Giants Beat Rockies to Become 1st MLB Team to Reach 100 Wins in 2021

The San Francisco Giants became the first MLB team to reach the 100-win milestone in 2021 as they hit four home runs to score a 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.

Brandon Crawford, Mike Yastrzemski, Brandon Belt and Tommy La Stella homered for San Francisco, which continues to hold a narrow one-game lead over the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West division race. 

"It's a big deal," Giants manager Gabe Kapler told reporters about win No. 100. "We know our division is extraordinarily talented, but we also know that we're talented. Our goal was to win the division and not just sneak into the playoffs."

San Francisco didn't generate much attention coming into the regular season while playing in the same division as the star-studded Dodgers and San Diego Padres.

The ZiPS preseason projections forecasted the Giants to posted a lackluster 75-87 record and gave them a mere 2.2 percent chance to make the playoffs, per Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs.

Kapler's group came out of the gates hot, winning eight of their first 12 games, and never relented en route to the club's first 100-win campaign since 2003.

Starter Alex Wood gave up two runs with seven strikeouts across four innings, and a quartet of relievers—Kervin Castro, Tony Watson, Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval—combined for five shutout innings out of the bullpen to secure Friday's victory.

"It's a big accomplishment, but we're looking for more," Wood said.

While the Giants clinched a postseason berth back on Sept. 13, they haven't had an opportunity to give key players any added rest because of the tight battle for the division crown.

The Dodgers have been surging with 11 wins in their past 13 games, which could push the NL West race right down to the wire with just over a week left in the regular season.

Prior to 2012, when MLB added a second wild-card team to expand the playoff field to five clubs from each league, the division title was a nice accomplishment but not the be-all and end-all. Now, with the team that comes in second forced into the one-game Wild Card Round, it's crucial to fight for the top spot in the standings.

The Giants are likely to win over 100 games, but if the Dodgers pass them during the final week, their storybook season could come to an abrupt end with one bad outing.

So while San Francisco and Los Angeles would like to give players an extra day off and begin setting up their rotations for the playoffs, they instead have to fight tooth and nail until the NL West is decided, and that could even come down to a tiebreaker game.

The Giants have two more road games against the Rockies this weekend before finishing the regular season with a six-game homestand against the Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres.