Surging San Francisco Giants Shake Up NL West Standings With Historic Start

The San Francisco Giants lead the NL West after their one of their best starts ever.

Apr 6, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants designated hitter Heliot Ramos (17) gives for arm bashes to San Francisco Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski (5). | Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images

What a difference a weekend makes.

Heading into Friday's games, the San Francisco Giants were third in the NL West at 5-1, two games behind the 8-0 Los Angeles Dodgers and 1.5 games back of the 7-0 San Diego Padres.

But after this weekend's stunning turn of events, the red-hot Giants open the week atop the NL West. They improved to 8-1 after sweeping the Seattle Mariners at home, passing the Dodgers (9-2) and Padres (8-2) in the standings.

San Francisco extended its winning streak to seven games with Sunday's dramatic 5-4 walk-off victory. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Wilmer Flores laced a walk-off single to send the fans at Oracle Park home happy.

Not only did Flores' clutch hit cap the Giants' second straight sweep, but it also propelled them past Los Angeles in the standings and into first place for the first time this season.

Your 1st place San Francisco Giants.

I don’t care if it’s only a week into the season. When the Dodgers and Padres both start 7-0 it’s impressive the Giants hung around and stacked up W’s. pic.twitter.com/bVPodhQgHT

— Leo Luna (@LeoLuna93) April 6, 2025

The defending World Series champs suffered an 8-7 road loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday, slipping to 9-2 on the season and falling out of first place after losing two of three over the weekend.

San Diego won on Sunday but also lost its weekend series, dropping two of three to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.

With its seven-game winning streak, San Francisco is off to its best nine-game start since 2003, when the club also opened the year 8-1.

The Giants will try to maintain their early momentum on Monday night against the Cincinnati Reds at home. The Reds are 3-7 under new manager Terry Francona and have lost five of their last six games.

Logan Webb (1-0, 3.00 ERA) will start for San Francisco, while Hunter Greene (0-1, 2.25 ERA) gets the ball for Cincinnati.

San Francisco will look to stay in front of the Dodgers and the Padres, both of whom are opening road series against lackluster opponents. Los Angeles heads to DC to face the Washington Nationals, while San Diego visits Sacramento to take on the Athletics.

Divisions aren't won and lost in April, but the Giants' fast start has been highly encouraging, validating their impressive spring training. Even if they don't stay in first place all season, they've proven they can keep up in an incredibly tough NL West.

It's still early and they have a long ways to go, but they're putting themselves in a good position to potentially make the playoffs for the first time since 2021.