Deficiency in major stat shows why SF Giants have fallen so far this season

It is no secret that the offense has been an issue for the SF Giants pretty much all season. The lineup has not produced at the level necessary to be competitive, and their deficiency with runners in scoring position is a big reason for that.

The Giants currently rank 28th in major league baseball when it comes to team batting average with runners in scoring position as they are batting .232 collectively. They are ahead of only the Seattle Mariners and Chicago White Sox.

SF Giants are struggling mightily to hit with RISP

This is not a huge shock since the offense has been terrible in pretty much every aspect since the middle of May.

For a team that came into the season trying to replicate the formula of the championship years by being a team with strong pitching, strong defense, and timely hitting, the timely hitting part of that equation has been sorely missed.

The Giants were following that formula early in the season, but as the 2025 campaign has worn on they have just become much sloppier all around as a team. President of baseball operations Buster Posey has emphasized playing clean baseball, but it has been anything except that for much of the last few months.

Giants hitting coach Pat Burrell recently talked about how the Giants were never big slugging teams during the championship years. That is true, but those teams would at least be able to put the ball in play and come up with clutch money hits when it mattered most which is why fans are frustrated this season as the team has repeatedly failed to come up with those big hits.

Compare San Francisco's struggles with runners in scoring position to the success the Milwaukee Brewers have had in that same stat. They are the best in MLB with a .288 batting average with RISP which is no surprise given they have the best record in all of baseball.

Just last night, the Brewers got a runner in scoring position in the bottom of the seventh and William Contreras drove him in on a double. Then, a few batters later they were able to score another run by simply putting the ball in play with a ground ball to give themselves a two-run lead over the Giants.

Conversely, earlier in the game in the top of the 6th the Giants were able to load the bases with two outs. Jung Hoo Lee, one of the hitters the Giants are counting on to at least put the ball in play in situations like that, came up to the plate and struck out. It was a perfect encapsulation of what a good team like Milwaukee does versus what a bad team like San Francisco does.

The Giants clearly need to get better at hitting with runners in scoring position going forward, and their deficiency in this category may lead to some coaching staff shakeups.

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