SAN FRANCISCO -- The memories probably will come flooding back when Buster Posey steps foot in Great American Ball Park on Thursday. It was home to one of the great comebacks in postseason history, sparked by Hunter Pence's rousing speech in the visiting clubhouse. Posey's grand slam in Game 5 of the National League Division Series in 2012 capped the comeback, which led to a second title in three years.
That comeback was a reminder that anything can happen in a short series. If you catch fire for a week, or even just for 27 innings, you can exceed expectations. Get everything clicking for a few weeks at exactly the right time and you might find yourself in a parade.
The problem this season for the Giants, now run by Posey, won't be imagining what they can do in a short series. It'll be getting to one in the first place.
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Entering the season, just about everyone will pick them to finish fourth in their own division. That's not a path to the postseason, which means they'll have to vault one of three contenders ahead of them. Nobody is going to catch the reigning champs, who added Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, and will get Shohei Ohtani back on the mound in a couple of months. The Arizona Diamondbacks are a popular dark horse pick in the NL, and they now have Corbin Burnes alongside Zac Gallen. The San Diego Padres had a messy offseason, but the top of their rotation is strong and the lineup features Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill.
The NL West might be the best division in baseball. And Bob Melvin wants his team to embrace that.
"You have to be inspired to play against teams like that," he said on Wednesday's "Giants Talk" podcast. "The Dodgers are probably as close to a super team as you have right now in baseball, but you know what, you get motivated to play against those guys, and then the rivalry comes into play, too. That even inspires you more to play good against those good teams, and if you beat them -- which we expect to stand up against all these teams -- especially with the younger guys, the confidence grows.
"Now all of a sudden you look forward to playing in those tight games, packed houses at our place, packed houses at Dodger Stadium. And you gain a lot of confidence from that. We're not going to back down to anybody. We know our division is tough, but it's kind of cool that we're playing a lot of good teams in our division. We feel like we're going to stack up well."
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Spring is a time to be that optimistic. It's also a time to set the tone, and that's what Posey attempted to do when he spoke to the full team at the start of camp. Four years ago, Posey returned from a year off and encouraged his teammates to make the division title their first goal. That surprised the coaching staff, but the Giants went out and won 107 games, one more than Los Angeles. This spring, Posey again reminded the players that the first priority is always to win your division.
"I don't think the years after (2021) we had the same message. I don't know why," Logan Webb said. "I can't explain why, but I think getting back to that, if you go back to that year, I think (the projections) probably were 80 wins. It's kind of the same thing right now. There's not a lot of people who think we can do it (but) winning is contagious. You win a couple and they start piling up and all of a sudden you win 107 games.
"I don't necessarily think we should shoot for a number. It's just go out there and play as hard as we can every single day. I think when you do that, good things happen, and you're fighting and scrapping until the end to try to win the division. Once you do that, you give yourself a chance to try to win a World Series."
This year's projections again have the Giants in that 80-win range. FanGraphs currently has them going 81-81, with a 29 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 2.4 percent chance of winning the West. The Dodgers are overwhelming favorites, given an 86 percent chance of winning the division, by far the highest in baseball. They're 2-0 already after starting the season in Japan, and nobody would be surprised if they go wire-to-wire en route to 110-plus wins.
FanGraphs has the Diamondbacks as a playoff team but the Padres just percentage points ahead of the Giants. PECOTA has the Giants well behind all three, with a win projection of just 77. Its calculations have all three teams ahead of the Giants projected to make the postseason.
"Our division is no joke," Matt Chapman said.
But, he added ...
"There are four teams that could win any division, I think."
Chapman is one of the biggest reasons why Webb, who has experienced the postseason just once in his career, is confident that winning ways are returning. He noted that when he looks back at 2021, he realizes how important it was for someone like Posey to lead the charge. In Chapman and Willy Adames, the Giants feel they have similar leaders.
"I think getting back to that is really important," Webb said.
The staff ace will take the ball Thursday, but it'll be some time before the Giants get to test themselves against the three contenders in the West. They open with a trip to Cincinnati and Houston, and the first homestand brings the Seattle Mariners and another round with the Reds.
The Giants don't face an NL West team until late April, and that's just a two-game trip to Petco Park. In May, they'll see the Colorado Rockies and Diamondbacks, but it's not until June 13 that they get a first look at this version of the Dodgers. The best team in baseball doesn't come to Oracle Park until July.
If the Giants truly can surprise the industry and hang on, they'll get a chance to prove themselves against the NL West's best when it matters most. In September, they have a two-week stretch when they play only the Diamondbacks and Dodgers.
There's a long, long way to go until the Giants get there, and the start of their season isn't easy by any means, even if they are avoiding their division. The second road trip includes series against the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies, and they also will see the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers early on.
The NL West discussions will be put on the back burner, at least for a few weeks. Melvin hopes his group gets off to a good start and gets used to winning, which will allow them to take more confidence into all those divisional battles. After that, you never know. He pointed out that he was part of a Padres team that knocked off the Dodgers in October, and a year later the Diamondbacks did the same thing.
"Last year was probably the first year in quite some time that -- with the Yankees and Dodgers -- two big spenders were actually in the World Series," Melvin said. "It doesn't guarantee anything, and with as many teams that can get into the playoffs now, a lot of it is who is playing well towards the end of the season."