchers: I was annoyed (and a few readers) when I didn't spotlight Blake Snell and Hayden Birdson in the last series preview, who got off to a great start against the Brewers. Could Snell rebound from his terrible start? Yes, he could. He looked good. Hayden Birdson wanted to finish his season on a strong note and he definitely did that. I think Birdsong far surpassed Harrison in terms of excitement, but a rotation of Webb-Ray-Birdsong-Hicks-Harrison/Black/Roupp is even more exciting. If they re-sign Blake Snell, I think it will definitely be “huge.”

But for this series, Logan Webb is looking to come back after two starts that I thought were pretty mediocre, if not downright bad. The 10 hits he allowed to the Padres didn't exactly make him look like an ace, and before that, the Marlins were able to match him pretty easily. Although he nearly pulled a Team America on the mound at the All-Star Game, he came out of the break pretty well: a 2.23 ERA (2.83 FIP) in 6 starts (40.1 IP). In his last 4 starts (25 IP), he's allowed 15 runs (all earned), including 3 home runs. That's a 5.40 ERA in 25 IP (3.97 FIP) — but that quartet of starts includes his 8-inning, 2-run appearance against the White Sox! He hasn't been very successful in his last three starts and we may be at the point where the brain trust of Bob Melvin and Bryan Price's plan to bankrupt Webb is starting to show its weaknesses. Or maybe not! We'll see.

Mason Black will be making his third start since the Giants brought him back into the fold, and while the Padres beat him up a bit last weekend, he was definitely a bit better in this call-up than he was in May. He's trying to get back on track as the young pitcher who was supposed to fill a rotation spot, a role that Hayden Birdsong eventually snatched away from him.

Landen Roupp probably won't be in the starting lineup next season – perhaps more like Jakob Junis – but then again, maybe he could get himself considered through pitching? He looked really good the other day on 68 pitches and handling a difficult lineup could be the next big thing to add to an increasingly interesting resume.

Patrick Bailey: I find the “it's so over/we're back” meme funny in many cases, but not in the case of Patrick Bailey, whose bat was so dead that not even a necromancer would take the case. It didn't feel like “we're back” was ever an option.

Or…

So…

Since September 1, he's gone 8-for-26 with a couple of walks. He even has two doubles. A .308/.357/.385 slash isn't amazing, but it's a sign of life. Sustainable or just a 10-game sample size that's completely meaningless? That's why you have to pay attention.

Jerar Encarnation: In his 24 games (84 PA) with the Giants, he has a .481 slugging percentage. While that's a small sample size, a .481 slug — and even his .791 OPS — stands out to me because the Giants are just plain bad on offense. It's right not to think much of a baseball player who holds a baseball bat while wearing a Giants uniform. Usually, that's an unsexy and unproductive combination. And to really drive home my point here, since 2019, the Giants have only had four players with a slugging percentage above .480 (at least 80 PA), and Encarnacion is one of them. The list:

1. Tyler Fitzgerald, 328 PA – .523
2. Stephen Vogt, 290 PA – .490
3. Alex Dickerson, 653 PA – .489
4. Jerar Encarnacion, 84 PA – .481

The rest of the top 10 is not surprising, but still disappointing: Joc Pederson (.470), Brandon Belt (.465), Grant McCray (.463), Mike Yastrzemski (.458), Matt Chapman (.453), Pablo Sandoval (.452). Just for comparison, the Dodgers have had 13 players with a slugging percentage of .480 or better (at least 80 PA) since 2019; the Padres 9 and the Diamondbacks 7.

He hits the ball hard and gets results, a combination few Giants hitters have had since the franchise's next-gen era began. Unfortunately, he doesn't walk much, which could make him expendable in the offseason. Folks, I'm here to tell you that the team isn't good enough to consider a player like Jerar Encarnación expendable.

Forecast time