I’ve Seen Enough!*

Aug 22, 2026 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

*Actually, no, we haven’t

by DrLefty

This has been an ugly, ugly stretch of Giants baseball, and that’s saying something when the season started ugly and hasn’t really ever left the Ugly Zone. The Giants are 5-13 in August. They haven’t won a series since the last week of July. They lost the season series to the freakin’ Rockies, and they did so in spectacularly UGLY fashion. 

The pitching has been bad pretty much all year, and trading two starters (Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle) and a reliever (Erik Miller) off the major league roster hasn’t made that any better. Since May 1, though, the offense had been at least somewhat respectable, compared to their hideous first five weeks or so. Not anymore. In August, they’ve been without Matt Chapman and Casey Schmitt, both of whom had season-ending surgery, traded their best hitter (Luis Arraez) and a good-ish hitter (Heliot Ramos), and played a week without Willy Adames. Instead, we have River Cats and journeymen, plus Jung Hoo Lee, Bryce Eldridge, and Rafael Devers. (I’m not counting Bryce as a River Cat anymore even though he started this season as one.) The results have been, well, ugly. For August so far, the Giants are dead last in MLB in runs scored, 28th in OPS, 28th in team batting average, 29th in OBP, 25th in drawing walks–you get the picture.

I’VE HAD ENOUGH!

Comments on TWG this month have been along the lines of:

  • “I’ve seen enough of ______”[Carson Whisenhunt in the rotation, Buddy Kennedy, Turner Hill, Jonah Cox, Osleivis Basabe, Victor Bericoto, Drew Gilbert, Christian Koss, etc.]
  • “Why is ____________ even in the major leagues?” [pretty much the same list]
  • “Tony Vitello is an IDIOT for putting _____ in the lineup” [pretty much the same list]
  • “Why is Tony bringing_______ [name of any reliever] in? He [Vitello] should be FIRED!”

I feel the same way in most cases. If I never saw any reliever who’s pitched for the Giants this year ever again, I’d be fine with that. I’d seriously go into a postseason meeting, write all the names on the whiteboard, and then erase every last one of them with a dramatic flourish. Blank slate. Fresh start. It makes me feel happier just thinking about it.

However, dear fellow suffering Giants fans…

We haven’t, in fact, “seen enough.”

Oh, I’m not saying you/we are wrong in most of our evaluations. But the cold, hard two-part truth is (1) there are still 34 more games in this season, and someone has to play in them; and (2) there are some evaluations to be made for the future. Specifically:

  1. 2027 Rotation Options: Oh, I know the options are underwhelming. Even the two guys who will miss 2027 after having Tommy John surgery (Hayden Birdsong, Trevor McDonald) were not the Next Big Thing. But we have to grit our way through more starts by Whisenhunt, Adrian Houser, Blade Tidwell, Matt Wilkinson, and perhaps Joe Whitman (I’ll get back to him in a minute). We probably aren’t going to like it, but maybe one or two of them will elevate themselves as legitimate possibilities for next year’s pitching staff. Right now even the likely “sure things” (Logan Webb, Landen Roupp) are not very fun to watch. But here’s the thing. The Giants probably can’t and certainly won’t go sign a whole new rotation of free agent starters. So…it’s audition time. And in some cases, it’s going to be like those old American Idol audition episodes where the contestants were so bad that the judges had to stifle laughter.
  2. 2027 Bullpen Options: OK, I know what I just said, but again, the Giants probably aren’t going to go buy a whole new bullpen in the offseason, so we need to see what Trent Harris, Carson Seymour, Jason Foley, and Dylan Smith can do. I picked the first three names because they haven’t actually pitched very much for the Giants yet, and I picked Smith because even though his results haven’t always been great (walked off in four different ballparks this year!), he has good stuff and shows some grit. I don’t care in the slightest about seeing Sam Hentges, JT Brubaker, or Reiver Sanmartin, and if Keaton Winn weren’t perennially injured, I’d say the same about him. Add to the list whichever lefty(ies) the Giants might want to try out in the bullpen, which might include Whisenhunt, Wilkinson, or Joe Whitman…and we’ll get to him.
  3. 2027 Outfield Options: Jung Hoo Lee. That’s it. That’s the list. Oh, I know Harrison Bader is under contract for next year, but I for one will be stunned if I ever see him in.a Giants uniform again. So that leaves a bunch of other guys some of you have “seen enough of”–Gilbert, Cox, Bericoto,Hill–I guess maybe Casey Schmitt, though I hope not (he should be an infielder!), and Bo Davidson, whom we’ll also get to. (Also Scott Bandura–see below.)
  4. Rule 5 Prospects: So the Giants have a few players in AAA right now who will be Rule 5 eligible after this season. In a couple of cases, it probably makes sense to call them up and take a look. They actually have quite a few minor leaguers on this list, but for the sake of discussion, I’ll limit myself to players who are both on the Top 30 Prospects list and Rule 5 eligible this fall. There are two in AAA: The aforementioned Joe Whitman (a left-handed pitcher, #23 prospect) and outfielder Bo Davidson (#8 prospect). Let’s talk about each of those in turn.

 

Joe Whitman

Whitman, you may recall, was drafted in 2023 as a compensatory second-round pick. He was the consolation prize for when Farhan Zaidi didn’t trade Carlos Rodón at the 2022 deadline. He spent the first half of the season in AA Richmond and was promoted to AAA Sacramento in July. In Richmond, he was only used as a starter. In Sacramento, he was initially moved to the bullpen, but his last four outings (starting in early August) were as a starter, and he actually threw six innings for the River Cats last night. It seems like the Giants don’t exactly know how they want to use him, and he’s been OK, not amazing, this year (better for Richmond than for Sacramento). At the same time, he’s a top-30 prospect who will be R5 eligible, so they might as well take a look, right?

 

Bo Davidson

Now, this is a far more interesting conversation. Davidson was an undrafted free agent whom the Giants signed in 2023, and he pretty quickly shot up their prospect ranks and has even appeared on a couple of top-100 lists this year and last. Like Whitman, he started the year in Richmond and was promoted to Sacramento in July. He got off to a really slow start–this has been his pattern when he moves up a level–but has been scorching hot. He is the reigning PCL Player of the Week, and over his last ten games, through last night, he has hit eight homers and ten doubles. He is now batting .315 with a .922 OPS in AAA, and this is after a really slow start. For the season at both levels, he has 25 homers (tied for the organizational lead with Lisbel Diaz, who is at High-A Eugene), 79 RBIs, and 18 stolen bases.

Bo seems like a clear example of someone who is knocking the door down right now. I think they have to bring him up. Whom does he bump out of playing time? I don’t care. (Bo is a left-handed hitter, and the Giants’ left-handed outfielders are Lee, Gilbert, and Hill. Are we seriously thinking that they need Hill or even Gilbert more than they need to give Bo Davidson a taste of the big leagues? I certainly hope not.)

 

Bo hit a homer last night, but this was the one from Thursday. It’s a monster shot.

Another R5 eligible player who might be worth a look is outfielder Scott Bandura, who is not a top prospect but who is having a great year between AA Richmond and AAA Sacramento. While we’re sorting through outfielder prospects, there’s another one to consider. (Bandura bats lefty like Davidson does.)

I found one other top-30 prospect who is Rule 5 eligible, Henry Lalane (#11), who just came over from the Padres for Robbie Ray. He hasn’t pitched above High A yet, though, so I don’t think he’ll be called up, though he surely will be protected from the R5 draft.

So, yeah, we may have seen enough of some of these guys, but the Giants haven’t seen enough yet, so we’ll just have to pull up our big boy/big girl panties and deal with it.

 

Tonight’s Game

Giants at Red Sox, 4:15 p.m. at Fenway Park (TV: FOX)

Blade Tidwell (0-0, 4.33 ERA) vs Patrick Sandoval (1-2, 4.76 ERA)

Tidwell is one of the few “haven’t seen enough yet” guys who does interest me. I hope next week I’m talking about the Giants debut of Marcello Mayer and the major league debut of Bo Davidson!  Aloha, mahalo, and Lefty out.

Photo from my morning beach walk on Maui!