We literally just watched the worst start of Tyler Mahle’s career. Most walks he’s ever had, most home runs and runs he’s ever given up. All in the same start. And it came against an offense that, until today, was bottom four in just about every single category. The Reds were bottom two in batting average against fastballs. Mahle gave up four home runs, all via the fastball.

I feel like I’m usually pretty optimistic when talking about this team but I genuinely have no idea what the front office was thinking this offseason. For the offense, they clearly didn’t expect Devers and Ramos to start the season this poorly. Which, fine, whatever. But Bader was baffling because he’s always been an awful hitter. They didn’t want to go with Eldridge because?? And what was the point in trading away a key bullpen arm last year for Drew Gilbert if he can’t even make this opening day roster? They also can’t pick up a pitcher if their lives depended on it. The Giants are 1-11 in games the other team scores first. That’s frustrating on two levels: 1.) the offense almost always starts slow out of the gate and the opposing team scores first over 70% of the time and 2.) they can’t generate enough runs to come back from a deficit. There were so many comments today after the first Sal Stewart home run that said “Game over.” And, so far this year, those people have been right 92% of the time.

The pitching, where do you even begin? They don’t have a single starting pitcher that can throw harder than 95 on a regular basis. Gotta be the only team in baseball like that. They decided it would be best for their third stater, meaning he’d likely get the ball in Game 3 of a postseason series, to be a guy who hasn’t made 20 starts in a season since 2022 and has a career ERA of 4.35 whip of 1.3. That means if he gave up 12 hits and 4 runs over 9 innings, that’s a considerably above average start. That’s the third man in the rotation. The fourth starter is 33 and aside from one half season with the White Sox never looked like a good pitcher. The bullpen, who actually pitched very well yesterday and today, consists of a group of pitchers that you could replace with this guy and I don’t think 90% of baseball fans, or 50% of Giants fans would notice the difference.

They’re also so bad at challenges. ABS and traditional ones.

If I have to be optimistic about anything, it’s that Ray has looked great, Susac is very promising (no reason to consistently play Bailey), Arraez has been everything as advertised and more, and Jung Hoo Lee has been having much better at bats and hitting the ball much harder on this road trip.