{"id":671198,"date":"2026-04-09T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671198\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T00:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T00:01:20","slug":"sf-giants-have-signs-of-life-after-beating-phillies-to-steady-their-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671198\/","title":{"rendered":"SF Giants have signs of life after beating Phillies to steady their season"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Giants win<\/a>, they look great<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the Giants lose<\/a>, they look truly awful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One night, they\u2019re a well-oiled machine operating with Swiss precision; the next, they\u2019re a traveling circus where the clowns have lost the keys to the car.<\/p>\n

The 2026 San Francisco Giants have so far no middle ground: They are either a masterclass in professional baseball or a 26-man shrug emoji.<\/p>\n

There is no \u201cfine.\u201d There is no \u201cOK.\u201d There is only the penthouse or the sewer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been rather exhausting, no?<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not just a classic early-season knee-jerk overreaction \u2014 it\u2019s the truth. Going into Tuesday night\u2019s game with the Phillies, the Giants had three wins and were last in baseball in run differential. They were looking down the pipe at two of baseball\u2019s better starting pitchers \u2014 Christopher Sanchez and Aaron Nola \u2014 and at the possibility of a 1-6 homestand and a DEFCON 1 situation with the fanbase.<\/p>\n

Then they rattled off two all-around impressive shutout victories.<\/p>\n

So who are these guys?<\/p>\n

Are they the team that can never seem to do anything right? The team whose infield defense deserves the \u201cBenny Hill Theme\u201d as a soundtrack? The team that has fewer barreled balls this year than Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman combined? The team that has fans all over the Bay passing out because every inning the bullpen pitches requires one to hold their breath?<\/p>\n

Or is this the deeply professional operation that rockets line drives to every corner of the field, catches everything in the outfield, and has a rotation that gives you five-plus innings of \u201cdon\u2019t worry, I\u2019ve got this\u201d every single game?<\/p>\n

Beats me.<\/p>\n

And beats the Giants, too.<\/p>\n

But having seen some crazy highs and some deep lows, this can now be said:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s certainly little reason to panic in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Does this Giants team have an identity yet? No. Not even close.<\/p>\n

And one might not develop for weeks or even months. But the competence on display on Tuesday and Wednesday cannot be overlooked.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget: The Giants are a team that, top to bottom, is trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only Buster Posey\u2019s second year in charge of the entire roster after taking on the job with no front-office experience. He\u2019s still figuring it out.<\/p>\n

Manager Tony Vitello is surely trying to figure it out, too. If you see something new every day in baseball, what\u2019s Vitello seeing in his first month in the Show?<\/p>\n

The lineup? Always in flux. The bullpen? A total crapshoot \u2014 no role\u2019s established, no job is sacred.<\/p>\n

But you know what helps with that? Time. A bit of failure, a bit of success.<\/p>\n

No one suggested there wasn\u2019t going to be a feeling-out period, even if no one suggested it\u2019d be so painful to start.<\/p>\n

A big help in finding that identity? The team\u2019s best players \u2014 the established, veteran studs \u2014 are playing like the team\u2019s best players.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t explain why Heliot Ramos\u2019 bat looks so slow, but Matt Chapman has done his part so far this season. (Those errors? Not on him.)<\/p>\n

Luis Arr\u00e1ez might not be everyone\u2019s cup of tea, but even I can\u2019t suggest that tea\u2019s cold to start the season.<\/p>\n

And the starting pitching is giving this team a chance night in, night out.<\/p>\n

So if Wednesday was the true beginning of Rafael Devers\u2019 season \u2014 his tank of a three-run homer won the game \u2014 this team might have the kind of steady, impactful presence in the middle of the order that helps stabilize the whole operation.<\/p>\n

This is especially true if Vitello continues to use his bench more, as he has done in recent games to success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was massive,\u201d Vitello said of the Devers homer. \u201cEverybody knows what he\u2019s capable of\u2026 He hasn\u2019t found his rhythm yet\u2026 He\u2019s kind of just getting his cleats underneath him\u2026 It\u2019s been a pretty good sight to see him swing that bat.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wins won\u2019t always be as comprehensive as they\u2019ve been in the last two games.<\/p>\n

The losses, one would hope, won\u2019t always be as exhaustive.<\/p>\n

The truth is, the Giants are currently a Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s cat of a baseball team. They\u2019re both elite and embarrassing until you open the stadium gates.<\/p>\n

But as this team heads out on its first serious road trip of the season \u2014 a nine-game, 10-day East Coast jaunt \u2014 the Giants have a bit of momentum and a chance to start defining what this season could be \u2014 one way or another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Giants win, they look great. When the Giants lose, they look truly awful. One night, they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-671198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-giants","13":"tag-sanfrancisco","14":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-giants","17":"tag-sfgiants","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371815709774014","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}