Swig on them on! The Giants are world champions.

Welcome to the Giants Insider podcast on NBCSports Bay Area.com.

Introducing your host, San Francisco Giants Insider, Alex Pavlovich.

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is the end of a long road trip, a four and six road trip that pretty much ended the Giants' hopes of making the postseason this year.

I think I started to acknowledge that the last couple of days, they looked at the standings and looked at what they did on this road trip where they just really didn't hit it all.

And that's something that's been an issue for them.

And you look up and all of a sudden, you're nine games out, nine and a half games out,

and too many teams ahead of them, I think, at this point.

And they kind of were saying that even after winning on Thursday, that there are just too many teams that they have to hope falter as they try to go on a winning streak.

So it is what it is. I think, you know,

we'll see what happens in September and what they can do. And if there's any way that

they can bring some excitement to the park and maybe call some kids up. And speaking of that,

I think, you know, even in this season, there have been some bright spots. And today,

definitely we'll focus on one of them.

Derek Rodriguez is somebody I've wanted to talk to you for a while, and the timing is pretty good

right now because he is returning to the rotation on Friday night. He will continue to try to

build off what is done, which is really pretty incredible. He's been their best pitcher most of

the year and somebody who is right there. I mean, it's a tough NL rookie of the year race

with Soto and Inacunya, but he has been right there and certainly has been the best

rookie pitcher in the National League. So it was fun talking to him, and I think you'll enjoy this

conversation. He really gets into how he became a pitcher and how he has developed kind of on

the fly this year as a rookie.

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