Christian Koss is a little guy. He’s 185 pounds with rocks in his pockets. The graph illustrating how he compares to the rest of the league in terms of contact quality is as blue as Lake Tahoe. His .368 slugging percentage in 2025 has somehow found the space to drop even lower in 2026, falling to .261 with just six extra base hits (1 HR) in 138 at-bats.
I could count his career home run total on one hand.
Not anymore. Now, now I need two hands, ‘cuz Christian Koss is a bad-a** mutha-f***a who powered-up
in Saturday’s 9-5 win over the Mets. He went wild with a pair of taters, his first multi-homer game of his career, and came up a couple feet shy of a third in the 9th.
His 2-run shot in the 3rd used the elevation of a shoulder-high fastball from starter Zac Thornton to gather altitude and just clear the wall in left. At a hair over four feet off the ground, it was the second highest pitch hit for a home run in the Majors this year, and turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead for San Francisco.
The next pitch Koss saw, two innings later, was dealt a similar fate.
The kid had turned into a killer. Gone was the lovable nerd, annihilated in two strokes of his battle axe. Boss Koss was born. Cold-blooded and hot-headed. Smoke billowed out of his ears as he rounded the bases.
He spit fire as he entered the dugout, licked his lips with his forked tongue, lusting for more power more praise more violence.
He held each of his teammates in his blood-glazed gaze and demanded homage.
Bow. Bow to the Boss.
All city was brought to its knees as legion followed suit. Young, often hapless position players reforged themselves in the image of Koss, becoming all barrels and blasts. Utility infielder Oslevis Basabe hooked one off reliever Jefry Yan in the 8th, his fifth of the year. String-bean Grant McCray tanked one 420 feet to right-center in the 9th for his second in 2026.
And yeah, this guy named Rafael Devers, as both prophet and Koss acolyte, got his licks in his as well.
Devers’s solo shot in the 1st inning off the lefty Thornton (just the second homer the pitcher had surrendered to a left-handed batter all year) heralded Koss’s imminent arrival.
He echoed Koss’s second in the 5th as well. With the score at 4 to 2, Jonah Cox singled to keep the inning alive for Devers who got a first-pitch breaking ball from Thornton, and like Koss, flipped it over the left field wall for his third multi-homer game this year and 24th of his career. Devers is now at 35 homers on the year, matching his 2025 mark and putting him well-within reach of his first career 40-HR season.
The Mets took the Giants to task with five homers Friday night, and San Francisco returned the favor with six on Saturday. The offense brought the fireworks, and nearly made Anthony Molina’s stellar performance on the mound redundant. As Koss and co. were bashing the baseball around Flushing, Molina held the Mets to just one hit over 5 innings pitched while striking out 6. That solitary knock, a 2-out homer in the 2nd, went in the books unearned after Devers’ fielding error (the slouch) — though it didn’t seem to rattle the right-hander. A walk in the 5th would be the only New York batter to reach base until the 7th.
That inning brought the only real stress of the game for San Francisco’s pitching.
The Mets notched just their second and third hits of the evening with a one-out flare off Reiver Sanmartin and infield single off debut Giant Joel Kuhnel. Kuhnel then walked the bases loaded before getting Alvarez with a gutsy, disappearing sinker in a 3-2 count. Acting skipper Jayce Tingler (Tony Vitello was ejected in the 2nd for not liking the decision of an umpire review) brought on Carson Seymour, who walked in New York’s first earned run of the game before getting Francisco Lindor to ground out and end the inning.
The late-game homers from Basabe and McCray got back that run and then some, helping put the game out of reach and impervious to some Jason Foley nonsense in the 9th.
Of course, I jest about Koss. He had a great day — but I’m just in awe of Devers. He’s now homered 6 times and walked 7 times in his last six games. According to Sarah Langs, only two prior Giants players, Barry Bonds (2004) and Willie Mays (1958), have put on such a display in a week. He’s slugging 1.148 over his last seven games (27 AB), and .895 over his last 14 (57 AB). This excess of power oozing from his pores is clearly contagious, affecting anyone who comes in contact with him in the San Francisco dugout. He’s creating monsters. Today it’s Boss Koss. Who will it be tomorrow?
