The Road Map to 90 Wins:

The 2010 season is 15% done and the Giants are sitting at 14-10 in second place. The team has excelled at preventing runs (even better then last season at this rate) and has been about average offensively which is good enough to give them the second best run differential in the National league behind only the Cardinals.

The team is underperforming the expected win-loss at this point which pegs them as a 17-7 team which suggests that the start is not just a mirage and that they may have been a little unlucky so far this season. Part of this is there performance in 1 run games where they are 1 and 5 this season, hopefully that balances out a little bit over the course of the season.

The NL West this season seems to be pretty bunched with the talent level of each team pretty close which means that no team should run away with the race. I imagine that it will be close going down to the wire with at least 3 teams maybe more within 5 games down the stretch. I think that the ultimate winner will finish with between 88 and 92 wins.

This is the road map for the Giants to get there:

Win at home:

This has been the team’s strength since AT&T Park opened winning about 60% of the games that they have played there.

This season they have gotten off to a great start with a .667 winning percentage at home. When the Giants are playing at home they have to be tough if they want a shot at going to the play offs.

If they can keep up around their historical winning percentage and win 61.7 percent of the Games at home you can put them down for 50 wins.

Tread Water on the Road:

To get to 90 wins the Giants don’t have to be world beaters on the road as well. The key for them will be to just try to win as many as they lose. During the good years of the Bonds Era the Giants were just about as good on the road as they were at home but since the big fella is gone that road record has fallen as well.
I
f the Giants can manage a 40 and 41 record away from AT&T Park they should be looking good for some October baseball.

This is the Giants road map to 90 wins, keep winning series at home and try to stay even on the road. With the good pitching and timely hitting the Giants will be a team that no one wants to try and match up against in a post season series; they have 4 guys that can shut down an opposing lineup every night, that hopefully means success when you need to win 3 or 4 games.

Other Notes… Accuscore has a new playoff simulation out this week and the Giants have improved their playoff chances (up 17.5% since last week) after a strong 4-2 week against tough opponents. They have them pegged at 48.4% to make the playoffs and 40.1% to win the division. It would be very nice to have some playoff baseball in the city again.