{"id":598235,"date":"2026-04-21T20:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598235\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:35:11","slug":"the-gap-between-the-giants-and-dodgers-cant-remain-this-large-forever-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/598235\/","title":{"rendered":"The gap between the Giants and Dodgers can\u2019t remain this large forever, right?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dodgers rolled into town on Tuesday with a 16-6 record because, of course, they did. They were 16-7 to start last season, when they won the World Series. They started the 2024 season a shameful 16-11, but they also won the World Series that year. If the first number is 16, the second number is a lot lower than 16.<\/p>\n

The first starting pitcher for the Dodgers in this series will be the only guy on the planet who can match World Series exploits with Madison Bumgarner. Their second will be the perennial MVP, who\u2019s doing his best to win the Cy Young as a cutesy lark because he can. Their third has good bone structure and a lot of strikeouts.<\/p>\n

For every walk the Giants have taken, the Dodgers have taken two. For every home run the Giants have hit, the Dodgers have hit three. The Giants have averaged 3.41 runs per game so far, the second-worst rate in the National League. The Dodgers have averaged 6.05 runs per game, the best rate in the majors,\u00a0by far.<\/p>\n

I could keep going, and part of me wants to. It\u2019s oddly therapeutic. The point has been made, however. The Dodgers are up; the Giants are down. All of the good things are happening to the Dodgers; very few of the good things are happening to the Giants. The Dodgers don\u2019t have to worry much when Kyle Tucker plays like a normal everyday player; the Giants feel cooked if a single regular is underperforming expectations. The Dodgers are \u2026<\/p>\n

Whoops! See, that\u2019s the problem, here. It\u2019s not a lot of fun to write about the ol\u2019 Giants-Dodgers rivalry these days. Even in the most charitable view of the 2026 Giants, they\u2019re a down-on-their-luck, hardscrabble wild-card team that\u2019s just waiting to get hot. They\u2019re not a threat to get hot enough to overtake the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

This could lead to a sort of half-rousing post about how this all makes it better and more enjoyable when the Giants actually beat the Dodgers at Oracle Park. It\u2019s why you remember games from players like Guillermo Qu\u00edroz and Trevor Brown, or the time Buster Posey backpicked Justin Turner to save Mark Melancon\u2019s bacon<\/a>, which temporarily allowed you to forget that the Dodgers had good players and your team had Mark Melancon. It\u2019s exceptionally fun when a bad Giants team beats a dominant Dodgers team. It\u2019s like throwing water on a bully\u2019s pants to make it look like he wet himself, right before he stuffs you in a dumpster and latches it. You\u2019ll still be stuck in there when his pants dry, but hope you enjoy explaining away the pants until then, buddy.<\/p>\n

Yes, moments like those make the lopsided rivalry worthwhile for a brief, flickering moment, but it\u2019s ineffective as a way to get anyone excited about Giants-Dodgers baseball. \u201cThis cool thing might happen. Wouldn\u2019t it be wild if it did?\u201d doesn\u2019t work when the Giants lose two games against the Dodgers for every one that they win, which is what\u2019s happened, with a 4-9 head-to-head record against them in each of the last two seasons. The only time they\u2019ve had a winning record against the Dodgers in the last 10 years was in 2021, and even then, it was only a 10-9 season victory. Just like the division title, they barely squeaked it out.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

\n The last time the Giants had a regular-season advantage over the Dodgers was 2021, and even in the best season in franchise history, they barely won the season series. (D. Ross Cameron \/ USA Today)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a tiny scrap of good news, a little glimmer of \u2026 well, I wouldn\u2019t even call it hope. It\u2019s more like a little glimmer of not-pain on the horizon. And it\u2019s found in the answer to a question that I get a lot, which is some variation of this: Are the Dodgers going to keep doing this forever? Will the rivalry ever be good again?<\/p>\n

The answers are no and yes, respectively. It\u2019ll take a while. Maybe the longest while, but the Dodgers can\u2019t keep mashing the \u201cGolden Age\u201d button with money and big-brained ideas. Furthermore, the rivalry will get really good again as soon as the Giants get better players. Or if \u2014 wait for it \u2014 some of the players they have now play better. Combine both of the above with some prospects, and now you\u2019ve got a stew going.<\/p>\n

The second one is obvious enough that it doesn\u2019t need much explanation. Be careful to remember there are teams in baseball that have never even won their division (Rockies, Marlins), so it\u2019s not like surprise division-winning seasons are handed out entirely at random. The Giants don\u2019t have to get one just because they stuck around long enough. Yes, a good Giants team will make these series so, so, so much more fun to look forward to.<\/p>\n

Go back to that first point, then, which is the most common question I get. It\u2019s understandable defeatism, a reading of the Dodgers that goes something like this: money begets better players and better farm systems, which begets more money, which begets better players and better farm systems. The Dodgers keep begetting, and some folks are sick and tired of it, frankly.<\/p>\n

Yep, they\u2019ll be good for a while. A long while. Maybe forever, or whatever that means in our topsy-turvy modern world. They have the perpetual motion machine working, and the conveyor belt is humming. They\u2019re also doing stuff like turning Andy Pages into a superstar when you\u2019re not looking.<\/p>\n

Still, they\u2019ll never have another Shohei Ohtani. They might want one. They might sit atop a pile of rubies and emeralds and demand that other teams bring them their Shohei Ohtani as a tribute, but there will not be another Shohei Ohtani to be found. They\u2019ll try to build one in their underground laboratory with expensive, artisanally made parts \u2014 no 3D printing or Temu dreck for them \u2014 but they\u2019ll always come up short.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because there will never be another player like Ohtani, no matter how hard they want one. It\u2019s like, imagine being the richest person in the world, but you\u2019re just not funny. All you want to be is funny. It\u2019s hard to imagine, but stay with me. This hypothetical person would be haunted forever by what they cannot possess.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers will be like that after Ohtani, however far in the future that might be, but they\u2019ll be even more haunted because they\u2019ll remember what it was like to watch a baseball player that close to the sun, and they\u2019ll desperately want to watch another one. There is, however, just one of these guys every forever or so.<\/p>\n

This is coming from authority because the roles were reversed once. Not in terms of overall might and financial resources, but in terms of a superhuman player. The Giants finished ahead of the Dodgers in every season from 1997 through 2003, and they did so through the grace of Barry Bonds. He was so good, so otherworldly, that he could pick a mediocre team up and turn them into a pennant-winning team, a perennial threat to win the division, if not finish with the best record in baseball.<\/p>\n

It was rad. It\u2019ll probably never happen again. Although they probably said that about Willie Mays, and then the player who captures the same magic turns out to be his own godson. Maybe we should pry into Bonds\u2019 personal life and see if he\u2019s been invited to any confirmations lately, but no, it\u2019ll never happen again. There was one Bonds. Hope you enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

Ohtani is like that, except instead of taking average or even slightly above-average teams as far as Bonds did, he\u2019s gifted with all kinds of support, from the front office to an aggressive ownership group to the farm system. He\u2019s tasked with making a great team into one of the greatest teams of all time. They\u2019ll be in every conversation for the next 100 years, certainly.<\/p>\n

That stinks, if you\u2019re a Giants fan. It stinks really bad. However, just like Bonds, it\u2019ll go away, and the Dodgers will become more like the Yankees, where they\u2019ll always be good, but they\u2019ll have seasons where they\u2019re less than great. It\u2019s the nature of every team, no matter how many free agents they can afford. Eventually, the prospects will dry up, and the veterans will decline before their time because that\u2019s the subterfuge that baseball\u2019s best at.<\/p>\n

It just doesn\u2019t feel great right now, though. What with them* having all the \u201cwins\u201d and \u201ca generational titan who might be the best baseball player who ever lived.\u201d It won\u2019t be forever. It only seems that way right now.<\/p>\n

* The Dodgers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers rolled into town on Tuesday with a 16-6 record because, of course, they did. They were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,363,2329,99],"class_list":["post-598235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}