As this Jock Blog is being scribbled on Wednesday afternoon, May 13, 2026, the Giants are 18-24 and that dog don’t hunt, sports fans.
However!
Intrigue remains supreme around the local nine.
Buster Posey’s reign as president of baseball operations has fans both dying to see the hometown hero succeed, and dying as his team struggles to even sniff .500.
Tony Vitello’s hire has divided baseball, half of the room into the “Mean Girls” role of wanting to see a guy fail who never rode the minor league bus. The other half is more generous, interested to watch the role of baseball manager evolve — and quite frankly, just to see the Giants win.
And then the start. Oy, the start. Six wins in the first eighteen games dug the Giants quite a hole — a six-under-.500 hole in which they remain mired. It got as bad as nine-under .500, at 15-24, after the “Saturday Night Massacre” of boos and Pirates kicking Giant booty.
Now, back to six-under. Three straight wins, each of them notable:
— Three comebacks from two-run deficits on Mother’s Day, ending in an extra-inning win that may prove to be quite huge. Falling 10-under would have had people using the word ‘Mother’ in other forms.
— A Monday night win at Dodger Stadium that saw big-money RBI guys Rafael Devers and Willy Adames actually drive in big-money RBIs. Five of them, to be precise.
— And a Tuesday night win at Dodger Stadium over World Series MVP Yoshi Yamamoto, who has never beaten the Giants. This one involved a two-homer game from backup catcher Eric Haase, who is only getting starts because Patrick Bailey got traded in one of Posey’s increasingly-common bold moves.
As we noted earlier: intrigue.
The offense that was historically anemic in March and April is finding a little rhythm. Believe it or not, in the month of the May the Giants aren’t the worst hitting team in the history of baseball, which is an improvement on March and April, when they pretty much were the worst hitting team in the history of baseball. In May, the Giants are tied-11th in MLB in home runs and tied-17th in runs scored. Hardly the days of the Pacific Sock Exchange, but at least a pulse.
The trade of Bailey is worth a Jock Blog all its own, but suffice to say that removing a regular who currently sports a .375 *OPS* has made the offense better. Three seventy five Oh pee ess. Damn. Pat Bailey the Cleveland Guardian is in a deep freeze at the plate. Poor guy.
Jesus (Born to Make Contact) Rodriguez has entered the chat, and in 21 at-bats has only whiffed three times, while hitting .286 with a home run and four RBIs. Haase, you saw Tuesday night. So, more runs.
The call-up of Bryce Eldridge is also worth a Jock Blog all its own, but suffice to say that he’s 21 years old and though he’s only 2-for-17 thus far, the big fella has notched his first big-league home run and remains a threat in the box. How the Giants use his talents in the coming days and weeks will be closely watched.
And then there’s Matt Chapman. If you are a metrics guy, you point to the fact that his 1.0 WAR is second only to Luis Arraez among position players. Then again, if you’re a metrics guy, you’re also showing a spread sheet to your co-workers of Patrick Bailey’s computer-approved ability to help a team win. About that.
Yes, the glove. And that matters. But Chapman is in a Bailey-like funk at the plate. In the last 24 games, Chapman is rocking a .193 batting average with precisely zero home runs. He’s 3-for-36 in the month of May. Chappy. Bro.
And yet. Three straight wins for the Giants. A 4-1 mark against the Dodgers.
On Tuesday night, when Jung Hoo Lee slid into second base after a two-run double to give the Giants a 6-2 lead, he turned to the dugout and pumped his fist. In Lee’s two-plus years as a Giant, it was his most emotive moment.
Made me wonder that with all the intrigue — the Bailey trade, Vitello, Posey, the Eldridge conundrum, Chapman’s struggles, Casey Schmitt’s rise, the ongoing bullpen shuffle, the relative stability of the starters, Vitello, Posey, Vitello, Posey — are the Giants beginning to join the land of the living?
And still six games under. Oy. Intrigue abounds.
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