Panicking abut the Giants getting swept by the Yankees to start the season would only make sense if your primary concern about this roster was the lineup.<\/p>\n
The last time the Giants scored one run in a three-game home series was 1949 \u2014 when they played a short walk from Yankee Stadium<\/a>. If this series was predictive of how the lineup is going to perform, then this year\u2019s team would have a harder time scoring runs than last year\u2019s team. And the one before that. Oh, and the 2008 team, which had nobody with 20 home runs and only three players with 40 walks or more. This team\u2019s lineup isn\u2019t worse than those lineups, and it\u2019s not especially close. Might not even be the same sport as the 2008 team.<\/p>\n At the same time, nobody wants to hear that the first series of a season doesn\u2019t matter. Of course it does. Last year\u2019s final wild-card spot came down to a tiebreaker between the New York Mets and Cincinnati Reds on the final day of the season. The Giants finished two games behind both teams. So of course these games matter.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t have to be predictive, though, upending what were once safe assumptions. The Milwaukee Brewers gave up 36 runs in their opening three-game series against the Yankees last year. One team ended its first series of the season on pace to score 2,106 runs, and the other on pace to allow that many. Only one of them won the division, though. If you have the entire 2025 season recorded on your DVR, I won\u2019t spoil it, but the answer might surprise you<\/a>.<\/p>\n If it were an absolute meltdown from the bullpen, or if anyone else but Logan Webb were lit up, some too-early grousing would be acceptable, if not recommended. The lineup should be fine, though. Maybe. Probably.<\/p>\n Other notes from the regrettable start to the season:<\/p>\n ABS: Pretty neat<\/p>\n Here\u2019s some good ol\u2019 fluff to take your mind off the losing. The Automated Ball-Strike system was a supporting cast member in the final game of the series, and almost all of it was positive. Matt Gage called for his own against Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the sixth inning, and the result might be one of the closer calls we\u2019ll see all season. Heck, one of the bots that\u2019s trying to automate these challenges couldn\u2019t even put it in the strike zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can understand why: In the bottom of the ninth inning, leadoff hitter Heliot Ramos took what would have been a called third strike in the before times, but he challenged it and eventually drew a walk. I\u2019d like to think this bat flip gained an extra foot of elevation because of the ABS chicanery. Look at how high this sucker gets:<\/p>\n Heliot Ramos had a successful challenge to avoid striking out, then he drew a huge leadoff walk \ud83d\ude2e\u200d\ud83d\udca8 pic.twitter.com\/xTTu657lAP<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) March 29, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n If that happened in 1967, everyone would think that Ramos inspired Stanley Kubrick. Instead, it gave a team hope, which they and the crowd desperately needed. It was still a loss, still a series sweep, still a gnarly way to start the season. But there was life in the ninth inning, and there didn\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n ABS will eventually break your heart, and just wait until they lose a game because they blow through their challenges too soon. So far, though, it\u2019s been a success: fast, engaging, fun and useful.<\/p>\n I reserve the right to have the exact opposite opinions by next week.<\/p>\n Three lefties in the bullpen isn\u2019t going to last<\/p>\n Before Wednesday\u2019s game, manager Tony Vitello joked that the Giants having three lefties wasn\u2019t a big deal to him because college teams stack up on southpaws, who are especially effective against players who might not have seen a lot of talented lefties in their lives. But it\u2019s unusual on a major-league roster for a lot of reasons, especially in the three-batter-minimum era. And the Giants can\u2019t possibly get away with it all season.<\/p>\n Not that they\u2019re planning to, or that the bullpen in March is the bullpen that\u2019s going to last. The only way a three-lefty mix can work is if at least two of the lefties don\u2019t have meaningful platoon splits. If you have lefties that can overpower right-handed hitters, you\u2019re worrying about semantics and technicalities when you complain about an imbalanced bullpen. Outs are what you want and the handedness is incidental.<\/p>\n However, the Giants probably don\u2019t have that assortment of lefties. Erik Miller has the stuff to do it, but he\u2019s almost certainly more effective against lefties.<\/a> Gage has plenty of deception and a career 2.61 ERA, but the tiny sample of his major-league career suggests he\u2019s not a secret righty-killer<\/a>.<\/p>\n That brings us to the newest Giant, Ryan Borucki. Tyler Mahle lasted only four innings Saturday because of pitch-count concerns (he missed the start of spring because of illness and isn\u2019t quite ramped up yet), and the decision was made to give Borucki a clean inning to start the fifth. It made sense, considering that three of the four batters coming up were left-handed.<\/p>\n The right-handed batter, though, was Aaron Judge. And with two outs and the bases empty, here\u2019s how the at-bat went:<\/p>\n Borucki has been sneaky impressive, and you can see why the Giants jumped on him. If he can keep his sinkers low and reclaim the command he had pre-injury, he can help against lefties. However, with two outs and nobody on in a close game, he should not be throwing cutters at the belt to Judge. This does not feel like a new kind of baseball opinion. This feels like settled science, just with different names.<\/p>\n An intentional walk in front of Cody Bellinger? Sure, but I\u2019m more of a nibble-just-in-case guy. Maybe you get an 0-1 count on a foul ball or called strike and open up some options. The only rule when attempting to nibble is that there can\u2019t be a ball right down the middle.<\/p>\n The execution left a lot to be desired, but it\u2019s the blueprint that\u2019s at fault. Three lefties in the bullpen in March, when starters are less likely to go deep, didn\u2019t guarantee a Judge-Borucki matchup, but it sure made it more likely, and it\u2019s why the arrangement isn\u2019t going to last. It\u2019s why it\u2019s pretty rare in the first place.<\/p>\n The Giants aren\u2019t going to pinch-hit for Jung Hoo Lee against lefties in close-and-late situations<\/p>\n I don\u2019t mind it. For now. If the Giants are going to make this whole operation work, they\u2019d greatly benefit from Lee becoming pest against left-handers. The early returns aren\u2019t great<\/a>, but he\u2019s had just over 200 at-bats against major-league lefties so far. He\u2019s going to need more looks before we get a definitive answer. Which might be coming sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n In the bottom of the seventh, with the Yankees leading by a run with two outs, the bases empty and lefty Tim Hill on the mound, Lee hit for himself. This, even though the entire bench is right-handed. This is a bench built to give wedgies to pitchers like Hill, in theory.<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m overestimating the fragility of a major-leaguer\u2019s ego, but you can\u2019t send a message to Lee that reads\u00a0 \u201cWe don\u2019t think you can hit Tim Hill.\u201d Not yet, and definitely not with the bases empty and two outs. Maybe with runners in scoring position, but the Giants still think the red ink on his Baseball Savant page is going to make up for the blue<\/a> and take him a lot further than he\u2019s already gone. The payoff would be big, and it\u2019s a dream worth chasing.<\/p>\n But if Lee\u2019s performance against lefties doesn\u2019t improve, substantially, this can\u2019t be the play all season. It\u2019s something to watch as the year progresses, but for now the Giants are going to stick with him early in the season. That\u2019s probably a good thing.<\/p>\n Unlike that Giants-Yankees series back there. Woof. Bury it in the woods and move on. The good news is that there are 159 games left.<\/p>\n (That could also be the bad news, of course.)<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-28-at-10.40.00\u202fPM.png\")
It wasn\u2019t a meaningful call in the game, but, oh, how the crowd enjoyed it. The way the ABS challenges are presented has a big part in this, because every challenge is animated on the scoreboard. You get to see the whole thing, and you get a split-second endorphin rush as you attempt to get it right before the reveal. It\u2019s way better theater than it could have ever been expected to be.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Screenshot-2026-03-28-at-9.02.30\u202fPM.png\")
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