Going into Friday night, the San Francisco Giants had lost 8 of their last 9 games. They lost 8 of their last 9 games because the San Francisco Giants can’t score runs. The San Francisco Giants can’t hit for power. The San Francisco Giants can only hit singles and ground into double plays. They can’t take a walk. They can’t take a walk because they can’t hit a fastball. The San Francisco Giants pitching is two-faced. The rotation is out of sync with the bullpen. The bullpen is a pillow fort. The San Francisco Giants are
a three-legged horse. They’re a hat without a bill. They’re a vest.
This word-cloud of discontent and distaste has hung over this team for weeks now. Visibility didn’t clear over Thursday’s off-day. And though the sun was shining at first pitch, Marcell Ozuna’s home run off Robbie Ray in the 2nd obviously didn’t help much with the dreary emotional weather. Amazing how a solo shot, a single run tallied, the slightest lead, could feel so insurmountable. It had been a knock-out blow before. More baseball, more misery for the Giants.
Ray kept pitching because he had to — the inning teetered after Oneil Cruz singled.
Konnor Griffin laced another on the next pitch to left — but the Giants don’t own exclusive rights to bad baseball. Other teams, other players, make vexing choices, falsely buoyed by hubris, perhaps even by the belief that their opponent is so bad, nothing bad can happen to them. Cruz, running on the pitch, found himself aggressively hunting for third despite a single to left, despite that single being a 102 MPH liner that one-hopped itself to a charging Heliot Ramos. Ramos didn’t throw it to the wrong base, he didn’t bobble the bounce, double-clutch, rush the throw, or over-throw the base. He just relayed it back towards third for the first out of the inning.
The assist was a triumph in fundamentals, in performing one of the most basic functions of your position. It served as boon for Ray, a reminder that the defense behind didn’t just stab him in the back. The lefty followed up the out at third by K-ing Joey Bart and Nick Yorke to end the inning.
Good defense inspires good pitching, and sometimes good pitching inspire good hitting. Good baseball — it’s all connected. Is it possible that God smiled on these Giants after the 2nd? Did the sun get brighter, the mood warmer? Did Rafael Devers take to the box against right-handed starter Carmen Mlodzinski feeling a bit more like himself? The bat in his hands, lighter by an ounce or two? He took two four-seam fastballs on the inside-third of the plate for quick called-strikes. He had seen this before. We had all seen this before. Devers in the perpetual two-strike hole. Devers being served up fastballs and lazy breaking pitches over the heart of the plate for him to swing wildly over or under or through. Mlodzinski could throw a consonant from his name, and Devers would probably hack at it.
As of this Saturday morning, Devers has a -1 run value against the four-seam. He’s batting .191 off the pitch with an xBA of .161 and xSLG of .386. His whiff%: 48%, basically every other swing, a miss. His K%: a wild 58%, basically double what it was in 2025. Forget history, forget a man’s robust offensive resume built up over years — right now, Devers’ weakness is most men’s strength. He’ll get a steady diet of no-respect fastballs until he proves he can hit them.
But in an 0-2 count, Devers bucked a trend. Mlodzinski threw a four-seamer towards one of the hot dog vendors behind home plate — no swing. This was an improvement.
He tried another fastball, this time right down the middle, and Devers actually hit it.
A batting practice fastball — you’d expect a Major League hitter to deposit that pitch beyond a wall. Still, it’s a good sign for Devers. His timing was on. He met the ball out in front of the plate, got his barrel to it, squared-it, two cheeks. He’s now homered in back-to-back games, both on four-seam fastballs. He’d pull a 109 MPH single to right in his next at-bat. Two knocks! The swing is coming back! Nice!
He’d also end the night swinging through two low-90s fastballs, so…
But at least, on Friday night, Devers’ game-tying homer evened the playing field, which allowed the team to play through some of their nonsense without the pressure of making up a deficit. Their struggles were still there, but it didn’t define them.
Vintage Ray took the mound in the 3rd. He struck out two, walked three to load the bases, before getting Cruz to chase a 2-2 slider on the seventh pitch of the at-bat. On offense, Luis Arraez grounded into an inning-ending double play after Jesus Rodriguez and Jung Hoo Lee singled to put runners on the corners. A lost scoring opportunity there, and they nearly let another slip by in the next frame. Again consecutive singles put runners on the corners in the 4th, but Matt Chapman couldn’t find a way to elevate the ball. His grounder to third led to Casey Schmitt getting cut down easily at the plate. Willy Adames’ sent a deep fly to the wall in left only to see a 3-run homer be beaten down by that familiar and heavy sea air settling over Oracle.
Despite recent, all-encompassing ineptitudes, Ramos, the third hitter with a runner in scoring position, came through with a run-scoring, lead-earning single.
Ray took that sliver of a lead and held onto it over the next two innings. Nick Gonzalez took one to the wall but couldn’t muscle it through the equitable mist. He erased a one-out single by inducing a double-play off the bat of Cruz to end his day, allowing 1 run on 4 hits, 4 BBs and 7 Ks. A 3-run frame in the 7th, an offensive earthquake for these Giants, set the team up for the win.
Drew Gilbert’s single plated Adames after his lead-off single and pushed Ramos over to third. Luis Arraez would find some redemption after his earlier double play ball with another mouse that squeaked through a 2-run hole in the infield.
Some encouraging signs of power from Devers. Adames too just missed a game-altering homer. We’ll take it. Both collected two hits, as did Ramos and Lee — but this 5-run “outburst” was fueled by singles, and heavily reliant on an 85 MPH grounder avoiding a glove.
Devers hit another homer. The 2026 Giants picked up a win. That’s always good, but far from enough to change the weather that’s hanging around this club.
