The San Francisco Giants began by playing horribly, unfathomably stale baseball, and they were seemingly incapable of stringing hits together. Then they got on a little roll, which allowed you to grade them on a sliding scale. The absolutely horrid start allowed you to feel better about the not-horrid play that followed. It was just good enough to not give up on the Giants, but it was also just bad enough to consider spending your time on something more interesting, like watching QVC.
Is that paragraph a description of the Giants’ recent road trip, or is it describing their entire season to date?
It sure is.
The 2026 Giants are still a mystery, a team with clear goals and an unwritten future. They shouldn’t have an identity yet. At the same time, check out that road trip the Giants just finished, losing to the Washington Nationals 3-0 in the rubber match of a nine-game East Coast swing. It was the most 2026 Giants road trip imaginable.
If the Giants are still a mystery, maybe they’re one everyone’s solved in the first 10 pages. A 5-4 road trip, which is the same winning percentage (.556) as a 92-70 team, would have been enough of a red herring to throw you off. Instead, they got the 4-5 road trip, which leaves a 72-90 taste in your mouth and a sense of foreshadowing bordering on spoilers. It’s irresponsible to say things like “classic 2026 Giants” when April isn’t over, and yet … classic ’26 Giants.
Fix one game on that road trip, and the Giants are playing a lot closer to those 92-70 preseason expectations. It sounds simple, like climbing Mt. Everest (bring layers and comfortable shoes), but the devil is obviously in the details.
The easiest explanation for why the team feels a lot more 70-92 than they’d like is that there have been a lot of disappointments relative to preseason expectations. And the easiest way to work through them in your brain is to pretend you’re reading about those disappointments back in early March. Say someone comes from the future, waving their arms wildly and whatnot, explaining what’s happened to the Giants through 21 games. Just how worried are you?
Before you answer, remember this crucial point: You haven’t watched any of it. You’re back there in the innocent past. It just sounds like complaining about their fantasy team to you.
Rafael Devers looking like the worst hitter in the world? Yeah, he’ll do that, your March self might say. Does it every season, just about. Remember when he started last season 0-for-19 with 15 strikeouts? He can look like the worst hitter in the world, right up until he doesn’t.
A frigid start to the season isn’t a new thing for Rafael Devers, who has recovered well from bad March/Aprils before. (Greg Fiume / Getty Images)
The pair of free-agent starting pitchers, Tyler Mahle and Adrian Houser, not having a single quality start between them in eight combined starts? That would scare the bejeepers out of March you, which means it should scare the bejeepers out of you now. Something else that should scare you is this passage from last October, long before the Giants made a move:
The options are limitless. The only requirement is to not screw it up. I can talk myself into Tyler Mahle, and I might be here in a month trying to talk you into Tyler Mahle. Sounds good. But you’d better be pretty danged sure about this one. No hunches, no if/then explanations for why it might work. If you’re unsure, then spend a little more money to be sure.
That’s a pretty haunting read from here. There were a lot of starting pitchers for the Giants to consider this offseason in both trades and free agency. They came away with pitchers who were supposed to have a high floor, even if they didn’t have the highest ceiling. They’re so far underneath that high floor right now, though, that they’re going to get in trouble with the fire inspector. That doesn’t have to go away.
Patrick Bailey hitting poorly enough to cost him his job, or part of it? Also a legitimate concern, especially if the middle of the lineup isn’t hitting enough to power the offense. (The March version of yourself would also think it’s cute that you’re excited about Daniel Susac after just 23 at-bats. But they didn’t see how good it looked. They weren’t there, dang it.)
The lineup, as a whole, being especially disjointed? Concerning to your past self, but not demoralizing. Lineups will have ups and downs. That March version of yourself — so pure, so unafraid, so unaware of just how bad they were going to look in the season-opening New York Yankees series — can afford to be sanguine about all this. It’s something to watch, you might think. The Giants can’t do anything if Devers is the worst hitter in baseball, but they’re also not going to do much if the middle of the order doesn’t have at least one happy surprise. It’s possible that Jung Hoo Lee might be a .600-OPS guy, full stop, which would have pretty serious ramifications, but it’s also too early to fixate on that possibility.
The updates wouldn’t all be bad, either. Relative to preseason expectations, Luis Arraez has been a delight. Not just at the plate or in the clubhouse, but in the field, too. Arraez’s defense at second was a huge concern before the season, and it’s been a revelation instead. Look at this danged play:
Also, while the bullpen is still good for a scare, and they can still ruin nights you don’t want ruined, there’s some signal coming out of the noise. Keaton Winn is looking like a pitcher with a high-90s fastball and extra-sharp splitter should in the late innings. The same description applies to Caleb Kilian, just with a different bendy pitch. It’s not much, but it’s a start. It would have sounded fairly not-bad relative to your preseason expectations.
And, at the regret of being optimistic, it’s notable that the players on the team seems to like each other and have fun when they win. They’re saying that Heliot Ramos’ heart grew three sizes each day he a home run, except that’s because he pounded his chest too hard, and he should probably get that checked out:
It was fun. The dugout was having fun. They’re just like you, waiting for this team to get on a roll, and they’re also just like you, not entirely sure why it’s not happening yet. They know the 92-70 is in there, but the 70-92 in them keeps dragging them down. They’re flummoxed and irritated, too. They’d rather be having fun.
So would you, friend. So would you. Instead, the Giants offer a 4-5 road trip in the most 2026-ish sense. It almost had you fooled, until it didn’t, and it made you realize just how desperate you are to be fooled.
It’s a long season, and you’ll probably get your chance. They might even get you from “fooled” to “partially convinced” and play more like that 90-72 version of themselves. About an eighth of the way into the season, that feels a little far-fetched, but the glass is still seven-eighths full. We’re all a little scared about what it’s full of, but we’ll find that out eventually, in a slow trickle. Which means right now, you’re just as pure and innocent as that March version of yourself. Cherish it.