The Giants Are Showing Signs Of Hope- If You Ignore The Soul-Crushing Blown Leads.
This year was marked from the start to be a new beginning for the San Francisco Giants. Two major departures marked their offseason, as the franchise parted ways with longtime manager Bruce Bochy and ace starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner- both cornerstones of the three World Series championships the team won in 2010, 2012 and 2014.
In their place, new manager Gabe Kapler inherited a roster of castoffs and older, some would say overpaid, veterans, some who had played roles in the championship seasons, like Brandon Belt, others who had achieved great things in their prime but had missed out on those magical years with the Giants- the likes of Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samarzidja, and Evan Longoria would fall into this category.
A few of the castoffs had already begun to make their mark in the previous season. Mike Yastrzemski, grandson of the Red Sox legend and Hall of Fame Carl, turned from a twenty-nine year old career minor leaguer with the Baltimore Orioles to lead the Giants in home runs and provide an all around inspirational story for a fanbase that had suddenly found itself in dire need of anything positive.
In 2020, Yazstremski has so far shown he is more than just an inspirational story, but is in fact playing like a legitimate superstar in the league- albeit only partway through a shortened year. He has had veritable breakout numbers so far, leading all of baseball in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in the first third of the season, according to leading analytics site Fangraphs. For Giants President Farhan Zaidi, Yastrzemski may be San Francisco’s equivalent to what he found in Max Muncy for his previous team the Dodgers- a seeming career minor leaguer who, with a new home and the right development and coaching, can be turned into a star.
Infielder Donovan Solano has backed up the signs of promise he showed in 2019 in 2020, emerging as one of the team’s better hitters. Onetime top prospect Austin Slater has begun to show that he may have finally carved out a permanent home in the big leagues, and on the whole, the team’s offense has not been its major area of weakness.
Even on the pitching side, there are positivies to take away from this year’s Giants team. Young pitcher Logan Webb has been solid in his second season in the big leagues, although he projects as being a mid rotation starter at his peak. Johnny Cueto, who the Giants signed to a rich contract in 2016 in the expectation that he would be co-ace of the staff with Madison Bumgarner, has pitched fairly well in his first “full” season back from Tommy John surgery.
Kevin Gausman, acquired on a one-year deal this past offseason as a reclamation project, has showed flashes of the ability that caused the Baltimore Orioles to draft him fourth overall in 2012. In his most recent start against the Oakland Athletics, he was in dominant form, striking out eleven batters in just under six innings of work.
Why, then, are Giants fans currently in such a despondent mood about the season and the direction of the team as a whole? It would perhaps be the fact that the team has just come off of two devastating blown leads back to back; as if that was not enough, these blown leads came against their crosstown rivals, the Oakland A’s, who currently lead the American League West and won ninety-seven games over each of the past two seasons.
The first of these two collapses was particularly painful when put in its historic context. The Giants had led the A’s by five runs heading into the ninth inning, only for Oakland to rally back and win, thanks in part to a disastrous error by Giants infielder Wilmer Flores, an offseason free agent signing who had been one of the Giants’ better hitters of the season. It was the first time that the Giants had blown a lead of that many runs since 1929, back when they played at New York’s Polo Grounds and the A’s called Philadelphia home.
In the aftermath of the collapses, sharp questions continue to be asked of Giants manager Gabe Kapler and how his handling- or mishandling- of the team, with writer Andrew Baggarly inquiring “Why didn’t manager Gabe Kapler insert Brandon Belt as a defensive replacement to start the inning? Why did Kapler use Gott, his de facto closer, with a five-run lead in the first game of what will be a block of 10 without a day off?”
Kapler was always going to have a hard task ahead of him in his first season as Giants manager, particulary following after a skipper as beloved as Bruce Bochy. Fan sites seem to have soured on his bullpen management, a particular sore spot as that was regarded on one of Bochy’s greatest strengths. But ultimately, the Giants do not have the arms to seriously compete, even in the bullpen, where they have lost some of their strongest arms to free agency and trades, such as 2019 closer Will Smith, Sam Dyson, and others.
Kapler’s greatest achievements on his resume have come through his development of young players, particulary as the farm system director for the Los Angeles Dodgers. And here the results from the Giants’ youth movement have shown promise, and we have yet to see the debut of top prospect Joey Bart, regarded as the heir to Buster Posey in the catching position.
As painful as this current moment is for Giants fans, this is not the time for the verdict on the Zaidi/Kapler era to be delivered. That will come as more youth starts to cycle onto the team as veterans like Cueto, Brandon Belt, Jeff Samardizja and others continue to depart. But that will not erase the humiliation of giving up such large leads to a rival club- and nor should it. Hopefully, things can only get better from here.
