In their return to the baseball field after mounting a historic comeback against the Nationals on Wednesday, the San Francisco Giants — you guessed it! — were nearly shut-out by the Chicago Cubs.
You know how when you come back from the store and you want to speed-up the cool-down process on some room-temperature beverages because you’re throwing a party, so you pop a couple cans into the freezer…and then inevitably forget about them. That’s what happened here: the offense forgot to take their bats out of the freezer. Their heads were lost in the clouds after the walk-off grand slam. They were buzzin’. The off-day on Thursday turned into a weekend — two days where no real baseball happened. The lineup managed just four baserunners over 6 innings against Cubs starter Javier Assad, who has thrown 12.1 scoreless frames against the Giants within the past five days.
When the rest of the line-up went 1-for-26, Bryce Eldridge, batting second, went 3-for-4 — the only who reached scoring position, made it to third base, and finally touched home after his solo shot in the 9th inning.
Luis Arraez led off the game with a single, extending his hitting streak to a dozen games, but Jung Hoo Lee’s 18-game tear was unfortunately wrapped with him standing in the on-deck circle as Rafael Devers went down looking to end the night.
Lee didn’t go down quietly. With two-outs and Eldridge standing on third, he pulled a 96 MPH grounder that chased after a single between first and second, but Gold Glover Nico Hoerner closed the hole. In the 7th, turned on an inside fastball from southpaw-slinger Hoby Milner that off the bat looked like it could be a double in the right-center gap — but the extra-bases liner was easily run down by Seiya Suzuki patrolling the alley.
Thus ends a remarkable streak dating back to May 14th in which Lee transformed into the hottest hitter in the league. In 78 at-bats, Lee bagged 36 knocks (29 singles), good for a .480 average, as he saw his season batting average balloon from .265 to .333, currently the second highest in MLB. Perhaps if there was a little more pep in his teammates’ steps, Lee might’ve got another crack at keeping the streak alive.
And then there’s the pitching. If you look at this game in a vacuum, you can’t blame the SF arms for a loss in which zero runs were produced by the bats until one-out in the 9th inning. Fair — but this game does not exist in a vacuum. Fans dragged their feet into this game knowing, feeling in their gut the facts that Bryan Murphy spelled out for us. The 2026 Giants pitching staff is historically bad, and their weaknesses were on full display Friday night: self-inflicted stress and fatigue, the inability to close out innings, or have one reliable fireman able to throw a wet-blanket on a fire. Starter Landen Roupp worked his way into 8 full counts, threw 100+ pitches, and didn’t complete the 5th inning. The Cubs scratched their first run across in the 4th after Roupp walked leadoff man, Michael Busch, and scored from first on a hit-and-run double by Suzuki. Roupp walked another to start the 5th and was pulled after Alex Bregman’s two-out double put runners at second and third. Tony Vitello went to lefty Erik Miller to face the lefty Busch, who spit a hanging slider out into the cove for a three-run homer.
Life is all about context. It’s about relationships and interactions that get so haphazardly colored and re-colored by one’s actions and decisions. The dominant emotions felt by fans towards the Giants pitching staff right now is distrust and dread. Those emotions have been earned and reaffirmed many times over the season so far, and reached a new low for many after some of the pitching staff’s pointed protest of Pride Night. The choices made by Roupp, JT Brubaker, and Ryan Walker to chalk a Bible reference onto to their SF Giants Pride logo hat, or in the case of Sam Hentges, not wear the hat at all, will have a much, much longer shelf-life in the community’s collective memory than their pitching performances on Friday night, or throughout the year.
Some were quick to praise those players’ choice. Some have mourned it, wishing that God changed their God mind, scrapped the covenant made with Noah and sent the rains again. Throw Logan Webb on the new ark and let the rest of the pitching staff be swept up in a flood. That’s kinda how I’m feeling this Saturday morning as I frustratingly and bitterly turn my Bible to Genesis 9 and read the words: “I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.” (NRSV)
Hmmm… Every living creature… All flesh… A big ol’ rainbow splashed across the sky… Sounds like Pride Night to me.
Perhaps, for the pitching staff specifically, a new covenant is needed. Let’s plop a massive Ten Commandments-like statue right in the middle of the bullpen at Oracle and chisel some reminders into the stone tablets: Thou shalt not walk the lead-off hitter in an inning. Thou shalt control the running game. Thou shalt maintain count leverage and be efficient with thou pitch count. Thou shalt not become predictable with your pitch selections. Thou shalt not hang sliders. And most importantly: Thou shalt love others because if God is anything worthwhile, then God has to be love, and thou shalt think about how love is not just an emotion you feel, but the emotion you make other people feel by your actions.
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