Coming into the second half, the Giants aren’t playing a championship. Yes, they’re only 5.5 games back of the second Wild Card, but FanGraphs gives them a 0.8 percent chance of making it to the playoffs. The Giants aren’t really even playing to be spoiler. Last season, the Dodgers vastly underperformed and there was a chance the Giants could have ruined their season with just one more lousy win. The Giants won’t even get a chance this year. The Dodgers have run away with the division and there’s no hope of bringing them down.
This doesn’t mean that that the Giants aren’t playing for anything, though.