It's hard to imagine the Giants first week of the season going any better than it did.
Going 5-2 on a seven game road trip to Arizona and Los Angeles, the Giants sit atop the division before they've even had their home opener.
While the strong opening week is a fantastic start – and definitely something to be excited about – it won't make or break the season in the long run.
The more important thing to take away from this past week is the fact that it showed us some significant elements of the team that will make or break their season – and most of them are positive.
Here are five things we learned from the first week:
1) The lineup is extremely versatile: From Pagan at the top to Crawford/Arias at the bottom, and every spot in between, this lineup meshes together well.
There isn't any stretch of the lineup that is one dimensional. Each group of Pagan/Belt/Sandoval, Posey/Pence/Morse, or Crawford/Arias offer nice versatility in terms of speed, power and contact.
This means the Giants can score runs in a number of different ways, and that's always a good thing.
They won't have to rely on waiting for a home run hitter or a speedster to come to the plate, as they have a little bit of both sprinkled in all over the lineup.
That also means Bochy can get creative in how he makes his lineup. With the exception of Pagan – who will lead off whenever he's in the lineup – every other player should hit in a number of different slots, and do so effectively.
This will help when guys hit cold streaks, allowing Bochy to slide players up and down the lineup without fear of losing production.
2) The depth of the rotation is a concern: The Giants knew coming into the year that there weren't a ton of options beyond the usual five starters, and that isn't going to change for a while.
This concern came close to rearing its ugly head when Lincecum was questionable to make his Thursday start in Arizona. Though he did end up taking the mound, Bochy was forced to come up with a contingency plan – likely flipping Vogelsong and Lincecum's respective start days.
A plan like that would have worked this early in the season, but once pitchers get on their schedules it will be much tougher to adjust the rotation to accommodate missed starts.
While a guy like Yusmeiro Petit is serviceable as a spot starter, if the Giants face more than one injury at a time in the rotation it's going to be trouble.
That holds true for a lot of teams, but in the Giants' case there is a wide gap in their organizational pitching depth. The rotation at the major league level is near elite, but the rest of the pitching talent is located in the low minors, a good 2-3 years away.
That means there aren't many major league ready guys available to come up and contribute in case of injury.
If the rotation has to miss a number of starts in a short span, it may get ugly real quick.
3) The bench depth is not a concern: On the other hand, the Giants bench is very strong. Ehire Adrianza, Brandon Hicks, Hector Sanchez, Juan Perez and Gregor Blanco all made their presence felt in a big way during the first week.
Adrianza and Hicks have helped soften the blow of Scutaro's absence, and the second base position actually doesn't look like the mess it did just one week ago.
In fact, Hicks has performed in a way that could see him taking over the starting second base job before long.
Perez and Blanco will do fine as part of the offense/defense platoon with Morse, and Bochy now has the perfect set of players to maximize the contribution of the left field position.
Sanchez has shown his ability to call a game and even add a bit of pop with the bat, meaning days when Posey is off won't result in a black hole at the catcher spot.
This doesn't mean the offense can afford to lose a bunch of starters, but in its current state the Giants look like they have one of the stronger benches in the National League, both in terms of flexibility and talent.
This gives Bochy a multitude of day-to-day options for when he is faced with defensive changes, resting starters, etc.
4) Giving up four runs doesn't mean a loss: It did last season. The Giants scored just 3.8 runs per game last year, meaning the pitching staff was under pressure to keep the opponent off the board.
The Giants win most of their games with low run totals anyway, but even a slight increase in offensive output means they can still win a game even if their starter doesn't have a quality start.
Obviously the offense isn't going to consistently post the 5.7 runs per game they've averaged so far, but it's quite clear that the bats will be a factor this season, meaning the Giants can win an offensive battle if they need to.
It's not difficult to see the offense take a modest jump up to 4.2 runs per game (which would have ranked them sixth in the National League last season), and if they do, it should mean a pretty large jump in win total.
5) They match up well against LA/Arizona: Sure, it's easy to jump to conclusions fresh off the 5-2 road trip, but even dating back to last season the Giants have shown that they have an advantage against who will likely be their two biggest competitors in the NL West.
The Giants offense has been able to exploit the Diamondbacks lack of pitching, while their own pitchers do enough to shut down every hitter besides Paul Goldschmidt.
The stacked Dodgers lineup hasn't been a huge problem for San Francisco either, as they have a 13-9 overall record against Los Angeles dating back to last season.
Their ability to play well in LA and Arizona – where they've gone 17-9 dating back to last year (including 5-2 this season) – is also a key factor and will no doubt play a role in sustaining their success against the Dodgers and Diamondbacks this year.
As long as the Giants don't flop outside of the NL West – where they went 32-54 last season – a division crown will be much easier to come by if they continue to knock out their divisional rivals on a consistent basis.
Of course countless factors will ultimately determine the Giants fate this year, but you can count on these five elements to be constants all season.
