SF Giants dropped pop-up snafu reinforces narrative with young infielders

The SF Giants won Sunday's contest against the San Diego Padres, but it did not come without controversy as Tyler Fitzgerald and Marco Luciano collided and dropped a pop up which reinforces the narrative about these two young players.

Both have struggled with fielding in their early careers. Luciano has struggled more especially when he was at shortstop earlier this year. He made 5 errors in 9 games and a lot of those errors came in crucial situations and in one case cost the Giants the game.

That led to him getting more time at second base in the minors and in his second stint at the big-league level this year he has played exclusively at second base. Perhaps this change will be good for him in the long run but for now he still has the reputation of being a very poor fielder which was only reinforced on Sunday.

Fitzgerald and Luciano reinforce narrative that they are poor fielders

To be clear, I do not think Luciano deserves all the blame for that pop up calamity. The ball was clearly more on the second base side of the bag and he had to traverse much less ground to get under it. Fitzgerald was clearly overzealous in trying to catch it which makes you think that maybe he doesn't fully trust Luciano.

Obviously, the two need to learn to communicate better. In loud environments like San Diego there has to be some way for them to communicate better and call for the ball on pop ups. If it is in an in-between area then you usually let the shortstop take charge but these two young infielders have to learn from this. They also cannot publicly get upset with each other in the dugout. It is a bad look for the team and reflects poorly on the coaching staff.

Fitzgerald has been far from perfect this season at shortstop. He has made 10 errors at the position this year. To be fair, he is still learning the position as well and given that he has done a pretty decent job. Still, he is far from elite and has a lot of work to do. Depending on if the Giants add a shortstop in the offseason, Fitzgerald may end up sliding over to second base where he may be better suited.

The Giants are 20th in the league with a .985 fielding percentage. We know the Giants are not capable of hitting their way to victory most of the time. That means they must pitch well and play really sound defense. Perhaps this pop-up snafu can be the wake up call the team needs to improve in this area in 2025.