The Giants are 27 and 22 as of the 6/1 Phillies game. That’s five games over .500 and good enough for 3rd place (behind LA and the Padres) in the NL West, which is the toughest division in the National League. This baseball season is like reading a good novel and we are only in Chapter two. Every chapter features a different story. This chapter features power (Joc Pederson, Evan Longoria, Tommy LaStella), pitching (Logan Webb, Carlos Rodan, Camilo Doval, Jacob Janis), youth (Luis Gonzales, Donovan Walton, Joey Bart) and defense (Crawford, Yastrzemski).

It’s only May, which means it’s still too early to make big-picture declarations about any team.

Surviving and thriving over a 162-game season requires a combination of skill and luck, of durability and depth and an ability for a long list of people inside an organization from a top executive all the way down to a bullpen catcher to repeatedly make sound decisions.

The G-men started the new season out with a bang, taking 9 out of the first 14 games against the Marlins and Padres, including a sweep against Guardians (the old Tribe) and losing 3 out of 4 against the Mets (btw, the Mets look really good this year and will be a factor in the NL East against Atlanta). Yesterday the Giants beat the Nationals and are playing them in DC today and tomorrow before returning home to take on the A’s and the Nationals. The strengths and weaknesses of all the teams, including the Giants, are starting to show.

The 2021 Giants won 107 games and took the LA team down to the last strike in the last game of the divisional playoff series before losing the game on a terrible called third strike (with a man on first) by Gabe Morales, a first base umpire who shall always live in infamy. The 2021 Giants was a good team and had the best record in baseball. The 2022 version of the G-Men will be even better.

The Giants finished the season with the best record in baseball (107/55) which gives them home field advantage for the entire playoffs and the world series, if they get there. The final game on Sunday was a gem from Logan Webb, who punctuated the victory with his first home run. Webb will feature prominently in the playoffs, as will Kevin Gaussman, Jake McGee (back from the DL) and Camilo Doval (the National League reliever of the month – pretty cool for the young guy with ice water in his veins).