San Francisco Giants: Handing out team awards for May

As part of a regular monthly feature, Steve Klein will highlight some standout performers for the San Francisco Giants and explain why they are deserving of praise.

There seems little point in dressing it up. May has been a disappointing month for the San Francisco Giants.

Whilst there can’t have been many fans who had anything more than a vague hope of mounting a realistic challenge for the NL West, I don’t expect many would have contemplated being this far off the pace by the end of May.

Rooted to the foot of the division, the Giants’ Pythagorean win-loss record of 18-36 suggests it they might even be fortunate to trail the division-leading Los Angeles Dodgers by only 16 games.

That said, even with a record of 10-15 on the month, there have been some bright spots, some rays of sunshine through the grey gloom.

As part of an ongoing monthly feature, we are celebrating the positives by highlighting the best hitter, best pitcher and best defender of the month, along with the best prospect performer and a champagne moment.

Who was the best hitter in another month of underwhelming hitting performances? Who was the top pitcher on the staff? Which prospect is providing the most reason for optimism?

All of these questions and more will be answered in the following May awards article.

Let’s get started with our MVP for the month.