There was a sense of desperation in the air when the San Francisco Giants took the field for their Wednesday game against the Chicago Cubs. It wasn’t because they had lost five straight games, though that punctuated it. It wasn’t because they were in danger of falling to .500, exactly 50 days after they peaked at 13 games above .500, though that played a role.
It was because Alex Wood was starting.
That isn’t a knock on Wood. It’s just a read on the situation. Wood hadn’t started a game since getting shellacked on July 21.