For the San Francisco Giants, last season didn’t turn out like they wanted at all. It was another near .500 finish for the Giants and that’s not going to cut it.

That’s especially true as the Giants are trying to dethrone the Los Angeles Dodgers from the top spot in the National League West Division.

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Yet last season, at least for one night, San Francisco got the better end of a clash against the Dodgers at Oracle Park.

When looking at big victories for all 30 teams as shared by those teams’ reporters, Giants reporter Maria Guardado of MLB.com pointed toward a Sept. 12 game as the Giants’ big win last season. The final score? Giants 5, Dodgers 1 in 10 innings.

“Patrick Bailey crushed a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 10th inning to lift the Giants to a stirring 5-1 win over the rival Dodgers at Oracle Park,” Guardado wrote.

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“Bailey’s late-game heroics pulled San Francisco within a half-game of the Mets for the final National League Wild Card spot with 15 games left to play, but the Giants went on to lose nine of their next 11 games to fall short of the playoffs for the fourth straight year,” Guardado wrote.

“Bailey showed a flair for the dramatic in 2025, as he also delivered a walk-off, inside-the-park homer against the Phillies on July 8,” she added.

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Losing all those games as the 2025 MLB season was winding down didn’t sit well with Giants management. That became the final straw for San Francisco management, who dumped Bob Melvin in exchange for former University of Tennessee head baseball coach Tony Vitello.

Vitello has never managed an MLB team, so the Giants made a move to help him out. Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy, a couple of old-school MLB managers that know a thing or two about winning the World Series, will be around to help him out.

Having Bailey as a solid backstop for the Giants’ pitching rotation will make Vitello feel a little bit better. But everyone has to be on the same page, and that includes Rafael Devers.

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Vitello has a heavy job ahead of him. He’ll need to lean on that expertise but also have all of the Giants’ players focused from the get-go.

We’d like to wish all of our readers for content and stories from Giants Roundtable a Merry Christmas. May all of you Giants fans have a great holiday season.