The Best San Francisco Giants Seasons and Every October Run
The best Giants seasons from the Gothams to the 2021 team, and all 40 postseason series in the historical record, with 23 pennants, 10 titles and the near-misses of 1962, 1993 and 2002 set in context.
The Giants began in 1883 as the New York Gothams, took the Giants name in 1885 and moved to San Francisco in 1958. Through 2025 the franchise has played 143 seasons, won 11,622 games and lost 10,100, a winning percentage of .535, and it has won 23 pennants and 10 World Series.
That record hides a lot of heartbreak. The Giants have lost 12 World Series as well as winning 10, and some of their best teams never got to play one. The 1904 Giants went 106-47 and refused to meet the American League champion. The 1993 team won 103 games and went home because the division had only one playoff spot. The 1962 team lost a World Series in the last at-bat of Game 7.
This article walks through the club's best seasons and every postseason series in the historical record, organized by era: the early titles, John McGraw's long reign, the Terry and Hubbell pennants, the move west, the Bonds years, and the three titles in five years under Bruce Bochy. All records come from the historical record through the 2025 season. For the story of the whole club, see the Giants franchise history; for the players, see the best Giants by position.
The Giants ledger in numbers
Start with the totals, because they frame everything after them. The franchise has 23 league pennants: 1888, 1889, 1904, 1905, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1933, 1936, 1937, 1951, 1954, 1962, 1989, 2002, 2010, 2012 and 2014. It has 10 World Series titles, in 1888, 1889, 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933, 1954, 2010, 2012 and 2014. It has won nine division titles since the leagues were split in 1969 (1971, 1987, 1989, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2010, 2012 and 2021) and three wild-card berths (2002, 2014 and 2016).
Counting all the series in the database, from the 1888 World Series to the 2021 division series, the Giants have played 40 postseason series and won 21 of them. They are 10-12 in World Series (22 appearances, since 1904 had none). They are 5-2 in league championship series, 4-5 in division series, and 2-0 in wild-card games. The sections below take them in order.
One caution about the early years. The 1888 and 1889 championships were contested against clubs from the American Association, a rival major league that no longer exists, and the format was longer than the modern World Series: the Giants beat St. Louis six games to four in 1888 and Brooklyn six games to three in 1889. The historical record counts both as World Series, and so do the record books, but the opposition is not the same as in later years.
The McGraw years: 1904 to 1924
John McGraw managed the club from 1902 to 1932, a 4,424-game tenure in which his teams went 2,583-1,790. He is the all-time leader for games managed by the franchise, and the years he built the club into a perennial pennant winner are the strongest in the franchise's history.
The 1904 Giants went 106-47, the second-best winning percentage in club history at .693 and a run differential of +270. Then they did not play in a World Series at all. No agreement then required the two league champions to meet, and the Giants' owner and manager refused to play Boston. The 1905 team was almost as good, 105-48, and this time the Giants did play: they beat the Philadelphia Athletics four games to one, and all five games were shutouts.
The Giants then won three straight pennants and lost three straight World Series, which is a hard thing to do. They lost to the Athletics 4-2 in 1911, to the Boston Red Sox 4-3 in 1912 after a 103-48 season, and to the Athletics again in 1913, 4-1. The 1912 team has the fourth-best winning percentage in the franchise's history at .682, and it was the year Larry Doyle won the league's MVP award. They lost to the White Sox in 1917 after a 98-56 season.
The early 1920s were the high-water mark. The Giants won four straight pennants from 1921 to 1924, beating the Yankees in the 1921 and 1922 World Series and then losing to them in 1923. The 1921 series went to eight games, which the Giants won 5-3 in a best-of-nine format. In 1922 they swept the Yankees 4-0. In 1924 they lost to Washington 4-3 in a seventh game that went to extra innings.
Terry, Hubbell and Ott: three more pennants
Bill Terry replaced McGraw as manager in 1932, and in his first full season the Giants won the 1933 pennant at 91-61 and beat the Washington Senators in a 4-1 World Series. Carl Hubbell won the league MVP award that year and again in 1936.
The 1936 and 1937 Giants won pennants as well, finishing 92-62 and 95-57, but they lost both World Series to the Yankees, 4-2 and 4-1. Terry managed 1,496 games and went 823-661. After 1937 the club went 13 seasons without a pennant. Mel Ott, the club's all-time leader in runs batted in with 1,860, managed from 1942 to 1948 and went 464-530.
1951 and 1954: Mays arrives, and a sweep
The 1951 season is the one most often associated with the Giants, and the sheet shows why. The club went 98-59 and won the pennant, a record that includes a best-of-three playoff against the Dodgers, who finished 97-60. The Giants had trailed the Dodgers by more than 13 games in August, and Willie Mays, the National League's Rookie of the Year that season, was in the lineup for all of it. The playoff was decided by Bobby Thomson's home run in the ninth inning of the third game, a moment remembered in baseball as the Shot Heard 'Round the World. The Giants then lost the World Series to the Yankees, 4-2.
The 1954 Giants went 97-57 and swept the Cleveland Indians 4-0, in a year when Cleveland had won 111 games. Mays was the league's MVP that year, and Game 1 of the series contains the catch of Vic Wertz's long drive that is still replayed every October. It was the franchise's last World Series title in New York, and the last of any kind until 2010.
The move west: 1958 to 1962
The Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958 and played their first two seasons at Seals Stadium before moving to Candlestick Park in 1960. The club built a lineup around Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda, and a rotation around Juan Marichal. Cepeda was the Rookie of the Year in 1958 and McCovey in 1959.
The 1962 team went 103-62, a record that, like 1951, includes the best-of-three playoff against the Dodgers, whom the Giants again beat. They scored 878 runs and allowed 690, a +188 differential, and they faced the Yankees in a seven-game World Series. Game 7 was decided 1-0, and it ended with Willie McCovey's line drive caught by the Yankees' second baseman with two runners in scoring position. The series is listed as 3-4 in the sheet.
Second place, a division title and a long wait: 1963 to 1988
The decade that followed is a study in frustration. From 1965 through 1969 the Giants finished second five years running, with 95, 93, 91, 88 and 90 wins. They never got past it. In 1967 Mike McCormick won the Cy Young Award, and in 1969 McCovey won the MVP award, but there was no October to go with either trophy. The 1969 team finished 90-72, second in the new NL West, behind Atlanta.
The club finally got back to the postseason in 1971, winning the division title at 90-72, and lost the NLCS to Pittsburgh three games to one. Then there was a long drought. The next division title came in 1987, with a 90-72 record that was good for a +114 run differential, and it ended in a seven-game NLCS loss to St. Louis. Roger Craig managed both the 1987 and 1989 teams. He ran the club from 1985 to 1992, 1,152 games in all, and went 586-566.
1989: the earthquake series
The 1989 Giants went 92-70, won the division, and beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1 in the NLCS. Kevin Mitchell won the MVP award that year. The World Series was against the Oakland Athletics, an all-Bay Area matchup, and it was interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck shortly before Game 3 at Candlestick Park. Play did not resume for more than a week. When it did, the Athletics finished the sweep, 4-0.
The Giants had earned the pennant with a +99 run differential. Nothing in the data says the delay changed the outcome, but the sweep is the way the 1989 team is remembered.
1993: 103 wins and no October
The 1993 Giants are the best team in San Francisco history to miss the playoffs. They went 103-59, a winning percentage of .636, with 808 runs scored and 636 allowed, a +172 differential, and Barry Bonds won the league's MVP award in his first year with the club. The Braves won 104 games and the division. There was no wild card in 1993, so the Giants stayed home.
Under the wild-card format that began in 1995, a team with 103 wins would have been in the field. The 1993 season was Dusty Baker's first as manager, and he stayed through 2002, with an 840-715 record and a .540 winning percentage over 1,556 games.
The Bonds years: 1997 to 2003
The Giants won division titles in 1997, 2000 and 2003, and a wild card in 2002, all with Bonds as the center of the lineup. He won the MVP in 1993 and then four in a row, from 2001 through 2004, and the club's career lists show him second in home runs with 586, first in walks with 1,947, and third in runs batted in with 1,440.
The October results from these years were poor until 2002. The 1997 team lost a division series to Florida 3-0, the 2000 team (97-65, a +178 differential) lost to the Mets 3-1, and the 2003 team (100-61) lost to Florida 3-1. The one exception was 2002. The Giants won the wild card at 95-66, beat Atlanta 3-2 in the division series, beat St. Louis 4-1 in the NLCS, and reached the World Series against the Anaheim Angels. They led the series 3-2, and in Game 6 they led 5-0 in the seventh inning. They lost that game and then lost Game 7, which is the 3-4 in the sheet.
2010, 2012 and 2014: three titles in five years
The next era belonged to Bruce Bochy, who managed 2,103 games for the club from 2007 through 2019 and went 1,050-1,053. The pitching staff was built around Tim Lincecum, who had won the Cy Young Award in 2008 and 2009, along with Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, and the lineup around Buster Posey, who won the Rookie of the Year award in 2010.
The 2010 Giants went 92-70 with a +114 run differential. They beat Atlanta 3-1, Philadelphia 4-2 and Texas 4-1, and the club won the first World Series title since 1954, the first in San Francisco. The 2012 team went 94-68. In the division series the Giants trailed Cincinnati two games to none and won the last three, all in Cincinnati. In the NLCS they trailed St. Louis three games to one and won the last three. They finished by sweeping Detroit 4-0. In 2014 the club was a wild card at 88-74 with a run differential of +51, and it won every round: 1-0 at Pittsburgh, 3-1 over Washington, 4-1 over St. Louis, and 4-3 over Kansas City. Bumgarner started twice in the World Series and pitched the last five innings of Game 7.
The three title teams were not dominant in the regular season. None won more than 94 games, and the 2014 team won only 88. That is the nature of a short series, which rewards a hot pitching staff more than a deep one, and it is why a club with no 100-win seasons in those years could have three titles. For how the rounds fit together, see the history of the World Series.
2016 to 2025: one great year
The 2016 Giants went 87-75, won the wild-card game over the Mets, and lost the division series to the eventual champion Cubs, 3-1. The 2017 team went 64-98, and the club did not finish above .500 again until 2021.
That year, the Giants went 107-55, the most wins in franchise history and the best record of the San Francisco era. They scored 804 runs and allowed 594, a run differential of +210, and they won the division by a single game over a Dodgers team that won 106. Their winning percentage of .660 is the seventh-best of any 100-game season in franchise history. They lost the division series to the Dodgers three games to two. Since then they have been 81-81, 79-83, 80-82 and 81-81 over the next four seasons, third or fourth in the division each time.
The best seasons side by side
| Season | Record | Pct | Run diff | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1904 | 106-47 | .693 | +270 | Pennant, no World Series played |
| 1905 | 105-48 | .686 | +275 | Won World Series 4-1 |
| 1912 | 103-48 | .682 | +252 | Lost World Series 4-3 |
| 1913 | 101-51 | .664 | +169 | Lost World Series 4-1 |
| 2021 | 107-55 | .660 | +210 | Lost division series 3-2 |
| 1993 | 103-59 | .636 | +172 | No playoffs |
| 1962 | 103-62 | .624 | +188 | Lost World Series 4-3 |
Common questions
How many World Series have the Giants won? Ten: 1888, 1889, 1905, 1921, 1922, 1933, 1954, 2010, 2012 and 2014. Only the last three were won in San Francisco.
What is the best Giants record ever? By winning percentage, the 1885 New York Giants at 85-27 (.759) in the historical record. By wins, the 2021 team at 107-55, the most in any season of the franchise's history.
Did the Giants ever skip a World Series? Yes. After the 1904 season, in which they went 106-47 and won the National League pennant, the Giants declined to play the American League champion. There was no World Series that year.
Which Giants team lost the most heartbreakingly? There are several candidates. The 1962 team lost a seventh game by a single run, the 1987 team lost a seventh game in the NLCS, and the 2002 team held a 5-0 lead in the seventh inning of Game 6. The sheet confirms the series scores and not the feelings.
What happened in 1989? The Giants beat the Cubs in the NLCS and then met the Athletics in the World Series. An earthquake struck before Game 3, and the series resumed after more than a week. Oakland swept it.
Where to go next
For the whole club, read the Giants franchise history, and for the park where most of these seasons were played, the Oracle Park guide. To compare the rest of the division, see the Dodgers history and the Rockies history. Live standings and the next game are on the Giants team page, Oracle Park and the Giants topic page.