There is perhaps one positive way to look at the San Francisco Giants ' 2018 season. In 2017, the team lost 98 games and finished 40 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West -- the furthest out of the first place the franchise had finished since 1943. In 2018, the Giants finished just 18½ games behind the Dodgers. Improvement!
If you really want to spin things, you can even point out the team was 68-68 entering September, just 6½ games out of first place. OK, so the Giants lost 11 games in a row and torpedoed the final month with a 5-21 record to finish 73-89, concluding the franchise's worst two-year stretch since they lost 196 games in 1984-85.