Mayday! Mayday!

May 2, 2026 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

by DrLefty

Words fail me.

Lefty out.

 

 

Hahahaha, just kidding. “Words fail me” is not a thing for me. If words ever fail DrLefty, get the shovel.

I have a large vocabulary full of scathing adjectives and colorful expressions, but the Bay Area media has beaten me to it.

  • Andrew Baggarly: “dysfunctional”; “putrid”
  • Grant Brisbee: “hilariously incompetent”; “bumbling” (sorry, Grant, I’m not seeing the “hilarious” part)
  • Brian Murphy (KNBR): “What is a Hector Borg, and why is he in my life?”
  • Mike Krukow: “I was screaming at the TV”

All of that was before the Giants’ lifeless 3-0 loss in St. Pete last night that, among other things, featured yet another Hector Borg gaffe. Here are both of his terrible moments from the last 48 hours.

 

I don’t need to rehearse all the grim details. We know that the Giants have lost four straight games on this road trip–shut out twice to bookend the four games and the excruciating come-from-ahead doubleheader sweep on Thursday. We know all the awful team and individual stats. I think the most interesting thing to talk about today is how the Bay Area has turned on the Giants while they’re far away on the opposite coast and speculate a bit about where they and we go from here. Before we go there, here’s a quick recap of last night:

So what can we say about this game today, this series, and this season?  Yesterday’s game was typical:  a starting pitcher is OK, not great, not terrible–and it’s not enough. The offense musters a few scoring opportunities–and the run-producing part of the order can’t cash them in.  The opposing pitcher looks like the sure Cy Young winner for his league.  Yep. Check, check, check.

I actually wrote that on June 11, 2017. The pitcher in question was Matt Cain, not Robbie Ray. The Giants were 25-39, and by then we’d all accepted that it was going to be a terrible season. We’re not there yet, but the 2026 season is bringing up despairing 2017 memories that I thought I’d buried. I may need an appointment with a therapist.

 

Buster Posey is no longer a golden boy

Grant Brisbee’s article explored the question of “who’s to blame” for the (hilariously) “incompetent” season so far, and the answer, after some meandering, was “everyone.” Ownership. The front office. The manager and coaching staff. The players. One Athletic commenter tried to argue that it was the fans’ fault because the “negative energy” was dragging the players down. I mean, seriously, I’m watching a game in my living room in Davis, California on a spring Thursday morning and somehow it’s my fault that, 3000 miles away in Philadelphia, Ryan Walker blew another save and that the third base coach held up Drew Gilbert for what could have been the winning run? This doofus got shouted down (the cool social media term is “ratioed”), and other commenters argued strongly that we fans should boycott the team until changes are made.

The most common response from readers, though, was that the main scapegoat is Buster Posey, President of Baseball Operations. He’s over his head in his job, his acquisitions of Willy Adames and Rafael Devers have turned into hideous albatrosses that are going to hold the Giants back for years, he got cute and gimmicky with hiring Tony Vitello to be the first college coach to jump to the major leagues with no experience in major or minor league baseball, he underachieved in the offseason…you get the idea.

We could argue whether the facts support those criticisms, but honestly, I think it’s too soon to really know about any of them. Well, I take that back. He and the front office absolutely did underachieve in the offseason, and we all thought and said so at the time. I assume that’s because ownership didn’t want to spend the kind of money it would take to, for example, sign one or two really good starting pitchers, bolster the bullpen with established effective relievers, or add a quality outfielder (and to be fair, there weren’t that many choices between the Kyle Tucker tier and the guy they did sign, Harrison Bader). They had holes, and they plugged them, but they did so with (relatively) cheap, short-term, low-risk deals to players whose ceiling is “mediocre.” The odd part about that is that the one new guy who has performed well, Luis Arraez, plugged a “hole” that arguably didn’t really exist. Nothing against Arraez, who seems like a good team player and has been amazingly good defensively, too, but–Casey Schmitt was the presumed incumbent, he’s having a nice year at the plate, and now there’s a question of what to do with Schmitt when Bryce Eldridge is ready to come up from AAA. So even the one “good” addition turns out to be more of a head-scratcher.

The interesting thing about this, though, is not whether we agree or disagree with the criticisms being made of Posey. As I said, it’s too soon to tell about some of them. We were screaming about Adames this time last year, too, and he ended up having a perfectly fine season. No, the fascinating part is watching a fanbase that adored Posey and local media who treated him with the utmost respect suddenly decide that he’s an emperor with no clothes.

Three years from now, we could be celebrating the dramatic turnaround of the organization led by Posey and enjoying the next great Giants team, populated with young studs like Eldridge, Jhonny Level, Josuar Gonzalez, and so on. Or, we could be reflecting on how badly Posey crashed and burned (see Jeter, Derek and Jordan, Michael) and musing about how superstar athletes don’t make good executives. We don’t know yet. But it’s been something to watch the Bay Area turn on him in real time.

 

Where do they/we go from here?

As mentioned, the Giants are 3000 miles away right now, and with doubleheaders and travel, they may not be caught up on their reading and other social media. For their sakes, I kind of hope they aren’t. But they’ll be home in a couple of days to face the Padres, and it may be surprise on them if the park is half full and the fans who are there are booing them. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Giants fans be quite so angry. Maybe it was 2017? (We actually started noticing this when we attended Opening Day in late March. That was the game the Giants lost 3-0 and only mustered one hit. After the opening ceremonies, there was nothing for the fans to cheer about. MrLefty was in the men’s room after the game, and he said the other guys in line were furious–mad about the gimmicky hire of Vitello, angry that they hadn’t done more to improve the team in the offseason.)

I’m not sure what the decision-makers can or should do to right this ship. There are some obvious options:

  • Just stop with Walker in the closer role. Just stop. Now. Forever.
  • Replace Hector Borg ASAP. (This one is tougher. He’s only about six weeks into his job, and not only might it seem unfair to not give him more of a chance, but also it might be hard to hire a competent replacement in-season.)
  • Move Adrian Houser out of the rotation and into garbage-time relief roles. Bring up Trevor McDonald, Carson Whisenhunt, or Carson Seymour and give them a shot to hold down a rotation spot. Reportedly, Blade Tidwell went back to AAA specifically to be stretched out as a starter again. You might as well see if any of these younger guys can stick (like Landen Roupp has and like we hoped Hayden Birdsong eventually would). Houser has given nothing to the Giants. Less than nothing, if you count his -1.0 WAR. Don’t feel sorry for him. He’ll still get all his money.

You could do one or more of those things, but it doesn’t solve the problem of Adames and Devers not hitting (like, at all), or the team as a whole not taking walks, hitting homers, stealing bases, or scoring runs. The only rescue for the Giants’ “Mayday” crisis is…wait for it…for the guys on the field to play better.

 

MyGuy™ 2026 Deadline Approaching!

On a happier note, the Giants’ minor league affiliates are still playing well, and there are lots of interesting prospects to follow. The deadline for our annual contest is, as always, on Willie Mays’ birthday, May 6, at midnight. HaakAway has made it very easy to enter. I took his advice and used the Monday off-day to submit my ballot, I’ve already edited it once, and I’ll probably do so a couple more times before the deadline.

Here’s a repost of the info he provided.

MyGuy2026™ is officially offering a Ballot.

It is a contest to pick SFG prospects that are underrated and due to break out this year.
Simple “Check-the-Box” ballot format gives you the full rosters.

No penalty for picking top-ranked prospects … All are available.
You can edit your ballot right up until Wille’s Birthday strikes midnight on May 6.
Winner gets an “avwh” MyGuy™ button.
Mid-season Rankings will be posted.
Feel free to send the Ballot Link to any SFG fans that you know.

Questions?
Email: MySFGiantGuy@gmail.com

HaakAway also thoughtfully provided us with the spreadsheets of the baseline starting points for the players in all four full-season affiliates. If you haven’t entered this contest before–or even if you have and just need a reminder–the scoring follows year-over-year comparisons of the player’s performance, based on wRC+ for position players (100 is league average) and K/BB% for pitchers (higher is better). Strategically, you’re looking for someone who is good now and was good but not too good last year.  You also got bonus points if the player is promoted up a level(s) and sticks at that higher level. He shared the spreadsheets with me via email so that I could post them here. I couldn’t figure out how to get WordPress to display them in the text, but I will add them in the comments under this post. I found these to be very helpful “cheat sheets” while working on my ballot. (I won the contest in 2024 but didn’t even make the top 10 in 2025, so I’m motivated and going for the “Comeback Player of the Year” Award.) Anyway, I hope lots of you join the fun this year because it sure looks like it’s going to be the only fun we’ll have as Giants fans this year. I know HaakAway is always shooting for minimum of 24 entrants because…well, you know why!

(Also, the Arizona Complex League fires up this weekend. It’s not part of the contest, but we’ll definitely want to keep an eye on our two top international prospects, Josuar Gonzalez and Luis Hernandez.)

 

Today’s Game

Giants at Rays, 3:10 p.m. at Tropicana Field

Landen “Bright Spot” Roupp (5-1, 2.55 ERA) vs Griffin Jax (1-2, 6.35 ERA)

On paper, this should be a favorable pitching matchup for the Giants. But…

 

I’ll take us out with this funny video that I used to show to my Intro to Linguistics classes back in the day. You will see the connection. Lefty out.