SF Giants' Top 5 moments of 2026, No. 5: Dylan Smith's clutch six-out save

The 2026 season has mercifully ended for the SF Giants, but it’s worth looking back on some of the positive moments from the year. It may seem hard to find good moments when the team went 65-97 and there isn’t a ton of hope for next year, but there were some moments that at least made me go, “Hey, that was cool,” or, “That made me enjoy watching baseball today.” 

So, this brief Around the Foghorn series will dive into the top five moments of the 2026 season. I originally wanted to go with the top ten but I thought that might be a little too ambitious so dialing it back down to five felt like a much safer number. Here is number five on the countdown. 

Dylan Smith’s six-out save was the bullpen highlight of the year 

One of the few bright spots in the bullpen all season was Dylan Smith. The fact that he had a 3.86 ERA and converted just four of nine save opportunities shows how bad the bullpen was that he is considered a glimmer of hope, but that’s just where the Giants are right now.

Still, his best performance of the year came against the Cleveland Guardians on August 19. The Giants squeaked one run on the board in the fourth inning and after Matt Wilkinson and Adrian Houser both pitched well, manager Tony Vitello turned to Smith who had become his de facto closer at that point in the year.

Smith struck out the side in the bottom of the eighth after walking the leadoff batter Steven Kwan. That’s what makes it all the more impressive. He had to worry about a fast runner in Kwan and still struck out Cleveland’s best hitter Jose Ramirez and two other batters.

That was enough to let Vitello trust Smith with the ninth inning as well and he allowed one base runner on a single but struck out two batters including former Giant Patrick Bailey, who was used as a pinch hitter, to secure the six-out save.

With how cursed the 2026 season was at times, it would not have shocked anyone if Bailey channeled the late-inning heroics he displayed with San Francisco and put a ball over the fence to walk it off and make the Giants look truly idiotic for trading him.

Thankfully, Smith did not allow that to happen and had a really impressive outing. Vitello tried to use Smith to record the last six outs of the game on other occasions and it did not work out so it was probably best as just a one-time thing, but with all the bullpen carnage San Francisco endured it’s nice the team at least had one really great performance. 

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