After watching the team drop it’s 7th straight game tonight, I got to thinking: How well do the Giants have to play from here on out to win 85 games in the NL West? Generally, most tend to peg the NL West Champion at 85 wins.
Well, here we go.
Team W L Total Remain C-W% 85W% 90W% Padres 46 33 79 83 0.582 0.470 0.530 Dodgers 43 35 78 84 0.551 0.500 0.560 Rockies 42 38 80 82 0.525 0.524 0.585 Giants 40 39 79 83 0.506 0.542 0.602 D-Backs 31 48 79 83 0.392 0.651 0.711
Total = total games played
Remain = games left to be played
C-W% = current team winning%
85W% = the needed winning% over that team’s remaining games to reach 85 wins
90W% = the needed winning% over that team’s remaining games to reach 90 wins
Depending on how you project the division, 85 games might seem on the low end. That’s why I added the 90W% to the mix. In 2009, 2 teams finished with at least 90 wins (Dodgers: 92, Rockies: 90) and currently, both the Padres and Dodgers appear to be able to reach that 90 win mark. Looking at our data table, if we think the Giants can win the division with just 85 wins, then the team will need to play .542 baseball from here on out while the Padres need to play at .470 or worse. To get to 90 wins, the Giants need to play at a winning percentage of .602 for their remaining games — that seems like a very steep order to me. The best winning percentage of any month this year for the club is their April (.591) and they’ve played much closer to .500 baseball over the past couple of months.
It goes to show that wins are wins. Whether they are at the beginning of the year, or at the end. The Padres hot start has allowed them a little wiggle room if they come back to earth. The Giants, on the other hand, are going to have to play pretty solid baseball for the rest of the year to have a shot.
(Also, those poor, poor, D-Backs.)
Going into days games (July 3rd) the Giants are 16- 28 vs 500 or better teams. From the All Star break on the Giants have 49 games vs teams that are 500 or better right now. So current rate would suggest 17-18 wins out of those 49. With 74 games after the All Star break the means that means the team has 25 games vs the sub 500 team ( 13 vs the DBacks). Toss in the last 7 before the All Star break (all vs under 500 teams) and this team has to 27 or the remaining 32 games vs sub 500 teams to get to 85 wins or it has to suddenly learn how to play much better ball vs 500 and better team. And I really doubt the NL West goes to a team with less than 90 wins this year. I know this is not cutting edge stats by do we really think the 2010 Giants are going to come that close to running the table vs the sub 500 teams? This task it just too much to expect this squad to overcome.
So short answer is Yes.