No, 2015 wasn't as bad as we remember

Guess what day it is?

Assume the obligatory camel and “hump day” jokes have been made and move on to the real news. Camp has officially begun with Giants pitchers and catchers checking into Scottsdale for six weeks of whatever it is they do between golf outings and steak dinners at The Pink Pony.

At the outset, this year’s edition of “As the Roster Turns” has about as much drama as an episode of Scooby Doo (they could have solved mysteries faster by hanging out at the local mask shop), making this as good a time as any to take our final look back at what went wrong, and right, in 2015. Believe it or not, a lot went right.

FYI, we hated these commercials

At the risk of going all Pollyanna here, for all of the wailing and gnashing of teeth (and that was just us), the offense wasn’t the weak spot. Well, technically there were weak spots on offense but they had more to so with bone-seeking fastballs, contorted backs and blows to the dome than any shortage of talent. 

The Giants were one of the better offensive teams in baseball. The emergence of Joe Panik and Matt Duffy helped make up for a team that missed its emotional leader. All apologies to Buster Posey: he is the team’s best player (Madison Bumgarner is the muscle), but Hunter Pence is its heart.  Seeing him limited to 50 games didn’t exactly set the team up for success. 

Marvel's Duffy and Panik: The New Avengers

The core is back, and if USA Today can be believed, they'll score runs just fine, thank you. Spotty starting pitching and poor health were the obvious culprits.

You knew it was gonna be bad when Pence was joined on the DL by 40 percent of the rotation (Matt Cain, Jake Peavy) before either threw a pitch in anger. Ryan Vogelsong and Chris Heston were poor substitutes, Tim Lincecum wasn’t right, and the team stumbled out of the gate. Having the team recover from a 9-13 April to win 84 games and stay in the race into September says a lot about the crew that remained.

It took a look back at Baseball Reference to pry loose a memory that the Giants actually spent three days in first place and at one point were 11 games over .500 despite the roster being held together with gorilla tape and bondo. Of course, they also fell six games under at one point. Aye, there’s the rub (Shakespeare gang, Shakespeare).

What made us crazy was the team being maddeningly consistent in its inconsistency. They had an eight game win streak in May; preceded by an eight-game April losing skid. They shut out the opposition 15 times; they got blanked on 18 occasions. They won six games in walk-off fashion; they lost seven the same way.

Head to head? They beat both the Division Champion Dodgers (Air! Gimme air!) and San Diego 11 out of 19 but dropped the same record against lowly Colorado and Arizona. They were the California Champs without Jackie Earle Haley, but breaking even in the division never gets the job done. If they coulda just won a few for the Luper it might have been a different story.

The season was home to more mood swings than the mothers’ room at Babies ‘R Us. Want proof? The Giants had winning records in May, July and September. April, June and August were losers. Down, up, down, up, down, up; and most of us were not sufficiently equipped for the emotional roller-coaster. It made the season seem worse than it was.

Yeah, that's what it was like

The stat that was most appalling also gives the most hope. The Giants played 40 games in which the margin of victory was five runs or more. They won 25 of those. The Achilles heel was one-run affairs, in which they went 19-28.  In those 28 losses, giving up just one less run in half of them turns the division. Welcome, Messers Cueto and Samardzija.

ESPN saw between the lines in its final 2015 power rankings. The Giants were still ranked 12^th out of 30 teams because the writing was on the wall:

“The Giants will look back on 2015 and wonder what could have been if five Opening Day starters and five starting pitchers didn't see time on the disabled list. Rookies Matt Duffy, Kelby Tomlinson, Chris Heston, Josh Osich and Hunter Strickland opened eyes in the organization and lend hope to a playoff run in 2016.”

We agree. It’s finally time to turn the page. Spring has sprung.. It’s a time when every fan base thinks its team has a shot. 

In the Giants’ case, that optimism is warranted.