The SF Giants’ Memorial Day snapshot is ugly, but not hopeless

An MLB season features multiple checkpoints that are used to evaluate where a team stands. The first one is the Opening Month. Early assessments, overreactions, or sudden championship dreams often emerge after a month of baseball. The second one is Memorial Day. Though it is still relatively early in the season — approximately a third of the way through it — the state of the SF Giants on Memorial Day could already hint at how the rest of the year will unfold.

A lot has changed since the Giants took the field for the first time this season against the New York Yankees on Opening Night. Two players who were on the roster have been sent down to Triple-A — Christian Koss and Ryan Walker; two are on the 60-day IL — Jared Oliva and Jose Butto; one has been traded — Patrick Bailey; and one has been DFA'd — Jerar Encarnacíon.

On the flip side, nine players have been called up to replace them and fill in while some key players — Logan Webb, Jung Hoo Lee, and Heliot Ramos — are getting healthy. Eric Haase, Jesús Rodríguez, Bryce Eldridge, Drew Gilbert, Will Brennan, Trevor McDonald, Sam Hentges, Joel Peguero, and Victor Bericoto have all joined the big-league club at some point and have stuck around ever since.

The last time the San Francisco Giants made the playoffs, in 2021, they were 34–20 on Memorial Day. This year, their best-case scenario is to be eight games under .500.

Only seven teams in MLB history have reached the end of Memorial Day at least eight games under .500 and still made the playoffs. The last team to do it was the 2024 New York Mets, who reached the National League Championship Series.

A pessimist would say their season is over and that a team cannot turn its season on its head after such a poor start. An optimist would look at the offensive numbers in May, realize the Giants have been swinging the bat much better lately, and believe they might just become the eighth team on this very exclusive list.

May has shown what this SF Giants offense can still become

The Giants are still a bottom-tier offensive team. But the production they've shown so far in May is proof that better days could be ahead. A team that has been hitting for average for most of the season has finally started to hit the ball hard and deep. Their 27 home runs in May are tied for the fifth most in the majors, and their .715 OPS is above league average.

The power has picked up, and their bat-to-ball abilities have never been better. With a week left in May, the Giants lead the majors in hits with 190, and their 44 doubles are tied with the Diamondbacks for the second most.

And for the third time in seven days, and the second time in as many days, the Giants hit a grand slam. They've hit one in back-to-back games just six times in their history. Casey Schmitt accounted for both of them last season against the Dodgers, though his second one came off a position player.

One thing the Giants still need to figure out is how to reach base consistently without having to collect a hit every time. With just 113 walks through 53 games, the Giants are on pace to draw just 345 walks this season. The team with the fewest walks drawn in a 162-game season is the 1967 New York Mets. They drew 362 of them and finished with a 61–101 record.

The odds of making the playoffs after such a sluggish start are low, but add in complete incompetence at drawing walks, and it's mission impossible.

Veteran hitters have given the Giants’ offense the stability it needed

If that offense were going to come alive at some point, it would be because of its veterans. And it has been — but not only because of them.

After a very rough month of April, Rafael Devers has looked much more like a guy who's about to cash in $250 million over the next eight seasons. In 22 games in May, Devers has slashed .301/.344/.590 with a .935 OPS, and has already surpassed his home run, RBI, and walk totals from April. The eighth grand slam of his career, and his first since May 2025, lifted his OPS into the .700s for the first time since April 2.

Matt Chapman has had about as streaky a month as a hitter can have. Over his first 13 games in May, the third baseman batted a meager .083/.137/.125 with an awful .262 OPS. But the tables have turned since he faced his former team at Sutter Health Park on May 15. Over his last eight games, Chapman has gone 11-for-30 (.367) with six doubles, six walks, and a .975 OPS. His home run total, though, is still stuck at one.

One guy who has been the definition of consistency in his first season with the Giants is Luis Arráez. His 63 hits are tied for the second-most in baseball, his .320 batting average is tied for the third-highest, and his 19 multi-hit games are tied for the fourth-most in MLB.

Those numbers are good — very good — but when a franchise signs a three-time batting champion, it expects those kinds of numbers. What it didn't expect was for him — a player who's never had a positive Outs Above Average mark in his eight-season career — to be one of the best defensive second basemen in all of baseball. Only Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner (+9) has a higher mark than Arráez (+8).

All the guys I mentioned above have spent at least eight years in the league. A team is supposed to lean on those guys for production, not on a multi-position player in his fourth season at the major-league level. Following his home run in the Giants' 8–5 win over Chicago — his second in as many days — Casey Schmitt has now hit a home run while playing five different positions: five as the designated hitter, two in five games in left field, two while filling in at third, one in eight at-bats as the second baseman, and finally one while playing first base.

The Giants' Swiss Army knife, as Tony Vitello has called him multiple times, leads the club in home runs (11), RBI (29), OPS (.895), and wRC+ (152).

The rotation has left the Giants searching for answers

The fanbase had doubts when the front office signed free agents Adrian Houser and Tyler Mahle in the offseason. And one-third of the way into the season, those doubts haven't exactly been squashed. Aside from Landen Roupp, who has allowed one run or fewer in six of his 10 starts, this group has desperately lacked consistency.

Robbie Ray is coming off two of the worst starts of his entire career, giving up a career-high 10 runs on Monday in Arizona and issuing a career-high seven walks against the White Sox on Saturday. An All-Star in his second season in the Bay Area, Ray's six losses this season are the second most in the National League, as are his 29 walks allowed.

And with Logan Webb coming back soon, the Giants will have to decide which of Houser, Mahle, and McDonald they want to bump from the rotation. All three were disappointing in their last starts, but one decision appears to stand out as the most logical one.

But as of May 25, and before the front office decides which route to take, the Giants' rotation sits in the bottom half of most pitching leaderboard metrics. Their 4.83 ERA is the fourth highest in the majors, their 2.2 fWAR is the eighth lowest in baseball, and Giants starters have been charged with the most losses in all of baseball (25).

The starting group has been underwhelming in performance, but among the best in innings pitched, which might not actually be such good news given how the bullpen has performed. The relief corps was a major question mark coming into the season, and while it has had some low points, the group has exceeded expectations. They own the seventh-lowest ERA (3.29) in the majors, and players like Keaton Winn, Matt Gage, and Caleb Kilian — who were all drafted by the Giants — have held down the fort.

The next checkpoint on the list is the All-Star break, which starts on July 13. A lot can happen in 50 days. By then, the Giants will have played 97 games and will have just 65 left on the schedule. Until then, it's hard to say who has the better case: the pessimist or the optimist.

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