When the Giants win, they look great.
When the Giants lose, they look truly awful.
One night, they’re a well-oiled machine operating with Swiss precision; the next, they’re a traveling circus where the clowns have lost the keys to the car.
The 2026 San Francisco Giants have so far no middle ground: They are either a masterclass in professional baseball or a 26-man shrug emoji.
There is no “fine.” There is no “OK.” There is only the penthouse or the sewer.
It’s been rather exhausting, no?
And that’s not just a classic early-season knee-jerk overreaction — it’s the truth. Going into Tuesday night’s game with the Phillies, the Giants had three wins and were last in baseball in run differential. They were looking down the pipe at two of baseball’s better starting pitchers — Christopher Sanchez and Aaron Nola — and at the possibility of a 1-6 homestand and a DEFCON 1 situation with the fanbase.
Then they rattled off two all-around impressive shutout victories.
So who are these guys?
Are they the team that can never seem to do anything right? The team whose infield defense deserves the “Benny Hill Theme” as a soundtrack? The team that has fewer barreled balls this year than Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman combined? The team that has fans all over the Bay passing out because every inning the bullpen pitches requires one to hold their breath?
Or is this the deeply professional operation that rockets line drives to every corner of the field, catches everything in the outfield, and has a rotation that gives you five-plus innings of “don’t worry, I’ve got this” every single game?
Beats me.
And beats the Giants, too.
But having seen some crazy highs and some deep lows, this can now be said:
There’s certainly little reason to panic in San Francisco.
Does this Giants team have an identity yet? No. Not even close.
And one might not develop for weeks or even months. But the competence on display on Tuesday and Wednesday cannot be overlooked.
Don’t forget: The Giants are a team that, top to bottom, is trying to figure it out.
It’s only Buster Posey’s second year in charge of the entire roster after taking on the job with no front-office experience. He’s still figuring it out.
Manager Tony Vitello is surely trying to figure it out, too. If you see something new every day in baseball, what’s Vitello seeing in his first month in the Show?
The lineup? Always in flux. The bullpen? A total crapshoot — no role’s established, no job is sacred.
But you know what helps with that? Time. A bit of failure, a bit of success.
No one suggested there wasn’t going to be a feeling-out period, even if no one suggested it’d be so painful to start.
A big help in finding that identity? The team’s best players — the established, veteran studs — are playing like the team’s best players.
I can’t explain why Heliot Ramos’ bat looks so slow, but Matt Chapman has done his part so far this season. (Those errors? Not on him.)
Luis Arráez might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but even I can’t suggest that tea’s cold to start the season.
And the starting pitching is giving this team a chance night in, night out.
So if Wednesday was the true beginning of Rafael Devers’ season — his tank of a three-run homer won the game — this team might have the kind of steady, impactful presence in the middle of the order that helps stabilize the whole operation.
This is especially true if Vitello continues to use his bench more, as he has done in recent games to success.
“I think it was massive,” Vitello said of the Devers homer. “Everybody knows what he’s capable of… He hasn’t found his rhythm yet… He’s kind of just getting his cleats underneath him… It’s been a pretty good sight to see him swing that bat.”
The wins won’t always be as comprehensive as they’ve been in the last two games.
The losses, one would hope, won’t always be as exhaustive.
The truth is, the Giants are currently a Schrödinger’s cat of a baseball team. They’re both elite and embarrassing until you open the stadium gates.
But as this team heads out on its first serious road trip of the season — a nine-game, 10-day East Coast jaunt — the Giants have a bit of momentum and a chance to start defining what this season could be — one way or another.