I’m almost hesitant to pen this Giants bulletin, because in each of the last few, I was sure that things were about to get better for the Giants at the time of publication. And each time, I’ve been wrong. The Giants are in an absolute free fall as of July 2, plummeting through one of the easiest stretches of their schedule with agonizingly bad situational hitting, and a declining starting pitching staff and bullpen.
Just 17 days ago, the Giants were on top of the world, having added Rafael Devers to a team that was just a game back of the Dodgers in the National League West. Since then? It’s been almost entirely misery. The Giants have won just four of their last 16 games. They were impossibly swept by the Marlins at home, then dropped two of three to the awful White Sox in Chicago. Maybe the team would get right with some big division games in Arizona? Nope. The Giants promptly dropped the first two in the desert in rather uninspiring fashion. The best they can do against the Snakes this week is salvage a split by winning tonight and tomorrow. But what has this team done lately to warrant that as a possibility?
There’s plenty of blame to go around, but as John Shea told John Dickinson and Greg Silver on Wednesday, the blame still belongs squarely on the bats. Specifically how the lineup performs in run scoring opportunities.
The hitting hasn’t been great all year, but as other aspects of the Giants’ game have regressed, the flaws at the plate have become increasingly glaring and increasingly infuriating. Against Miami it was defense and baserunning. (Cough cough; Matt Williams) In Chicago it was more bad baserunning, (no cough, just enraged yelling at Brett Wisely) and a bad bullpen. (Ryan Walker’s year from hell continues, and somehow seems to get worse every time he takes the mound in a leverage spot.)
A once bulletproof bullpen suddenly looks pedestrian. Some pitchers are regressing to a mean that the advanced stats have suggested would be more representative of their stuff. Such is the case with left hander Erik Miller, whose incredible sub 1 ERA was nearly inexplicable when considering his even K/BB rate. Camilo Doval has been up and down at best. Randy Rodriguez has been downright dominant, but the Giants probably shouldn’t expect him to perform like this throughout the second half. Even his last few outings have shown signs of mortality.
It’s still too early to be upset with Rafael Devers. But it’s not that early. Devers hasn’t been close to the impact bat the Giants signed him to be in his first two weeks in orange and black. He’s hitting just over .200 as a Giant, notching 11 hits in 54 at bats. He’s homered twice, and driven in just five runs. Perhaps most confounding has been the strikeouts. He’s struck out 23 times in these two weeks, including a brutal golden sombrero (four strikeout) showing in Monday night’s two run loss to Arizona. He added two more on Tuesday. It’s not panic time, but it’s frustration time. The Giants need him to be a force multiplier when it comes to offensive production.
Patrick Bailey continues his joyless offensive trudge through 2025. A deterioration that began in the second half of last season has only gotten progressively worse. He adds a TON of value on defense. He’s an elite pitch receiver. But the hitting has been so awful that any defensive mistakes seem unacceptable. He allowed a costly pair of passed balls in Tuesday’s loss. When you’re a non factor at the dish, you simply can’t make mistakes on defense. Non-factor looks a lot like Bailey’s miserable .543 OPS.
All of a sudden, Hayden Birdsong looks lost on the mound. He’s stacked three bad starts in a row now, the worst of the trio coming in Tuesday night’s blowout loss. Birdsong looked in control early, but a disaster of a fourth inning featured 10 straight balls before the inning’s first strike was hit out of Chase Field for a three run homer. Shea, speaking again with JD & Silver, didn’t seem confident that the young right-hander would make his next start Sunday against the A’s in Sacramento.
I’m old enough to remember when Jung Hoo Lee looked like one of the more complete hitters in all of baseball. April JHL was a spiritual experience. He smacked almost a double a game, consistently anchored the Giants lineup in one of the top three slots, and played flawless defense in center field. The good news is, the defense is still great in center field. That’s where the good news ends. Lee has been abysmal since the end of May.
Lee is just 3 for his last 40, generating zero power, and driving in a grand total of zero runs in that stretch. The man who was one of if not the biggest part of the Giants hot April, has fallen off a cliff in the early days of summer.
As he always does, Mike Krukow was therapeutic for Giants fans when he joined the morning show on Wednesday morning. In short, we agree Kruk.