The San Francisco Giants have 40 games remaining. In all likelihood, they’re going to lose most of those games. They’ve been a bad team all year, and then they went and traded a significant chunk of their talent at the deadline (as they should have, I might add). As such, the Giants have gone a meek 3-7 since trading Luis Arráez, Robbie Ray, Heliot Ramos, Tyler Mahle, Erik Miller, and Caleb Kilian, despite seven of those games being at home.
That ain’t gonna change.
Over the next 40 games, the Giants are likely to pitch poorly, hit poorly, and defend poorly. They might even find a few more ways to embarrass themselves beyond the standard being bad at baseball stuff.
Yet during Friday’s feckless loss to the equally miserable Colorado Rockies, there was a moment that got me thinking. It came a few seconds after Bryce Eldridge absolutely annihilated a baseball — off a lefty, no less — for one of the most mesmerizing home runs of the season. Here, let’s watch it together.
After that home run, I checked in on the Giants chatter on Bluesky, and I saw a common refrain. Different users were posting different iterations of the same thought: this is why I’ll keep watching the Giants this year.
Eldridge mashing dingers and (hopefully) further developing into a face of the franchise is one of the main reasons to watch the Giants, but it’s not the only one.
There will be milestones, such as on Friday, when Trent Harris recorded his first career strikeout; likely later today we’ll see Turner Hill make his MLB debut. It will be the 10th MLB debut this season for a Giants player, and almost surely not the last.
There will be battles for future roles. Can Hill, Jonah Cox, or Drew Gilbert make a clear case to be the starting center fielder next year? Can Victor Bericoto (or perhaps Parks Harber, Bo Davidson, or Scott Bandura) emerge as the everyday left fielder? Will Blade Tidwell or Carson Whisenhunt, who have cemented their spots as starters in 2026, cement those same roles for 2027? Can anyone pitch in relief?
There will be fun moments and highlight plays and, above all else, some final games for Mike Krukow to broadcast.
So what — if anything — is keeping you watching?