SAN FRANCISCO -- Giants players, coaches and staff spent Wednesday night watching baseball and playing poker. If you’re keeping score at home, longtime Giants exec Yeshayah Goldfarb edged manager Gabe Kapler at the table.
To hear Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski tell it, that was all the suspense of the night. The Dodgers’ 3-1 victory over the Cardinals in the National League Wild Card Game, on Chris Taylor’s walk-off homer with two outs in the ninth?
Dramatic, maybe. But Yastrzemski saw the upshot coming. The 107-win Giants against the Dodgers -- who, counting Wednesday, have 107 combined regular season and postseason wins -- in the National League Division Series starting Friday night.
“It kinda felt like how this was going to end up, anyway,” Yastrzemski said. “I felt like I didn’t even have to watch the game to figure out who we were going to play.”
There’s nothing ho-hum about a postseason series between teams with a long history of rivalry that began in New York before they both headed to the West Coast. After saying the collision between the teams was predictable, Yastrzemski quickly added, “It’s two good teams battling each other, so I’m looking forward to having fun competing against them.”
It’s so big, some think it’s inappropriate this far from the World Series.
“This may also be a series or a moment where baseball may have to think about restructuring when playoffs happen,” Giants veteran infielder Evan Longoria said. “[Teams with] 106 and 107 wins doesn’t feel like a DS matchup, especially because the season is so long. For two teams to win that many games and [one has] to go home this early. That being said, we knew we were going to have to go through them and they were going to have to go through us to get to the World Series."
The Giants won the regular-season series, 10-9, and scored two more runs (80-78). With such familiarity, is there really anything more they can learn about each other?
As his poker chips dwindled, Kapler became heartened by the intensity with which tonight's starter, 24-year-old right-hander Logan Webb, studied the Dodgers-Cardinals game for any kind of edge.
“There were two tables, and the second was the final table, and Logan and I were sitting next to each other,” Kapler said. “He was super thoughtful about watching the game, asking a lot of questions. Mike Yastrzemski was there, as well. He wasn’t playing, but he was watching our poker game and watching the game itself."
So, yes, Yastrzemski watched, all the while expecting the ending.
“Both those guys were asking a lot of questions, so preparation comes in a lot of shapes and sizes," Kapler continued. "One way is to watch the opposition -- watch again last night.”
If you listen closely …
If you are distracted by a buzzword like analytics, you’ll think the calculations either magically show up on the field, or a player sees a readout and just simply performs to it.
But analytics fall into the same category as a coaching staff, a weight room and its personnel or an athletic training staff. On a functional team like the Giants and other winners, they’re all services for players.
“We don’t really, as a group, talk about analytics all that much,” Longoria said, still acknowledging that much of what players do has analytics at its base. “Part of the reason there’s a lot of buy-in is because it’s not this cookie-cutter approach. There’s a lot of human aspect to it.”
Kapler is a prime candidate for NL Manager of the Year. Even with the plaudits well-deserved, he jumps on opportunities to speak in the language of service leadership -- another buzzword, yes, but there’s a point here.
Kapler and the staff tapped into the standards of World Series winners such as Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, Johnny Cueto and Brandon Belt, and the championship dreams of Longoria, and looked for ways to enhance those players’ efforts and help them rub off on others.
“They were very receptive and open to practicing a little bit different,” Kapler said. “What I would also say, and this is true for some of our younger players, they were very hungry and beginning to raise the bar or challenge themselves.
“At that point, because we had that opening, we were able to support what those veteran players’ initiatives and goals were. At every turn, we have tried to listen to what they’re trying to accomplish and what’s on their mind and be responsive. That’s it.”
McGee decision
Kapler said he is “confident” that lefty Jake McGee, who earned 31 saves, but also hasn’t pitched since Sept. 12 because of a right oblique strain, will be on the postseason roster, which will be announced before Friday’s series opener. Kapler left open all possibilities when it comes to how McGee could be used.
“I see him being used in a variety of different roles, and I think he's going to be open to any of those in the postseason,” Kapler said.