A lead of this magnitude is unprecedented. How does it compare to some of the leads in other classic rivalries?
This is a runaway.
Before end of July
The Los Angeles Dodgers are 33 1/2 games ahead of the Giants in the NL West standings. The Elias Sports Bureau reports that this is the 127th year of the Giants-Dodgers rivalry and this is the first time that the Dodgers had a 30-game lead before the end of July.
Things have gone the other way three times, but the last instance was more than 100 years ago. The Giants have built 30-game leads on the Dodgers before the end of July three times – in 1904,1905 and 1912.
As for the other Big Three rivalries in Major League Baseball (Dodgers-Giants, Yankees-Red Sox and Cardinals-Cubs) , per Elias, this is only the 13th time one of those teams has been 30 games ahead of its big rival before the end of July.
Before the Dodgers did it to the Giants this year, the last time it happened in one of the Big Three rivalries was in 1932, when the Yankees did it to the Red Sox. That was a Yankees team that featured Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and whose World Series triumph over the Cubs included Ruth’s “Called Shot” home run.
Still, the Giants are 6-6 against the Dodgers this season. But the Dodgers have another thing going for them. They have a schedule that ranks as the third easiest in baseball the rest of the way.
