San Francisco Giants

The NL West was shaping up to be an interesting division long before the 2021 season began, but the intrigue involved the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. The defending World Series champs assembled a historically deep team, but the upstart Padres made it known they were going to challenge their neighbors to the north for West Coast supremacy in the National League.

That rivalry has not disappointed, but an old rivalry has been renewed with the San Francisco Giants putting both teams on notice.

San Francisco (35-21) is currently first in the division, though the three teams are all within two games of one another. The Giants were in first place after the first month of the season concluded with a 16-10 record, and an 18-10 record in May has them well-positioned in early June.

Are they for real? Is this like old times?

From 2010-2016, the Dodgers were often the best team in the division, but there wasn't much to show for it in the postseason. Instead, it was the Giants who put together a dynasty, winning World Series titles in 2010, 2012 and 2014. San Francisco tried for one more even-year run in 2016, defeating the New York Mets in a thrilling NL Wild Card Game, but the dynasty ended soon thereafter with the Giants falling to the eventual World Series champion Chicago Cubs in the NLDS. A half-decade of being in win-now mode left the team with an aging core and a depleted farm system.

There were some down seasons, which was to be expected, and this season figured to be one of them. They weren't going to be able to manufacture enough runs, the rotation wasn't deep enough and the best players were past their prime.

But that starting rotation has the third-best ERA in baseball (3.04), and Kevin Gausman is starting to garner some Cy Young attention. Of course, the award might as well already have Jacob deGrom's name on it, but Gausman's 6-0 record and 1.40 ERA certainly puts him in the early conversation. And the Giants are managing to manufacture runs, as they're one of the top-10 scoring teams in MLB, and their plus-67 run differential shows they're doing just fine in that area.

Those veterans are also the ones leading this resurgence. Catcher Buster Posey has already surpassed his 2019 home run total (he opted out of the 2020 season). He's been hitting above .300 with an OPS of nearly 1.000 and a 168 wRC+ at age 34.

The 35-year-old Evan Longoria was looking more like his younger self before being sidelined with a mild intercostal strain. The third baseman has nine home runs and an .869 OPS. Brandon Crawford, 34, and Brandon Belt, 33, have also recaptured some of their youth, though Belt is currently on the injured list with an oblique strain.

The Giants have withstood injuries to key players by utilizing a rebuilt farm system. Their No. 2-rated prospect, catcher Joey Bart, hasn't even been used this season outside of one game despite some big numbers with Triple-A Sacramento. Offseason improvements have paid off, especially with the rotation. But still, few could have predicted San Francisco would be in this position before the season.

So here comes the tough part: Do they buy or sell at the trade deadline?

Last year, the team missed out on the expanded postseason by a single game. President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi previously said he wanted to make a move for a left-handed bat but that nothing came together. Putting deals together this season will likely require him to sacrifice some organizational talent, and the Giants need that emerging talent considering Belt, Crawford and Gausman will be free agents after the season. Longoria has one year left on his contract (club option in 2023), while Posey and Johnny Cueto have $22 million club options for 2022.

Still, the Giants have no choice but to do something at the July 30 trade deadline. Doing nothing would send a message that the club doesn't intend to compete this season. Thanks for the contributions, Brandon and Brandon, but you can take your championship rings elsewhere. You gave us your best years, Buster, but the pitching staff belongs to Joey now.

General manager Scott Harris and Zaidi owe it to the clubhouse and manager Gabe Kapler to fortify the roster. Right now, there is a lot of pressure on the starting pitchers, and another reliever would help them keep pace and take pressure off Jake McGee and Tyler Rogers. The team will also get a boost when Tommy La Stella and Darin Ruf come off the IL, but getting a younger bench piece wouldn't hurt.

Don't expect any blockbuster trades. The Giants are on the rise, and they'd like to continue that rise over the next few years. They shouldn't want a one-off playoff trip; they should want a long-term contender. They're surely not going to mortgage the future for one season.

There are similarities to the dynasty teams of the 2010s. A rotation anchored by Cueto and Gausman and supplemented by Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood might not be the flashiest, but they get the ball on the ground and rely on their defenders behind them to do the work. The rotation was the lynchpin for those previous Giants teams, and although this one might not have Madison Bumgarner, it's collectively looking as dominant as some of those past units.

And, of course, there are still those familiar faces. They know how to win. But they'll need to hope their age doesn't catch up to them in August and September. That is where some depth trades could help.

Are the Giants for real? Right now, the answer appears to be yes. They might be ahead of schedule, but that shouldn't stop the club from making some necessary moves this summer to help them keep pace in a tight NL West race.

In an unprecedented move, the San Francisco Giants will wear uniforms recognizing Pride Month, which is celebrated every June to recognize the LGBTQ+ community.

On Saturday—the third game of a four-game series against the Chicago Cubs—the Giants will replace the traditional logo on their hats with one that incorporates the 11 Pride colors, and a San Francisco Pride patch will be on the right sleeve of their jerseys, the team announced Tuesday. 

"We are extremely proud to stand with the LGBTQ+ community as we kick off one of the best annual celebrations in San Francisco by paying honor to the countless achievements and contributions of all those who identify as LGBTQ+ and are allies of the LGBTQ+ community,"  Giants president and CEO Larry Baer said in a statement.

In addition to the uniforms, Oracle Park will be decked out for the affair. Palm trees outside the ballpark have been wrapped in the 11 colors featured in the new Pride logo, which incorporates the original rainbow colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple) with the addition of black, brown, light blue, pink and white to recognize community members of color and people who are transgender. 

The scoreboard at the park will display the colors throughout the month, and the league's first ambassador for inclusion, Billy Bean, will participate in events on Saturday, according to ESPN's Alden Gonzalez. 

Manager Gabe Kapler said he is "very proud" to be a part of a franchise that is "taking this step." 

While the move is a first for an MLB team, the Giants set the precedent in the minor leagues back in 2019. The Eugene Emeralds, San Francisco's High-A affiliate, became the first minor league team connected to a major league club to wear Pride gear. 

Every day we're honored to be an @SFGiants affiliate, but having been the first affiliated @MiLB team to wear custom #PRIDE jerseys back in 2019, today we feel just a liiittle more honored seeing this news 🥰

Flashback: https://t.co/FDhNLzpdbz#GoEms x #SFGiants https://t.co/scVYanTmml pic.twitter.com/A0fDnSqbzG

— Eugene Emeralds (@EugeneEmeralds) June 1, 2021

Special tickets are being sold for Saturday's game, and some proceeds from event tickets sold will be donated to San Francisco Pride, according to MLB.com's Paul Casella. 

San Francisco Giants infielder Mauricio Dubon didn't miss a chance to troll Trevor Bauer during Sunday's game even though the Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander wasn't even on the mound.

He launched a two-run homer off Clayton Kershaw in the first inning of San Francisco's 5-4 win and then busted out Bauer's signature sword celebration while crossing the plate.

⚔️ pic.twitter.com/LLm76z7pok

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 30, 2021

⚔️ pic.twitter.com/PIw5tVVBaY

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 22, 2021

"He did it over there and I did it over here," Dubon told reporters after the game. "It's fun."

Bauer, as he so often does, took to Twitter after the game to address the situation and suggested the celebration would have been more effective if he was on the mound.

"People out here covering an eye after hitting with two eyes open and swording the wrong pitcher y'all fools," he tweeted.

Regardless, the Giants won the latest edition of the rivalry and took three of four in the series. San Francisco is also two games ahead of the third-place Dodgers in the National League West and just a half-game behind the San Diego Padres.

It's rare that fans of every baseball team can cheer for a single home run, but that happened Tuesday during a Triple-A game between the Sacramento River Cats and Las Vegas Aviators.

Sacramento right fielder Drew Robinson launched a solo homer in the top of the second inning to give his team a 4-1 lead. It was anything but a typical early game home run, though, as it was Robinson's first since he lost his eye in an attempted suicide.

https://twitter.com/RiverCats/status/1392309502918209541

In February, he talked to ESPN's Jeff Passan about his mental health and suicide attempt in April 2020.

Robinson spent 20 hours alone in his home after shooting himself in the head but eventually called 911. His eye was removed after he was hospitalized, and he was eventually outfitted with a prosthetic one.

He is now back in the minor leagues as he tries to reach the majors again after playing 100 total games for the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals from 2017 through 2019.

The 2021 National League West race was supposed to be a two-horse affair between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, both of whom had conspicuous superteam vibes at the outset.

However, the universe has apparently decided we are actually somewhere between 2010 and 2014 and that the San Francisco Giants are therefore in charge.

By winning 18 of their first 31 games, they've risen not only to the top of the NL West but are also tied atop the National League. According to FanGraphs, San Francisco has basically tripled its chances of making the playoffs.

And yet, how much higher those chances can climb depends on how well the Giants can sustain their strengths...and continue to cover up their weaknesses.

   

How The Giants Are Doing It

If anything, the Giants are actually underachieving.

Following a 77-85 effort in 2019 and a 29-31 showing in last year's shortened season, the Giants are backing up their record in 2021 with a lopsided run differential. They've scored 30 more times than they've been scored on.

Arguably the biggest factor in San Francisco's early success has been its starting rotation, which ranks first in MLB with a 278 ERA. Among other things, that's evidence of the effectiveness of its anti-fastball philosophy.

Giants starters rank 26th in throwing only 26.3 percent four-seam fastballs, and most of that comes from ace right-hander Kevin Gausman. Whereas his four-seamer is easily his primary pitch, the San Francisco starters otherwise feature a great deal of variety:

• RHP Kevin Gausman: 51.7% four-seamers
• RHP Anthony DeSclafani: 30.7% sliders
• RHP Logan Webb: 31.8% changeups
• RHP Aaron Sanchez: 32.2% curveballs
• LHP Alex Wood: 39.3% sinkers

As a group, they are also working toward the bottom of the strike zone. They're therefore not at all falling in line with modern conventions, which are increasingly based on fastballs up in the zone.

Yet it's not just ERA that shows the Giants' approach is working. There are also two components that help make up that figure, namely the highest ground-ball rate (52.1 percent) and lowest home run rate (0.7 per nine innings) of any group of NL starters.

Meanwhile, the Giants lineup also has two vital components.

By way of its 29th-ranked swing rate and fourth-ranked walk percentage, patience is one of them. Power is the other, as it ranks fifth among NL clubs with 39 home runs.

Does it help that Oracle Park has been playing smaller since the organization moved the fences in last season? Sure. But as manager Gabe Kapler alluded to when he lauded his team's "barrel accuracy" in April, there's also an approach at work.

Giants hitters are the best in the NL at hitting the ball in the "sweet spot," or with a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees. For his part, Brandon Belt was already good at that. For theirs, fellow veterans Buster Posey (here), Evan Longoria (here) and Brandon Crawford (here) have never been better at it than they have been this season.

With Posey and Longoria having particularly strong seasons, those four make up one of the league's best lineup cores. They're hitting .283/.378/.550 with a 152 wRC+, meaning they're 52 percent better than average.

It must be said there is no right way to win games. But if there's a wrong way, it definitely doesn't involve having an elite starting rotation and a lineup half-filled with standout hitters.

   

And Yet...

Thing is, the Giants have had it pretty easy.

They've played 19 of their 31 games against team with sub-.500 records. They're 12-7 in those, compared to 6-6 in contests against winning clubs. And considering that the Colorado Rockies (whom the Giants have already played nine times) are the only losing team in the NL West, that's something of a bad omen.

As for what, specifically, could trip the Giants up as they seek to realize their growing playoff chances, their bullpen alone could do the trick.

In addition to bearing a not-great 4.69 ERA, Giants relievers have already melted down an MLB-high 23 times. The worst of those took place in the second game of a doubleheader at Coors Field on Tuesday, in which Jake McGee and Camilo Doval coughed up six runs in 0.2 innings in an 8-6 walk-off loss.

It's also fair to sense that the Giants rotation is a house of cards.

Johnny Cueto, who's on the injured list with a lat strain, is 35 years old and done as a 200-inning workhorse. Of the club's other five starters, Sanchez and Wood come with major durability questions, while Webb has never had to get through a 162-game season before.

There's likewise downside in the lineup. Once Mike Yastrzemski (oblique) and Donovan Solano (calf) get healthy, they should have more to give. But even they will only be able to pick up so much slack if Posey, Longoria, Belt and Crawford come down to earth. Considering that each is in his mid-30s, it's far from out of the question that this will indeed happen.

FanGraphs projects the Giants to go 63-68 in their remaining games as the Dodgers (77-53) and Padres (76-54) leapfrog them. Such a finish would leave San Francisco to hope for leeway in a wild-card race that has room for only two teams at the end.

   

Why the Giants Are Worth Rooting for Anyway

No matter what happens, it's kind of awesome that we can even have a discussion like this about the Giants.

After winning World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 and returning to October in 2016, San Francisco hit bottom as one of baseball's worst teams with a 137-187 record across the 2017 and 2018 campaigns.

That begat a regime change, with general manager Bobby Evans getting the axe and former Dodgers GM Farhan Zaidi getting hired as president of baseball operations. Per the usual playbook, what should have happened then was a rebuild that began with the trading of high-priced veterans and carried on with a stockpiling of prospects as losses piled up and the club's rainy day fund grew.

Instead, Zaidi put the Giants on a different path.

Notably, he defied expectations by not renting ace Madison Bumgarner and closer Will Smith during a surprisingly competitive year in 2019. He's since followed suit by holding on to the team's other high-priced vets and has sought to support them through trades (i.e., Yastrzemski) and free-agent signings (i.e., Gausman and DeSclafani).

Though his hiring wasn't well received at the time, it's also clear now that Kapler is the right person to manage these Giants. Because while the analytics-driven excellence of the rotation and lineup surely began with the front office, Kapler has the less than enviable task of actually getting his players to buy in.

If the Giants nonetheless miss the playoffs this year, well, so be it.

The organization's efforts to keep its contention window open haven't come at the expense of the farm system, which ranks as one of the five best in all of MLB. As such, the next generation of Giants stars is ready to take over just as Posey, Longoria, Belt, Crawford and others are reaching the ends of their contracts.

Thus have the Giants rewritten the rules on what a rebuilding team is capable of. Maybe getting bad to eventually get good isn't the only way. With the right combination of ingenuity and conviction, there's another way that involves simply refusing to give up.

   

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.

One year after losing his right eye in a suicide attempt, Drew Robinson is back in professional baseball after making the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A roster. 

The Sacramento River Cats announced on Tuesday that Robinson was one of 25 players on their Opening Day roster.

Three months ago, Robinson told ESPN's Jeff Passan about his attempt to commit suicide on April 16, 2020, via a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after struggling with mental health issues for years. Robinson spent 20 hours alone in his home after his attempt before he called 911 and was taken to a hospital.

He told Passan he'd hid his mental health struggles for most of his life but that his suicide attempt and subsequent and ongoing treatment have helped him be more open and take a new outlook:

"I don't have it all figured out, but I'm working on it. It's not something that you just achieve. You don't just achieve self-growth. You don't get to a point where you just have it and you don't have to work at it again. It's not like a tool that you just get and you just have it forever. You don't get to a point where, 'Oh, I'm happy today. That's it. I'm going to be happy for the rest of my life.' It's the same way in the opposite. 'I had a rough day.' That doesn't mean the rest of your life is going to suck."

The 29-year-old had his right eye removed as a result of the injuries he suffered from the gunshot and has been outfitted with a prosthetic eye. He signed a minor-league deal with the Giants in November with the hope of resuming his professional baseball career. 

Speaking to Passan after making the River Cats' roster, Robinson said he will have "a hard time staying asleep last night because of how excited I am for these games and this experience as a whole."

A fourth-round draft pick by the Texas Rangers in 2010, Robinson has appeared in 100 MLB games between the Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals. 

Sacramento will begin the regular season on Thursday against the Las Vegas Aviators. 

San Francisco Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto exited Wednesday's game against the Cincinnati Reds early with a tight lat, the team announced.

Johnny Cueto was taken out of the game after appearing to hurt himself on this pitch pic.twitter.com/tdtcqyLUss

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 14, 2021

Cueto gave up three hits, striking out four through 5.2 innings of scoreless ball for the Giants, who led 2-0 at the time of his injury.

The veteran has made two other appearances for the Giants this season, amassing a 2.51 ERA through 14.1 innings entering Wednesday.

Cueto ended his outing Wednesday on a high note, striking out Nick Castellanos on a 93 mph fastball, but he ran a finger across his throat to signal to his catcher, Curt Casali, and the dugout that he was finished.

The 35-year-old, who is in his sixth season with the Giants after eight years in Cincinnati and a brief stint with the Kansas City Royals, has been troubled by similar injuries in the past.

In 2013, the Reds placed him on the injured list on three separate occasions because of lat injuries, and he also had issues in 2011.

He had Tommy John surgery in 2018, an unceremonious ending to a season that saw him post a 0.35 ERA through his first four starts. He made four starts toward the end of 2019 but fully returned last season, with a 5.40 ERA through 12 starts.

This season, he has started to show signs of returning to his old form.

Per Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Giants recently slotted Logan Webb—their top spring training starter—into the bullpen, but he may be able to take over as a starter if Cueto is out for a significant amount of time.

The New York Yankees announced Sunday they traded infielder Thairo Estrada to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for cash considerations.

Estrada, 25, signed with the Yankees as an international free agent in 2012 and made his MLB debut in 2019. He made 61 appearances across two seasons in New York.

The Venezuela native embarked on a slow rise through the club's minor league system, peaking as its 14th-ranked prospect in 2017.

Estrada posted a solid .280/.337/.389 triple-slash line across 454 games in the minors, but he didn't have a singular tool that helped him stand out. He compiled 52 stolen bases and 26 home runs while playing mostly average defense across six levels.

In his MLB time with the Yanks, he had a lackluster .615 OPS with five steals and four homers .

While he showed signs of potential progress in spring training with an .831 OPS and three long balls in 16 games, they optioned him to the minor leagues in March and designated him for assignment last week, leading to his trade to San Francisco.

Estrada doesn't have a clear path to playing time with the Giants, either.

Brandon Belt, Tommy La Stella, Brandon Crawford and Evan Longoria are the team's infield starters with reserves Wilmer Flores and Donovan Solano also drawing ample starts as part of platoons.

He'll likely start his Giants tenure at the club's alternate training site while waiting for a spot to open up via injury or until the minor league season kicks off in May.

It's a low-risk addition for San Francisco given his defensive versatility.

The San Francisco Giants continue to look at the free-agent market for starting pitchers.

Per MLB Network's Jon Morosi, Jake Odorizzi is among the starters San Francisco has shown interest in signing before spring training begins. 

The Giants have already made additions to their rotation this offseason, signing Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood to one-year contracts. However, both come with significant question marks.

DeSclafani had a career-high 7.22 ERA in nine appearances for the Cincinnati Reds in 2020, while Wood has been limited to 16 appearances over the past two seasons because of injuries.

Odorizzi also had a rough 2020 for the Minnesota Twins. The right-hander had a 6.59 ERA in just four starts and was placed on the injured list three different times.

Prior to last season, Odorizzi averaged 30 starts per year from 2014 to 2019, and the 30-year-old had a 3.88 ERA and 957 strikeouts in 991.2 innings during that six-season stretch.

The Giants are in a difficult position by virtue of playing in the same division as the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. It will be hard for them to challenge for the National League West against those teams, but they could emerge as a wild-card contender in 2021.

San Francisco Giants minor league outfielder Drew Robinson attempted to take his own life on April 16, 2020. He survived and has now shared his story with ESPN's Jeff Passan to help those who have mental health issues and encourage them to talk about what they're going through.

Passan wrote about Robinson's awareness regarding the number of adults and young people who have considered suicide in respect to the ballplayer's willingness to tell his story.

"He knows that sometimes life is like a vise, unrelenting, cranking tighter and tighter. He knows how crippling that can be. He knows that there is a burgeoning mental health crisis in this country, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 11% of American adults surveyed in June considered suicide, that suicidal ideation among 18- to 24-year-olds was at 26%. He knows this is difficult to talk about. He knows it's even more difficult to suffer through. He knows because he lived it."

Robinson noted the importance of working at improving his mental health on a daily basis, saying that reaching that goal is always a work in progress.

"I don't have it all figured out, but I'm working on it. It's not something that you just achieve. You don't just achieve self-growth. You don't get to a point where you just have it and you don't have to work at it again. It's not like a tool that you just get and you just have it forever. You don't get to a point where, 'Oh, I'm happy today. That's it. I'm going to be happy for the rest of my life.' It's the same way in the opposite. 'I had a rough day.' That doesn't mean the rest of your life is going to suck."

He also discussed the importance of reaching out to people for help regardless of how big or small an issue may be.

"I never will hold back from asking or telling someone, even if it's something simple. 'Hey, this little thing's annoying me today.' Just tell them. They want to hear it. People that love you want to hear it, and if you don't have people that love you, therapists want to hear it. People want to help you. Professionals want to help you. So many people in this world are willing to help anyone going through these things. It might be a specific situation that makes it feel like you're alone, but you're never alone."

Robinson played 100 games for the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals in three seasons from 2017-2019. He inked a non-guaranteed minor league contract with the Giants in Jan. 2020.

Robinson's treatment began with 12 days at the UMC Trauma Center before five more days at a psychiatric hospital. He had numerous hospital stays, underwent four surgeries and now has a prosthetic eye after surviving the gunshot wound to his head.

Robinson's ongoing wellness efforts also involve following a routine every day, including playing with his dogs, multiple workouts, calls to loved ones and friends and meditation. He also has weekly calls with multiple therapists.

In addition, Robinson said he does things to fill his time and achieve other goals, such as working for Postmates for extra money. He also gets extra sleep and keeps close tabs on his nutrition.

To close his nights, Robinson writes in a journal, always ending each entry with: "I LOVE MYSELF, AND I LOVE MY LIFE!!"

In October, Giants GM Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler told Robinson they wanted him to remain with the organization and believe he could still play in the majors. He'll attend spring training on a minor league contract.

       

If you or someone you know is in immediate crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for 24/7 access to a trained counselor. You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting "HOME" to 741741. For more information about ongoing support and mental health resources, contact the HelpLine at the National Alliance on Mental Illness by calling 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or emailing info@nami.org.