SAN FRANCISCO — No way around it: The Giants fell short of expectations.
This is a team that was so tired of .500 finishes and September collapses that it made leadership changes the past two winters. They swung the big trade and swam in the deep end in free agency. The heartbeat of the team and the ace of its pitching staff, Logan Webb, called it the best assemblage of baseball players he has been a part of in his seven seasons in orange and black.
Yet, here they are. Again.
The Giants will not make the postseason. They will finish right around .500. Rinse and repeat. No amount of personnel changes or financial investment could divert the club from the same course it has charted for five of the past six seasons.
San Francisco was eliminated before the final weekend of the regular season, the same position it was in two years ago, when Farhan Zaidi decided to fire Gabe Kapler with three games to go. Whether Buster Posey determines Bob Melvin merits the same fate remains to be seen. The manager can bear the brunt of the blame, but rarely is he solely responsible.
San Francisco Giants President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey, left, and San Francisco Giants’ Rafael Devers (16) hold his jersey up as Devers is introduced before their game against the Cleveland Guardians at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
Here are a few reasons why these Giants won’t be playing this October:
Inconsistent play
It may have been where they seemingly inevitably would end up, but the Giants rarely felt like a .500 team in the traditional sense. This was a team of extremes, and when it goes in both directions, it all averages out in the end.
From the department of arbitrary but illuminating stats: More than a handful of teams strung together streaks of seven or more wins, and just as many endured skids of at least six losses. The Giants were one of only two teams to do both multiple times, along with the Mets.
Poor timing
Extreme ups and downs don’t have to be a death sentence, but the Giants played their worst baseball at the junctures of the season where it mattered most.
When all hope was lost at the end of August, the team had no trouble reeling off 11 wins in 12 games. When those wins put them within striking distance of the wild card, all of a sudden, they stopped coming. The Giants pulled within a half-game of the Mets on September 12 and went 3-9 from that point on.
The most consequential stretch of the season came in the six weeks between the Rafael Devers blockbuster and the Aug. 1 trade deadline. Posey believed he was adding a difference-maker to a team that had just gone a season-best 12 games over .500 and was tied with the Dodgers for first place in the NL West. But the Giants cratered following the trade and went from buyers to sellers.
Inner-division struggles
In all likelihood, the Giants are heading toward a fourth-place finish in the NL West. (It would require at least two wins over the Rockies and two Diamondbacks losses to the Padres this weekend to flip them in the standings.)
And that feels about right.
The Giants would like to believe they are competing with the Dodgers and the Padres among the upper echelon in the division, but that simply hasn’t been the case this season — or, really, since 2021. San Francisco went 7-19 this season against its top two division foes, outscored by a 139-83 margin. They lost the season series to the Diamondbacks, too.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Spencer Bivens (76) bobbles a grounder hit by Los Angeles Dodgers’ Michael Conforto (23) in the sixth inning of their MLB game at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025. Conforto reached first base safely. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
In fact, in two seasons under Melvin’s watch, the Giants are a combined 29-39 against NL West teams that aren’t the Rockies.
Pitching depth
The price the Giants agreed to pay for Devers came at the cost of two pitchers from their Opening Day starting rotation. One of them, Jordan Hicks, had already been moved to the bullpen, and the other, Kyle Harrison, hadn’t been especially effective, so the Giants believed they could withstand the losses.
They loaded up their pack mule in Webb, as usual, but their other horses proved to be worse bets. Robbie Ray threw 150 more innings than he had the past two seasons combined and hit a wall over his final six starts. Justin Verlander was an ageless wonder at 42 years old, but only after spending half a season tweaking and experimenting.
Landen Roupp looks to be locked into a spot in next year’s rotation, but he made his last start this year on August 20. Hayden Birdsong went from blowing away big-league batters to not being able to throw strikes in the minors, and Carson Whisenhunt hardly looked like the club’s top pitching prospect before an injury ended his season prematurely, too.
A bullpen that once looked bountiful in backend arms also wasn’t able to withstand 162 games of attrition. In and out of the closer’s role, Ryan Walker regressed in major fashion, and the right elbow that was barking at Randy Rodríguez all year finally caught up to him.
San Francisco Giants’ Matt Chapman (26) strikes out for the last out of their 3-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the ninth inning of their MLB game at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Tuesday, July 29, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
As a staff, the Giants owned a 3.52 ERA over the first half — the third-best mark in the majors — but from the All-Star break onward surrendered almost a full additional earned run per game, ranking 23rd with a 4.49 ERA.
Outfield defense and base running
It would be easy to point to any number of reasons why the Giants underachieved. Maybe they stack up more wins early on if Willy Adames doesn’t wait until the second half to heat up, or if Matt Chapman never bangs his hand diving back to first base. What if the right side of the infield wasn’t a black hole in the lineup before Dominic Smith and Casey Schmitt settled in to their roles?
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For many fans, though, the overarching image of the season will probably be one of Heliot Ramos’ poor reads in left field or on the bases. An All-Star in 2024, Ramos regressed at the plate and, putting aside the base running, was an abject disaster in the outfield.
As a team, the Giants rated as one of the worst defensive outfield groups in the majors by multiple metrics. They were worth minus-18 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), better than only the Orioles, Angels and Rockies. By Outs Above Average (OAA), they graded out worse than every team except Baltimore, with minus-16 (the first-place team, the Red Sox, had plus-33).
Ramos wasn’t the only player running into outs on the bases, either. Whereas the Brewers topped the league with 15 runs created on the base paths, according to Statcast, the Giants and Rockies were tied for last with negative six.