Long gone are the days in which fans rub their hands together and coo: Oooo the Rockies.
In this hopefully alternate historical timeline these 2026 Giants have dragged us into, there are no gimme games, no such thing as a breezy series. The cheap balm San Francisco has applied to their burns in recent years is the fact they aren’t as bad as Colorado. They were never last in the NL West, never completely decked-out on the damp cellar floor — just a couple steps up the basement stairs where you might get a little bit better air circulation, touched by a bit more light from the crack at the bottom of the door. They’ve generally dominated the bruised, purple-and-black visitors when they’ve come to town — a home series seen as a relished opportunity for the team to feel big and strong for once by beating up on someone worse off.
But that thin and meaningless separation between the two teams is at risk of disappearing completely. They’ve been scratching-and-clawing at each other in a cartoon-y ball of dust and limbs all season. Going into Friday’s match-up, Colorado and San Francisco were 5-5 in head-to-head match-ups, with both teams solidly holding down the fourth and fifth spots in the division, both boasting records within the five worst in all of baseball.
Now, after Friday’s 5-2 loss, the Rockies are now just a game behind the Giants…who are 23.5 games out of first place and 14.5 games behind the third place Diamondbacks.
No one cares. Let’s get into it.
Ostensibly disadvantaged as the visiting team, the timing was just right for the Rockies to roll into town, catching the Giants on one of their worst runs in a terrible year. They’ve dropped four straight series, against the Padres, Rangers, Tigers, and Astros, since September 30th. After Friday’s loss, they’re 4-10, victims of a trio of shutouts as well as winless in four one-run games.
The answer to the how isn’t hard to discern. While the pitching has been suspect at times, the offense has been the main culprit. Obvious personnel departures in Luis Arraez and Heliot Ramos before the trade deadline have left holes. Casey Schmitt’s injury on the 28th took another right-handed threat out of the line-up. Replacements have been brought in. Osleives Basabe has shown some pop, Victor Bericoto is back, Drew Gilbert has been relatively solid — but these mild points of praise are barely worth mentioning considering the lack-of-club the club has shown over the past couple weeks.
Some numbers:
Since July 30th, the Giants are slashing .201/ .267/ .324 with a 66 wRC+. Their .264 wOBA is tied for worst in the Majors. Their flyball rate is the second highest in MLB span (49%) but their home-run to flyball ratio is one of the lowest (8.4%). According to Fangraphs’, their 28.5% Hard-%, measuring rates of ideal contact, is the lowest in the National League.
Bryce Eldridge punched another impressive drive over the center field wall to briefly tie the game in the 4th. It was another no-doubter, off lefty Kyle Freeland too, but proved to be an outlier spike in a game of ground balls rolled into the teeth of the defense.
The Rockies turned three double plays (two on the infield). Freeland struck out only two batters but earned 13 groundouts and surrendered just 4 hits. He needed 95 pitches to throw 8 complete. Throwing with the devil’s hand certainly helped facilitate the dominance. Southpaws have bedeviled Giants hitters all year, their 85 wRC+ is third lowest in the Majors.
No complaints about the Eldridge homer — it just would’ve been a whole lot nicer if there was a runner, or two or three, on base when it happened. Damage with ducks on the pond, that’s been a huge ask and huge problem throughout this rough patch. Over these last 14 games, the Giants are 13-for-94 with runners in scoring position. That’s a .138 average with a .191 slugging — which includes Rafael Devers’s excuse-me RBI double in the 9th that found the outfield through the gaping hole between third base and the man charged with protecting it. That non-needle moving extra basehit was their first, and only knock, with a runner in scoring position all night. That lack of production has been the rule over the past 14 games. The Giants have managed just one hit, or have been held hitless with RISP, or did not even earn an opportunity to hit with a RISP in 11 of their past 14 games.
This isn’t on the babes either, those wide-eyed call-ups that populate the bottom of the order. While on paper it appears as though the line-up falls off a cliff after the clean-up spot, that weak and inexperienced half aren’t to blame. They’ve done a nice job of setting the table. Jonah Cox, (who actually hit lead-off yesterday) tripled before Devers punched him in. Again, glad it happened, but cheap penance for previous, and future, sins. The number-2 slugger had an opportunity to uncork an influential swing with runners on the corners in the 3rd, after Christian Koss doubled and the Rockies gifted Cox a base on a missed catch, but rolled into an inning-ending double-play. And immediately after his double in the 9th, which pulled the Giants within three of Colorado’s five runs, Devers ran himself off the bases when he misread center fielder Cole Carrigg’s diving catch. What was inches from another RBI hit, and would’ve brought the tying run to the plate with nobody out, turned into a nice defensive snare and another self-inflicted, bubble-bursting two-fer against the Giants.
Devers is 2-for-11 with RISP since July 30th; Willy Adames is 1-for-14; Eldridge, 1-for-10; Lee, 1-for-9. The ones we want getting opportunities to hit with consequence just aren’t connecting. And when they do…somehow things go horribly wrong.