SF Giants’ leadoff experimentation finally leads to a minor breakthrough

The SF Giants have had to get creative with their lineup ever since the trade deadline saw them trade away six players from the major league roster. Luis Arraez was one of San Francisco’s go-to leadoff guys against right-handed starters and Heliot Ramos, known for mashing lefties, would often bat leadoff against southpaws.

Both those guys are gone so the last few months of the year are a good time for the Giants to experiment with who will bat leadoff. They tried Bryce Eldridge for a little bit but it seems that plan has been abandoned. Jung Hoo Lee seems like the obvious option but he’s always seemed more comfortable batting further down in the lineup.

The Giants may have had a minor breakthrough on Saturday by using manager Tony Vitello’s favorite spark plug Drew Gilbert in the leadoff spot for the first time in his big league career. He went 3-for-4 including a home run and walked once while driving in three runs and scoring two runs, reaching base four times total. The Giants won 7-1 over the Colorado Rockies.

It’s just one game obviously, but the Giants should definitely give Gilbert more opportunities to bat leadoff. He’s hitting .243/.330/.376 with six home runs and 28 runs batted in on the season. His splits are especially pronounced between righties and lefties as he’s hitting .274/.366/.429 with all six homers and 27 of his RBI coming against righties. Against lefties he’s had two hits in 36 at-bats.

Drew Gilbert could be a solid part of the Giants going forward

Maybe down the line Gilbert will prove he can hit lefties, but for now he obviously has to be viewed strictly as a platoon bat. Vitello should give him some runway as the leadoff hitter against righties, though. See if he can continue to set the table and do positive things when leading off.

The Giants could also go with Jonah Cox batting leadoff against lefties. That’s what they did on Friday night going up against Kyle Freeland and it didn’t work out that well as the offense got shut down for much of the night, but Cox has the speed of a typical leadoff hitter and even though he’s actually fared better against righties rather than lefties in the minors this season, he is still a better option than Gilbert against lefties.

Now is the time to tinker and toy around, though. Maybe Gilbert sticks at leadoff or maybe he doesn’t but the Giants don’t have anything to lose at this point so Vitello and his staff should just be throwing stuff against the wall to see if it sticks.

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