SF Giants vs. Padres - series details and how to watch

The SF Giants are one of the hottest sports teams on the planet right now.

We all saw this coming, of course. To say that there was a modicum of panic when the Giants got shutout at home against the Cubs to drop back to .500 would be a completely irresponsible re-writing of the official record that's been set in stone since Opening Day. The Giants have always been a powerful, robust contender that's churned out talent from the minor leagues, free agency, and waiver wire transactions. We never had a doubt that a surge of young talent would rise up from the minors to save a struggling ballclub.

There is, as they say, no war in Ba Sing Se.

On Monday, the Padres got a first-hand look at the new-look Giants, who have been getting things done lately in an... unusual way. Ignore the fact that they've scored at least 10 runs in a game in the past four series, and six of the past seven. All bets are off when the Giants go on one of their bi-weekly tears, but the rest of the time, it's almost formulaic: the Giants struggle against a starting pitcher, the starter leaves, and then the Giants tear the hearts out of the opposing bullpen in front of a live national audience.

It's as wild as it is impressive. They mounted two late-inning comebacks to beat the Rockies in Colorado, another pair of come-from-behind wins in the back third in St. Louis, punched the Dodgers in the mouth with five runs late to take game one, and now clutched out five runs in the ninth and tenth innings to walk off against San Diego. Six of their past eleven wins have come against teams whose starters handed off the ball after a great performance, expected to be rewarded with a win, and instead got gut-punched by the magic wandu of Mikey Y and the Boys.

I wish I could properly describe the jarring juxtaposition of the late-game dominance and early-game fecklessness of the Giants offense, but proper contextualization of these splits remains in the hands of Major League Baseball and associates. While I'd love to sift through the Statcast and Baseball Reference databases to find out exactly when and where the Giants got so good at cracking open opposing bullpens like particularly thin-shelled coconuts, there isn't currently a great place to refer to such data.

I did uncover this, though - San Francisco has outscored its opponents 43-10 in the 7th inning or later in June, compared to just 59-45 in the first six innings of every game combined. And the latter figure only looks as nice as it does with a couple of blowout wins in the past week. Outside of that, they've looked awfully similar to the team that struggled through the first two months of the season, giving up as much as they've scored. But at the ends of these games, the Giants look like the team they've become lately - young, hungry, and an absolute menace to teams that show weakness. How peculiar.

The Giants won't keep winning forever, at least not consecutively, but for now, the bullpen is lights out and the offense is turning it on when they need to. The final piece of the puzzle is the starting rotation, which has scuffled this month. With a four-game series in line and no Logan Webb slated, the Giants will need to figure something out.

One of the few things that's worked against them this month has been scoring enough early that the Giants are out of it by the time the game's halfway over, and DeSclafani's been a huge part of that. Him recovering from his slump on Tuesday will go a long way towards maintaining forward momentum for the team as a whole. Alex Wood will pitch Thursday, and he looked good coming off the IL, so it looks like it's up to Sean Hjelle and crew to bridge the gap on Thursday. How the Giants juggle the back of their rotation in July and August with the availability and effectiveness of Hjelle, Stripling, Manaea, Beck, and potentially Kyle Harrison will be interesting to watch.

Series Details

Who: SF Giants vs. San Diego Padres
Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
When: June 19-22, Monday (6:45 PM), Tuesday (6:45 PM), Wednesday (6:45 PM), Thursday (12:45 PM). All times Pacific.

Giants' current streak: W8, 8-2 in last 10. 40-32 overall, 2nd place in NL West (3.5 GB)

Padres' current streak: L1, 6-4 in last 10. 35-37 overall, 4th place in NL West (8.5 GB)

Projected starters:

Monday: Ryan Walker** (2-0, 1.65 ERA) vs. Michael Wacha (7-2, 2.90 ERA)

Tuesday: Anthony DeSclafani (4-6, 4.31 ERA) vs. Seth Lugo (3-3, 4.10 ERA)

Wednesday: TBD vs. Yu Darvish (5-5, 4.74 ERA)

Thursday: Alex Wood* (2-1, 4.11 ERA) vs. Blake Snell* (3-6, 3.48 ERA)

*indicates LHP
**indicates opener

How to watch, listen:

SF Giants broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area, KNBR 680/1510 AMPadres broadcast: SD Padres, KWFN 93.7/860 AMNational broadcasts: None