The SF Giants collapse leaves plenty of blame to go around
The SF Giants lost last night to the Cubs, a game in which they blew two multiple-run leads. The day before, the Giants lost to the Cubs and didn’t score any runs. The day before, the Giants lost to the Padres, a game in which they didn’t score any runs. San Francisco sits two games back of the third National League Wild Card spot, which is mostly immaterial because the results of another month of play won’t erase the identity that this team has built.
This is a team that’s mastered the art of losing. It’s okay if the Giants lose two of three to a playoff rival because they’re still “in the hunt”. It’s okay if nobody can drive in a run because they might run into a hot streak sometime later. It’s okay when defensive lapses result in inside-the-park home runs because it's all part of the process. It’s okay to require the starters to be perfect and watch them blow up when they can’t be.
It’s okay to lose.
The Giants are an MLB operation with revenue expectations, respected veterans, and front office stability. The company line will stay the same as it has the last 30 years; they're in it to win it. But they have too many struggling players and rookie projects to have any believable pretense of contending this year, either. They say all the right things - “we’re ready to scratch and claw,” “at this point, it’s anyone’s game” - and then go out and play like a miserable, rebuilding team.
Which makes watching this team such an agonizing exercise in duplicity. The right thing to do would be to shut down some of the vets, play as many rookies as possible, and tank for a halfway-decent draft pick next year. But the management is too afraid to admit that their efforts this season have failed. That would take butts out of seats, put their own to the fire, and pass on the very realistic possibility of making Shohei Ohtani the next Aaron Judge, or Bryce Harper, or Giancarlo Stanton, or even Shohei Ohtani (the first time). The only way out of this mess is to actually win ballgames, and that would require half the lineup to hit better than Casey McGehee did when he donned the Orange and Black.
But do you know what really makes Giants games absolutely miserable to watch? Do you know the actual reason that they’ve given up on this season, whether they admit it or not? It’s that there’s no accountability. There is no standard for excellence that this team holds itself to, and must answer for when they fail to reach it.
The players haven’t been accountable enough. Joc Pederson has made nearly $20 million as a replacement-level DH. What about Crawford, who should be leading the charge in what might be the final season of his career? DeSclafani tapped out after less than 100 innings of fifth-starter-level pitching while raking in eight figures. He left the team earlier this summer to rehab from home. Why should it fall on Thairo Estrada to be compelled to call a team meeting to try to put things back in order?
The coaching staff hasn’t put the team on their back, either. The Giants’ entire offense is hitting .214 since the All-Star Break. They’ve stolen six bases in that span; the average team has stolen 32. Where's the scrappy, aggressive "never take the foot off the gas" philosophy that this team was so gung-ho about the last couple of years? It sure hasn't shown up on the field. Either the hitting coaches are being given an impossible assignment, or they're not doing their jobs. Either way, someone is falling short. Meanwhile, the Giants went into the season with seven viable options in the rotation. Two of them are currently starters. It’s not like the pitching’s been the problem so far, but it's worth asking - is this really a championship model for the next decade?
And it all starts with the front office. Farhan Zaidi did nothing at the trade deadline while his team went into a freefall they still haven’t recovered from. He was wrong in his pre-deadline blitheness to the team’s inadequacies, but he hasn’t expressed an ounce of regret that he couldn’t do more. For the first time in forever, there’s a tremendous wealth of rookie talent to develop in September, but he has struggling veterans playing for October. He would instantly earn the respect of the city if he had the guts to play the rookies and go all-in on next year. But he won’t.
He won’t because he still believes he can thread the needle between developing and winning. On its own, that’s not a bad plan. At the very, very least, Patrick Bailey and Kyle Harrison are keepers. The pitching staff has elite pieces, and Wilmer Flores has had a genuinely great season. But it hasn’t been enough. And the fact that the team is still over .500 is missing the wildfire for a handful of healthy leaves. If this is the winning baseball that the Giants have promised, then it’s not worth watching. It’s not inspiring. It’s not fun. It’s miserable.
The great irony of this season is that in the pursuit of threading an impossible needle, the Giants have broken the rule that made all the roster-churning and rebuilding of the last few years worth it. That rule: competence. No innings gone to waste. Every pitch, every at-bat, fielded by someone who wouldn’t throw away the game. That was the goal, and it led to one of the most fun seasons in Giants history, when they won 107 games in 2021. They were never the most talented team on the planet, but they were in every game, and they won 107 of them. Now, though, the SF Giants don’t seem to be in any of their games. They barely seem to be there at all.
