SAN FRANCISCO — Jung Hoo Lee came within an arm’s length of hitting a tying home run in the ninth inning Saturday night. His double off the brick arcade would’ve cleared the fence in every major-league ballpark except the one built hard against McCovey Cove. Moments later, more bad fortune: Lee was deprived of the privilege of scoring when New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso slipped the surly bonds of Earth just long enough to snag Patrick Bailey’s line drive (expected batting average: .730) and send the San Francisco Giants to a 2-1 defeat.
That has been your prima facie game recap. Literary reference included at no additional charge. Thank you for sponsoring this content.
You didn’t need help identifying the pivotal moments Saturday night. They were easy enough to spot in the ninth inning of an apparently unlucky loss. But if those didn’t feel like the defining moments of the game, that’s probably because you’ve been watching this Giants lineup pop up and strike out and strand runners for the better part of three months. Bailey’s misfortune and Alonso’s vertical verisimilitude resulted in just one of the Giants’ eight hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position. They’re 0-for-16 in this series. They ranked 23rd out of 30 teams in runs scored in May, 25th in June and 22nd in July.
They are 54-51 and still relevant in a National League playoff picture that gets grainy when you blow it up into an 8×10, but on so many nights, the Giants have looked like a team that is trying to visualize success while failure crowds their field of vision.
If there was a defining moment for that mood, you might flash to Rafael Devers and his first base apprenticeship potentially costing the Giants a run when he bobbled a transfer and couldn’t force a runner at second base in the Mets’ two-run sixth inning. Devers cost left-hander Robbie Ray a few pitches in the third inning, too, when he broke in on a dribbler that Ray fielded. Because the Giants view Devers as a difference-making hitter, they are making a significant concession to compete with a first baseman who has as much pro experience at the position as a draftee after instructional league. They are more confident with Devers in their lineup, even if they cannot expect him to feel confident in the field.
Rafael Devers had a tough night at first base. (Ed Szczepanski / Imagn Images)
However, nothing was surprising about Devers’ defensive night. All teams have weaknesses they can only address by making peace with them, which is most easily achieved by outhitting their mistakes.
Of course, that is not something the Giants have done often this season. If that’s the sentiment you wanted to capture Saturday night, then consider another less obvious moment when Lee stood in the batter’s box. It happened in the fourth inning of a scoreless game. The bases were loaded with one out. Lee stepped to the plate.
He attempted to bunt.
“A groundball can make it into a double play,” Lee said through Korean interpreter Justin Han. “So what I was thinking is maybe do a sudden bunt like that. Also, if you saw Pete Alonso, he was … (playing) back at first base. So maybe I could have gone for that chance, but I made a foul ball.”
Lee ended up plating a run anyway. His groundball to the right side was so softly hit that the Mets only had time to get the force at second base. Lee’s decision to bunt the first pitch ended up having no direct impact on the result of the inning or the game.
But some decisions merit closer inspection. Anyone can see what a player is doing. What you cannot see is what they’re thinking. In that moment, Lee provided a window into his mind. He confirmed as much after the game: He walked to the plate and visualized a double-play grounder instead of a double to the gap.
Lee was facing a left-on-left matchup with David Peterson, but it’s not as if the Mets starter was overpowering. It’s not as if Lee has been feeble in same-side matchups, either. He had a reverse split this season: He was hitting .276 with an .783 OPS against lefties and .239/.685 against right-handers.
Yet Lee did something that major-league hitters almost never do. He stepped into the game’s ripest situation to inflict maximum damage. He chose to artificially minimize it.
How rare is it for a hitter to make that choice? Well, entering Saturday, there had been 9,945 pitches thrown with the bases loaded this season. There had been two bunt attempts. That’s because there is almost no bases-loaded situation in which squaring to bunt is a sound strategy. If the ball doesn’t get past the pitcher, it’s a potential flip and force at the plate. From every angle, a bases-loaded bunt is a terrible play — the provenance of pitchers in the pre-universal DH age, absolute burners carrying ultralight lumber or anyone feeling overmatched.
In four seasons beginning in 2022 with the adoption of the universal DH, there have been 57,675 pitches thrown with the bases loaded. There have been 27 bunt attempts. Thirteen of those attempts were put into play. Within that small sample, you might be interested to learn, the results haven’t been a total calamity. There have been four bunt singles (including one by the Giants’ Grant McCray last season, when he was charitably credited with his first major-league hit even though the catcher dropped a throw). Five other balls in play resulted in an RBI. Two of those bunts resulted in multiple runs when the team afield committed an error.
Scan the list of those four bunt attempts in play that didn’t score a run and you’ll find former Giants infielder Thairo Estrada listed twice. He popped one up in 2022 and, God love him for being undaunted, did it again in ’23.
Here’s video of Estrada’s attempt from two seasons ago at Dodger Stadium, which happened while Clayton Kershaw was participating in an in-game interview. If you still think there’s ever a good time to bunt with the bases loaded, one look at Kershaw’s horse-laughing reaction should set you straight.
What do all those 27 bunt attempts have in common? This may be obvious, but none of them resulted in things like home runs or doubles to the gap — the damaging hits that usually swing win probability in a team’s favor. They are the types of hits that the Giants are likely to need more than ever now that their rotation is down to three healthy and established pitchers. They’ll roll out a bullpen game beginning with lefty Matt Gage on Sunday. Then they’ll promote either Kai-Wei Teng or Carson Whisenhunt from Triple-A Sacramento to start on Monday.
(Whisenhunt was scratched from his scheduled start for the River Cats Saturday night, but it’s possible the Giants were holding him back as a precaution in case the Mets blasted Ray in the early innings.)
Following Friday night’s loss, I asked Giants manager Bob Melvin: Is it tougher to manage a team that isn’t hitting or a team that is constantly struggling to cover innings? He didn’t have a decisive answer, saying every year is case-specific. When a team isn’t doing one thing well, he said, you hope the other parts of the team can compensate.
So, after three months of evidence to the contrary, do the Giants really believe their lineup is capable of compensating?
In a way, the answer is immaterial. They already traded for Devers. They committed to paying him more than $250 million through 2033. A franchise does not make that kind of commitment and then sell off parts at the trade deadline — especially when that franchise is run by someone as competitive as Buster Posey.
You may be thinking about what Ray, an All-Star, could fetch in a market starved for high-quality pitching. You might be thinking about how much the Giants need to restock a system thinned out by the Devers trade and consecutive winters of punting draft picks as compensation for signing free agents. Posey almost certainly is thinking a different way. When you’ve played on flawed teams that won World Series championships, you don’t see the logic of giving up while you’re short-stacked and still have a seat at the table.
If you want to get really deep, here’s betting that Posey thinks about it this way: What’s a year of your life worth? What’s four months of sweat equity plus six weeks of spring training worth? What’s the mental and physical and financial investment in building a team worth? What’s all that time away from your family worth? How can you justify any of that time spent or sacrifices made if you’re willing to pull the plug because your playoff odds happen to be 29 percent with two months to go?
All of this to say: If you’re plotting out what the Giants could fetch if they go into sell mode, you’re wasting your time. Yes, there’s a possibility they will deal pieces off their major-league roster, but only if they get major-league pieces in return. And only if they believe such a trade would leave them a stronger and more competitive team right now.
From a transactional standpoint, the Giants already took their biggest swing by acquiring Devers. They may not be able to justify sending out more of their minor-league system in an ore cart to make meaningful additions to a problematic roster that could roll closing credits with two bad weeks. And sure, there are arguments to be made that selling is the prudent thing to do.
But selling would be artificially minimizing their season.
In the broadest context, the Giants aren’t exactly operating with the bases loaded. When you commit to taking a swing, though, you place no limits on the possible outcomes.
And luck? It’s the least static variable of all. Yesterday’s lineout could be today’s game-changing hit.
(Top photo: Ed Szczepanski / Imagn Images)