Can the Giants finish strong?

The fact the team looked inept the first two months of the season and yet turned it around is amazing in and of itself. Two months of sucking, followed by two months of fun and exciting baseball leads us to this question: what will happen over the final two months of the regular season?

With Sunday’s 6-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies, San Francisco has lost two series in a row after winning seven straight. While the offense has certainly slowed down, it’s the pitching that seems to be the team’s biggest issue right now.

On top of the fact the Giants’ staff continues to surrender runs in the first inning, the pitchers are also taking its lumps because other than a handful of veterans, the rotation and bullpen are young and relatively inexperienced. After Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija, the Giants are rolling out the likes of Shaun Anderson, Tyler Beede and Derrick Rodriguez. After trading away a large chunk of their experienced bullpen arms, suddenly Reyes Moronta, Trevor Gott and Andrew Suarez are being put in more high-leverage situations.

The good news for the Giants is, no one else is playing very well, either. While San Francisco is just 4-6 in its last 10, the other teams in the wild-card chase are also scuffling along. Going into games Monday night, Philadelphia, which sits in the first wild-card spot 2 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco, is just 5-5 in its last 10 games. The Nationals and St. Louis, which are tied for the second wild-card slot, are 3-7 and 5-5, respectively. Milwaukee, two games out, are 4-6, while Arizona, which drew even with the Giants with an identical 56-56 record, is 5-5.

The hottest team in baseball right now? The New York Mets. They raised a lot of eyebrows when they acquired a starting pitcher at the trade deadline when all reports were they were moving starting pitchers, but they have won 9 of their last 10 to get back into the playoff race, just three games out.

Do the Giants have enough to snag one of wild-card spots? If they do, it’ll be as a team that will most likely finish around the .500 mark.

***

Rick Chandler, a longtime sports writing fixture on the Peninsula who had a stroke in early July, suffered a second major stroke over the weekend.

According to a post on Deadspin.com, the Chandler family has “made the very painful and difficult — yet humanitarian — decision to let Rick pass.”

That was followed by a long post from Deadspin founder Will Leitch about his 20-year relationship with Rick.

You may find it strange to have the founder of Deadspin.com commenting on Chandler’s health but, after some research, I found out Chandler was one of the original editors of the website. An editor’s note on the website said, “Will Leitch is the founder of Deadspin, and for the first year of this site’s existence, there were only two bylines: his and Rick Chandler’s.”

I knew Rick in passing as we would see each other at various sporting events around the Peninsula. When I first came on scene, the Daily Journal was the upstart newspaper and it took a while for the established guys on the prep beat to begrudgingly even acknowledge me. After 18 years on the beat, they have since come around.

But after doing some quick research, I found out Rick was more than just a guy who covered Little League District 52 All-Star games. Turns out, Rick was a guy I would have loved to know better.

I just saw Rick at the beginning of the all-star tournament at Red Morton Park in late June. We exchanged pleasantries in passing, Rick giving me a quick swat on the back with his notepad. It’s amazing how quickly things can change.

A GoFundMe page — www.gofundme.com/f/5dcnn-rick-chandler-family-care-fund — has been set up to help with medical bills for not only Rick, but also for his mother, for whom Rick was the primary caregiver.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117.