by
Greek Giant
The Giants have become an embarrassment to Major League Baseball. They are in the middle of a six game losing streak and have just been swept by the Tampa Bay Rays after scoring a lowly two runs for the ENTIRE SERIES in St. Petersburg! This after just getting swept in Philadelphia with the final two games being losses in which the Giants had leads entering the ninth inning! It is hard to see how things could get worse for Buster Posey, Tony Vitello and this overpaid, woefully under-producing baseball squad.
How bad are the Giants? Let me count the ways:
- The Giants are now in last place in the National League West with a record of 13-21!
- The Giants have the fewest home runs (19) in the Major Leagues
- The Giants have the fewest walks (69) in the Major Leagues
- Rafael Devers is now hitting .215 with an OPS of .562!
- Willy Adames is now hitting .195 with an OPS of .568!
- Matt Chapman is now hitting .246 with an OPS of .655!
- The Giants are LAST in the Major Leagues with 106 runs scored!
- The Giants are LAST in the Major Leagues with 101 RBIs.
- The Giants are LAST in the Major Leagues in on base percentage with .287.
- The Giants have the second worst run differential in MLB with -34 runs.
The Rays (27th Payroll) Outclassed the Giants (12th Payroll)
This list could be quite long but I want to stop to go over a few things about the series against the Rays to show the contrast between the two teams. The Giants have the 12th highest payroll in MLB with $223.6 million. The Rays are at 27th with $105.2 million. The disparity between the way the two teams play the game is simply shocking when you consider this fact and goes to show you that all the high-priced stars in the world don’t guarantee quality baseball.
Watch the Rays infield play defense. Watch how they turn double plays effortlessly, with accurate throws, with smooth deliveries, with their first baseman knowing how to receive the ball. There were key, rally-killing double plays all series long that extinguished Giants hopes. The Rays turned a ridiculous 5-4-3 double play in Saturday’s game to save the win. It was a double play that even an average speed base runner beats out. Not this time, not the Giants. The Rays played immaculate defense and it was a huuuuuuuge part of their sweep.
Then you have the Giants high-prices trio of hitters (Adames, Devers and Chapman) producing like AAA-Level call-ups. Rafael Devers swung through a 93 MPH Steven Matz fastball down the middle yesterday. Matz, the picture boy of the Journeyman pitcher, has had an up and down career. He is not an Ace. He is not a hard-thrower. He is a location guy. The Giants scored one run off him in their 2-1 loss.
You have Tony Vitello continuing to send Ryan Walker out into high-leverage situations in the eighth and ninth innings. Yesterday Walker walked the first batter he faces, an unforgivable sin in a one-run game while in the middle of a six-game losing streak. That run came home to score and tie the game. Walker has demonstrated (don’t ask me to cite the stats) that he is not able to pitch in pressure situations late in games and he would be more effective as a middle innings eater or even a starting pitcher. Yet Tony Vitello and Bob Melvin before him, continue to send Walker out there as if their lives depended on it. The situation boggles the mind and makes me question Vitello’s intelligence and Buster Posey’s leadership.
In watching the three games this weekend I saw the Rays run hard, every play, every out. I saw the Rays base runners pick up balls, find their coaches and then run like the wind without turning their heads, without slowing down, without making assumptions. The Rays out-classed the Giants in just about every phase of the game this weekend and it is embarrassing. The Giants pitching did their part to keep their team in games. The Giants hitters did not. The Giants defense, while at times strong, was simply not as flawless, not as precise as the Tampa Bay defense. Too often Adames or Chapman have air-mailed throws, thrown too low to the first baseman or have seen their first baseman miss throws that need to and should be caught. Too often Giants infields are not able to range to get to slowly hit balls. The Giants must lead the world in giving up infield hits! Too often Giants players don’t run out ground balls or fly balls! It should NEVER happen, certainly not with a team this bad!!!!
The difference in fundamentals, attitude, execution and overall quality of play was staggering. I have been writing the same thing since I started this blog in 2016: The Tampa Bay Rays are a model in how to teach, train and draft players. The Giants are not. The Rays, despite having the worst park in the Major Leagues (not counting the Athletics (LOL)) and the second-worst owner, are always competitive, always playing hard and always, I mean ALWAYS playing the game soundly from a fundamentals point of view.
The Giants Have a Manager Issue and a General Manager Issue
For the Giants, nothing has changed since last year’s desultory season. If anything, the Giants are worse this year. The hilarious insistence on throwing Kyle Schwarber numerous fastballs, the lack of accountability. The ridiculous comments by Hector Borg after he mistakenly held a runner in a critical moment in Philly that might have cost the Giants a win, the absurd, literally nonsensical comments by Manager Tony Vitello after games, the laziness of base runners (I watched Rafael Devers literally stop running forty feet from home plate on a ground ball, and many other simply terrible signs of poor baseball all lead me to believe that Tony VItello should be fired and will not be successful as the Giants Manager. The Giants have a MAJOR leadership problem. When you have a Manager fresh from the collegiate ranks trying to be the superior, the authority figure for multimillion dollar superstars like Adames, Chapman, Devers, Webb and others, the situation is ripe for a failure. In no world would Vitello earn those players’ respect and so far, watching this team, it appears Buster Posey made a catastrophic decision with the Vitello hire. For those who want to claim that the Manager does not make much difference in today’s game I say “Hoooey”. Watch the Padres under Craig Stammen!
Buster Posey (the GM (I reject the POBO title)) is also to blame for the strange half-measures in guiding the Giants, a major market team, a team with pretty much unlimited resources but a mid-level payroll. How do you explain signing Willy Adames and trading for Devers then standing pat in the offseason and signing bottom bargain free agents like Houser and Mahle? Now, I will be the first to tell you that Kyle Tucker, Framber Valdez and many others are not worth the salaries they signed, but then in this case, it would be time for the Giants to do a full on rebuild, dump the big salary players and re-build from the ground up, the right way. It certainly cannot get worse than a 13-21 record!
If I am Posey I give the Players till June 1 to turn things around, win more, and demonstrate hard play, an improved will to win, hustle and fundamental execution. If not, I break up the team, dump all the big salary guys not named “Webb” and rebuild. I fire Vitello before he does any more damage to the team and the brand. I admit my mistakes and learn from them. I try to acquire value for the high-priced, underperforming veterans. It boggles the mind how many times I have written those exact same words in the past ten seasons not named “2021” and the Giants have done nothing. They continue in that purgatory of mediocrity hoping to eek into the postseason. I say 2026 is the season from hell and the one that demonstrates they (the ownership group and Posey) need to rebuild from the ground up and be honest with the best fans in baseball!
One cannot accurately assess Posey’s leadership of our beloved baseball club after one plus years. It will take a minimum of three years to properly and accurately analyze his imprint on the team but the early returns are not good. How does one explain extending Bob Melvin then firing him a few months later in the same season? The Tony Vitello hire, always a risky one, appears to be a disaster. The Giants are embarrassing to watch. The veterans are not hitting. They do not run the bases well. They do not walk much. They hit the fewest homers. They play middling defense and there is no real identity to this team. There is no edge, no fire, no hustle. The Rays series demonstrated all that.
The Giants Call Ups
The Giants announced today they are calling up Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez. Both are promising players. Both are being promoted in a clearly panic-driven move to shake up the team and hopefully inspire more wins and better play.
The Outlook for 2026
This was always going to be a transition year for the Giants. This team was always a border line postseason, .500 team. In nobody’s mind did the Giants seem like a World Series contender. But neither did they appear to be a 100-loss team.
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