Worst Team in Baseball

Jul 25, 2026 | Latest Post, Out of Left Field

by DrLefty

Sorry, folks. My (relatively) upbeat column last week was a short-lived aberration from my incessant drum beat of negativity. After actually writing some nice things about the Giants, I was “rewarded” with a very desultory five-game losing streak that started just a couple hours after I hit “Publish.” How putrid was it? Well, two stats will suffice. First, they led in every single game they lost. In fact, in their seven games since the All-Star break, they’ve led at some point in all seven. They have a record of 2-5 in those games. Second, they scored 15 runs in those five losses. That is the literal definition of the “three runs or fewer”* discussion that 3rdNKing has been leading all season. They can’t hold a lead, and then when they do lose the lead, their offense isn’t picking them up.

*To be precise, in the five losses, they had one game where they scored four runs and another one just two. The rest were exactly three. It’s not a coincidence that the only two wins have featured seven runs scored by the Giants in each.

Last night’s win to end the losing streak will not appease my wrath. The Giants tried really hard to lose their sixth straight game. It was just that the Angels tried even harder to lose. The Giants had a nice, healthy 5-1 lead by the end of the third inning with their ace, Logan Webb, on the mound. For the second start in a row, Webb was rolling until he wasn’t. This time, he left the game with a 5-4 lead after six innings, and we all know that’s way too long for the Giants’ feculent bullpen to hold a one-run lead. They did get an insurance run in the seventh to make it 6-4, but then Jason Foley showed he’s truly arrived by blowing his first save as a Giant, giving up a two-run homer in the top of the eighth.

They managed to make it to the bottom of the tenth tied 6-6, and then Rafael Devers capped off a very nice night by hitting a ground-rule double* with the bases loaded. Even then, things got a bit sloppy. Jesus Rodriguez scored from third with the winning run, but Luis Arraez didn’t bother to score from second because he went to celebrate the walk-off. *Normally a ground-rule double with the bases loaded would result in two runs scored, but the official scorer determined that the final score was 7-6 and not 8-6 and credited Devers with only a single. Weird. Didn’t matter at all, but it’s just another example of Giants players not doing what they’re supposed to. It’s also worth mentioning that Devers is second in MLB in doubles, and if he’d been credited with that one, he’d be tied with Otto Lopez for the MLB lead.

Anyway, they won the game, and there were some good moments/performances that I’ll get to next. But I will say I felt zero sympathy for Webb not getting the win this time. He didn’t pitch well enough to deserve one.

 

Some good moments from last night

A couple of players/moments do stand out. (Spoiler alert: None of them were provided by pitchers.)

 

Casey Schmitt

Schmitt played a very good 3B last night, but his big moment was his three-run homer in the third inning–which happened after the Angels walked Devers to get to him. He seemed to take it personally because he definitely struck a pose. As Logan Webb put it, “When they walked Rafi I was like, that’s disrespectful to Casey, right? I don’t think he likes when people disrespect him like that.”

You do wonder about walking anyone, even Devers, to get to Schmitt, but–have I mentioned that the Angels are also not very good this year?

 

Rafael Devers

Devers bookended the game by hitting a two-run homer in the first and then the walk-off hit in the tenth, plus scoring on Schmitt’s homer. He continues to be a presence in the lineup (since May 1, anyway), and the back-to-back look with Bryce Eldridge hitting right in front of him paid off pretty well. Eldridge had a double and two walks, scored on of both Devers’ and Schmitt’s homers, and drew a walk in the tenth to set up Devers’ walk-off single/double. Here’s his homer, which I was especially impressed with because it was oppo-taco, right about where Mike Morse hit his in the 2014 NLCS.

 

Grant McCray

McCray didn’t even enter the game until the seventh inning, but he made a clear impact. First, he pinch-ran for Drew Gilbert, promptly stole second, went to third on a (very) wild pitch, and scored on Daniel Susac’s sacrifice fly. That insurance run seemed important until…well, ya know. But then in the top of the tenth, with runners on first and second and one out, #ForeverGiant Wade Meckler hit a fly ball to fairly deep right-center field. The runner on second tagged and ran to third, but McCray who has a very, very strong arm, threw him out a third. This ended the inning and gave the Giants the chance to walk it off in the bottom of the tenth.

 

McCray had a pretty good quote afterward, too, reflecting on a similar assist he’d made last September against the Dodgers:  “You shouldn’t run on me.”

Anyone else ready to see a bit more McCray and a bit less Gilbert? To be fair, Gilbert had two hits and a walk last night before he was replaced by McCray, but given McCray’s flashy tools and the progress he made at AAA in cutting down his strikeouts, maybe it’s worth seeing how he does with more playing time? The issue with McCray has always been can he, you know, hit, but I don’t see what it could hurt to give him some increased opportunities. Gilbert is also still a young player with a good draft resume (he’s 25 and was a first-round pick in 2022), but we pretty much know what we have with him. McCray, who was a third-round draft pick out high school in 2019, is also 25, but he’s only had 149 at-bats scattered over three seasons.

 

Ella Clark

The lovely young Ms. Clark, the recently crowned Miss Louisiana and Will Clark’s daughter, threw out the first pitch to her brother, Trey Clark, in honor of the Giants’ annual Autism Awareness Night (Trey has autism). Papa Will was up in the booth with Kruk and Kuip, and they immediately noted that Ella must take after her mom, which was the comment I made when I heard about her winning Miss Louisiana. Will, of course, ran with that and said “maybe the mailman” was responsible for Ella’s genetic material(!). As you can see in the video clip, though, he’s a very proud papa.

 

Hunter Pence

Pence was sitting in the stands with his wife Lexi and his nephew, Striker Pence, who’s expected to be a top draft prospect next year (IF high school players can still get drafted after the new CBA takes effect). When fans started going “Tarps off” in the tenth inning, Hunter and Striker delighted the crowd by joining in.

So that was last night’s game, and all’s well that ends well, I guess.

 

The worst team in baseball

The Giants don’t, at the moment, have the worst record in MLB after their win last night. At 43-60 (.417), there are currently four teams with worse records: Mets (43-61, .413), Royals (43-62, .410), Rockies (42-63, .400), and Angels (41-63, .394). However, here’s my argument for why they are, indeed, the worst team in baseball this season.

  1. Their head-to-head record against those other four teams is 4-10 (Mets: 1-3; Royals 0-3; Rockies 2-4; Angels 1-0).
  2. They have scored fewer runs than any of those teams except the Mets. Their team ERA is worse than the Mets (but better than the Rockies, Royals, or Angels). In other words, those other four teams are bad in one specific way (runs scored or pitching), but only the Giants are bad in both ways. They’re also one of the worst base running teams in baseball (Angels are worse).
  3. They are likely to get even worse after the trade deadline next week, assuming that Arraez and Robbie Ray both get traded. Arraez leads the team in batting average (.324) and Ray leads the rotation in ERA (3.33). Even if the Giants trade no other players (I’ll get to that next), they will be worse for trading Arraez and Ray, their two major expiring contracts. You would hope the Giants will only trade for prospects, given their situation, so no one is coming back to “replace” the value of those two players.

What’s really sad about all this is that being this bad will get them nothing in terms of draft order next year. Really, really sad.

 

The trade deadline

Well, it’s getting closer, and I’m sure both Greek Giant and I will be writing about it again as we get to/past August 3 at 3 p.m. PDT. So I won’t say too much about it right now except for a couple of tidbits. First, ESPN Insiders Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan updated their top 100 trade candidates board, and there are ten (10) Giants on it. The highest-ranked is Arraez (#10). Alex Pavlovic and Cole Kuiper discussed this list on the latest Giants Talk, and they had some good comments about the feasibility and possible returns for various trade chips. The most interesting question, of course, is whether the Giants will simply go with the obvious (trade Arraez and Ray and possibly Tyler Mahle if anyone wants him because they’re all expiring contracts), the unlikely (unload one or more of the “Big Three” contracts–Devers, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames), or the truly painful (sell high on Webb, Schmitt, Jung Hoo Lee, or Heliot Ramos). Alex threw in the prediction that the Giants will trade several bullpen pieces because (a) contending teams are desperate for bullpen help; (b) the bullpen as currently constructed is bad, and it needs to change by next year; and (c) despite the general feculence of the bullpen as a whole, there are some individual arms that might interest buyers–Alex mentioned JT Brubaker, Sam Hentges, Erik Miller, and Foley. I’d throw in Ryan Walker, who has had some success in the past and looks like a clear change-of-scenery candidate.

Time will tell. With the notable exception of Eldridge, if I were in charge, I’d listen to offers for anyone, including Webb. This team is a mess. Blow it all up and try to build it back. The one good thing happening is that the minor league teams and individual top prospects, as I also discussed last week, are the shining hope for the future. It may/will take a couple of years, but things will get better.

(I’ll leave the simmering issue of manager Tony Vitello and his coaching staff for another time. This has gotten long enough.)

 

Today’s Game

Angels at Giants, 1:05 p.m., Oracle Park

Ryan Johnson (2-4, 6.10 ERA) vs. Robbie Ray (8-6, 3.33 ERA)

Note to Robbie: Don’t. Get. Hurt.

Sorry to be kind of a bummer today, but…as I’ve said before, it is what it is. Lefty out.