Kris Bryant of the San Francisco Giants is congratulated by third base coach Ron Wotus after he hit a home run in the sixth inning against the San Diego Padres.
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Even as the Giants’ lead in the NL West against the Dodgers has begun to slip, the odds are apparently still in San Francisco’s favor.
This is according to Steve Kornacki, the national political correspondent for NBC News, who showed off his statistical model on Thursday that gave the Giants a 76.4% chance to win the division. That might not be high enough for some — if you really want to feel nervous, think of the Dodgers’ chances as a game of Russian roulette where the bullet is in one of four chambers — but the Giants‘ success train this year has shown almost no signs of slowing down as the season comes to a close.
Kornacki rose to celebrity status during the 2020 election when, as a result of slow vote tabulations because of COVID-19 restrictions throughout the country, he was on national television nightly after Election Day breaking down who was likely going to win each state.
Of course, probability models only mean so much, since the computer doesn’t actually play the game on the field. In order to help prove the numbers correct, the Giants will need to put their recent loss to the Padres behind them so they can properly face the current NL East leaders, the Atlanta Braves, in a series that begins Friday.
