Monday night at Dodger Stadium should have been something special.<\/p>\n
A chance to sell some hope to a fanbase that\u2019s suffered through mediocrity for all but a year this decade, all while their archrival has lapped them multiple times over.<\/p>\n
The San Francisco Giants<\/a>\u2019 top prospect, Bryce Eldridge, up in the big leagues for good<\/a>, presenting prodigious left-handed power<\/a> against the Dodgers\u2019 righty starter, Roki Sasaki.<\/p>\n Except Eldridge wasn\u2019t in the lineup, sitting at the start of his second straight game and third of the last four.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not injured or anything. The Giants have just decided not to start him.<\/p>\n Call it bizarre, strange, or malpractice \u2014 just don\u2019t call it sensical.<\/p>\n Because if Eldridge isn\u2019t in the starting lineup against right-handed starting pitchers, while the Giants boast the single worst offense in baseball and a playoff percentage that\u2019s under 10 percent, it\u2019s fair to ask, \u201cWhat are we doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n I want to be fair, so let me take a minute to ensure I have the Giants\u2019 logic (if you can call it that) straight:<\/p>\n \u2022 The brain trust sent Eldridge to Triple-A Sacramento out of camp with a huff of indignation so he could work on his strikeout rate.<\/p>\n \u2022 They watched him rake in Sacramento, but the kid\u2019s strikeout issues remained.<\/p>\n \u2022 Realizing their big-league offense was performing with the punch of a wet noodle, the Giants called him up as a distraction \u2014 sorry\u2026 offensive spark.<\/p>\n And now, they\u2019re sitting him day in and day out. But don\u2019t worry, they\u2019re actively looking for pinch-hit opportunities.<\/p>\n I wish I were kidding. Giants manager Tony Vitello actually said that on Monday.<\/p>\n Did they really call up their 50-home-run power prospect to only be a late-inning sub?<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t a single right-handed hitter in the worst lineup in baseball who can take the night off to give the kid some reps?<\/p>\n With this \u201cplan,\u201d Giants fans are getting the worst of both worlds: Eldridge isn\u2019t developing any further \u2014 unless you consider spitting sunflower seeds part of learning how to be in the show \u2014 and he isn\u2019t giving the big-league club much of anything in the process.<\/p>\n I\u2019d call this prospect management galaxy-brained, but I\u2019m not sure the second part of that insult comes into play.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t call up a 21-year-old phenom to provide a \u201cspark\u201d and then keep the matches in your pocket.<\/p>\n Why is this kid on the 26-man roster if you\u2019re not going to play him?<\/p>\n The incongruity of their messaging is too much to justify.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t about one game in May \u2014 it\u2019s about the direction of this franchise.<\/p>\n The Giants are currently operating with the consistency of a weather vane in a hurricane.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no discernible plan, just a series of panicked reactions to fires they started themselves.<\/p>\n Eldridge represents one of the few reasons to tune in right now \u2014 a homegrown power threat who could actually make the Giants feel like there\u2019s some reason tomorrow will be better than today.<\/p>\n By sitting him, the Giants aren\u2019t protecting his development; they\u2019re broadcasting their own fickleness. It\u2019s bad enough that they alternate between belief and skepticism with a top prospect \u2014 go down to the minors, we need you up now, actually sit on the bench \u2014 but imagine this act from the perspective of Eldridge.<\/p>\n This lack of conviction \u2014 or any discernible, coherent plan \u2014 is enough to justify Eldridge losing faith in the organization itself.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to be bad, at least be interesting. And if you\u2019re going to call up the youth, you need to actually play them.<\/p>\n Monday night should have been another exciting edition of the Bryce Eldridge show, the only enjoyable show the Giants can present most days.<\/p>\n Instead, it was just another rerun of the Giants tripping over their own feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday night at Dodger Stadium should have been something special. A chance to sell some hope to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,7939,5774,5775,853,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185,430],"class_list":{"0":"post-696719","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-giants-alert","11":"tag-giants-hq","12":"tag-inside-sports","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-san-francisco","16":"tag-san-francisco-giants","17":"tag-sanfrancisco","18":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","19":"tag-sf","20":"tag-sf-giants","21":"tag-sfgiants","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-columnists"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116559953500780484","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696719","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=696719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}