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I was chatting with Mike Krukow during last week’s Giants-Dodgers series, and he shared something that sounded extremely farfetched.

“Look at the odds of tonight’s game,” he said from a broadcast booth at Oracle Park. “It’s heavily favored toward the Dodgers because Shohei Ohtani is pitching. He’s given up one run in three games, and Tyler Mahle’s ERA is in the 7s. Everybody in the world is thinking that the Dodgers are going to romp this game.

“Well, what if? What if Mahle goes out there and throws six zeroes? And the Giants win the game 3-0? I mean, what if? Baseball provides that unpredictability for you.”

Krukow can be overly optimistic sometimes, which many Giants fans love about him. But in this case, it turned out he wasn’t optimistic enough. Indeed, the Giants won 3-0, but Mahle threw seven zeroes, not six, and the Giants remarkably earned back-to-back wins over the mighty Dodgers in games started by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani.

The beauty of baseball, beyond all its complexity and simplicity and everything else that makes it a work of art, is you never know. The beauty of Krukow and partner Duane Kuiper is they’ll remind you that you never know. Because they don’t know, either. Not until the final out.

“The story of the game,” Krukow said. “That’s the one thing we have to recognize. The story of the game could happen in the first inning. It could happen in the ninth inning. But there’s going to be something in that game that’s going to be significantly different from the game before, the game after.

“There’s going to be a time in every broadcast that’s the catalyst to the story. That’s the moment you have to capture as a broadcaster, and that’s what we try to do. It’s so essential, a healthy anticipation by both of us, because we know it’s going to happen. There’s the responsibility to get it right when it does happen.

“And we love that part of it.”

The Giants’ schedule has been rough. Not just because the season opened with matchups against the Yankees and Padres and included the Mets and Phillies (before both fell into wild tailspins) and a Dodger series, but because it includes two long trips back East.

Which means less of Kruk and Kuip. Never a good thing for Giants fans.

On one trip, the Giants were in Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Washington. This week, they’re in Philadelphia and Tampa. That’s a good chunk away from the booth for Kuiper and Krukow, both of whom are in their mid-70s and have dealt with health issues.

Krukow, 74, no longer is able to travel because of a degenerative muscle disease (inclusion body myositis), and Kuiper generally doesn’t travel to the East. But they partner at all home games and for 23 of the road games courtesy of “splitcast” technology – Kuiper calls play by play from the road while Krukow provides color from the NBC Sports Bay Area studio in San Francisco.

In our chat, Krukow confessed that while it’s not ideal to call games off site, he’s grateful to the team and network that he has the opportunity to continue broadcasting with his longtime friend and former teammate.

“It’s hard not being there because I really do believe you need to be doing it every day to get the full Monty,” Krukow said, “to know what’s going on in that clubhouse, to gain their trust, to get close to the players. I mean, you’re traveling with them, they see you here, they see you there. That’s when they trust you. That’s when they open up to you. But it’s a necessity. I’m glad that they have a splitcast.”

Anyone listening to this tandem will agree neither loses a beat after missing games. Being disconnected from the action for any amount of time doesn’t seem to deter from their work, thanks to their experience, expertise, and relationships throughout the organization.

It helps to show up three hours before the first pitch to gain insight for that day’s game, which Krukow does aboard his motorized wheelchair, which takes him to the clubhouse, on the field, and anywhere else he needs to go.

“It seems like now the games are more important to us than they’ve ever been,” Krukow said. “We don’t talk about it, but we call every game like it’s going to be our last. We just treat it that way, which is not a bad way to work.”

During the last Eastern swing, nine games in three cities, there was a different anticipation and enthusiasm because the next homestand was going to begin with the Dodgers, which always brings more buzz and intensity to the ballpark and broadcast booth.

Krukow grew up in Southern California a Dodger fan, the opposite of legendary Vin Scully, who grew up in New York a Giant fan only to call Dodger games for 67 seasons. Scully’s favorite player as a kid was Giants Hall of Famer Mel Ott. Krukow’s guys were Frank Howard [“he was bigger than life”] and Don Drysdale.

“Then I got to know both those guys,” Krukow said. “What a life.”

Krukow’s Dodger blue fandom ended once he entered pro ball and started facing the Dodgers. Then came the trade to the Giants, marking the genesis of his friendship with Kuiper — “we were on the bench talking about the game pretending like we were broadcasters” — and the beginning of his experience in one of sport’s great rivalries.

Krukow called the Giant-Dodger rivalry “one of our most precious assets” especially when both teams are at the top of their game. For example, 2021, when the Giants won 107 games and the Dodgers won 106, then met each other in the playoffs. 

“That was insanely good,” Krukow said. “Both teams laid it out, honored the rivalry, played their asses off, and they were exhausted after the end of the regular season. That right there sums up why we love this so much. Having played in it and now being able to be responsible for telling the story of it, it’s just the essence of our job.”

Krukow and his wife of 51 years, Jennifer, live in Reno to be close to three of their grandchildren. They stay at an apartment near Oracle Park when he broadcasts Giants home games or splitcast road games, giving the couple a chance to see their two other grandkids living in Davis.

“It couldn’t be any more convenient,” Krukow said. “The Giants have gone out of their way to make me comfortable and provide the services to allow me to come to work. It’s humbling.”

Krukow insists there’s no talk between him and Kuiper of ending their careers anytime soon, a relief for Giants fans who hope that won’t happen until many moons from now — “I would love to broadcast until I’m a mumbler,” Krukow said. Meantime, no farewell tour is planned. He said that’s not his style.

“There’ll be no announcement,” he said. “It’ll just fade to black.”