{"id":835715,"date":"2026-07-30T10:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835715\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:52:11","slug":"luis-arraez-a-rare-delight-for-giants-fans-collects-four-hits-in-potential-farewell-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/835715\/","title":{"rendered":"Luis Arraez, a rare delight for Giants fans, collects four hits in potential farewell game"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Not many major-league franchises do sendoffs and acknowledgments as well as the San Francisco Giants.<\/p>\n

They held days of appreciation for Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford. They retired Will Clark\u2019s number. They\u2019ll honor newly enshrined Hall of Famer Jeff Kent with a number retirement ceremony at the end of next month. Wall of Fame recipients? They receive more ovations than a Kennedy Center honoree. You cannot call someone a Good Giant\u2122 without the proper typographical flair. The accolades and applause aren\u2019t reserved for the franchise icons, either. When former Giants right-hander Tyler Rogers visited with the Toronto Blue Jays three weeks ago, the video productions team had the highlight tribute video cued up to show between innings.<\/p>\n

When you win the admiration of fans at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, that bond is difficult to break. Hunter Pence was such a Good Giant\u2122 \u00a0that the organization saluted him twice. The first time, he was gifted a motorized scooter and whizzed out of the ballpark.<\/p>\n

So many things have changed at Oracle Park this season. The team has fallen fast and hard in literal and figurative ways. Even the scooter rides are dangerous now<\/a>, especially when a mishap gets ominously time-stamped as \u201clate Saturday\/early Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why haven’t there been many MLB trades yet?<\/p>\n

Andy McCullough<\/p>\n

Between any sets of lines you choose, this entire year in San Francisco has been a study in ineptitude.<\/p>\n

And against that shabby backdrop, Luis Arraez has been a shining light.<\/p>\n

When the Giants signed Arraez to a one-year, $12 million contract in the offseason, they made the risky decision to let him play second base every day, even though the rest of the league had relegated him to \u201cdesignated hitter and first base if necessary\u201d status. Arraez responded by mixing belief with work ethic and turning himself into one of the league\u2019s best defenders at the position. He entered Wednesday\u2019s homestand finale with plus-10 OAA (outs above average), which ranked second at his position and tied for 10th among all players.<\/p>\n

At the plate, of course, Arraez has delivered everything the Giants expected and then some. The three-time batting champion is on his way to a fourth. He has seemingly bent every blade of outfield grass at one point or another while hitting .361 in 49 home games. His 4.5 percent strikeout rate is the lowest in the majors.<\/p>\n

You can be a productive major-league player. You can be a competitive major-league player. Being one does not guarantee that you will be the other. Arraez fits the dual description. It wasn\u2019t his fault that not enough of his Giants teammates could say the same.<\/p>\n

The Giants are on their way to missing the playoffs for the ninth time in 10 seasons. As they seek to create a winning culture, Arraez\u2019s competitiveness is an emblem for everything the organization must stress to turn itself around.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the kind of player you want to have around. Which is why nobody is looking forward to what is almost certain to happen next.<\/p>\n

The trade deadline is five days away. The Giants are expected to move their impending free agents, including Arraez, and salvage whatever young talent they can for the future. So, while Wednesday afternoon\u2019s 16-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers was a day to celebrate rookie catcher Daniel Susac\u2019s first two major league home runs and a series win over a division leader, it was also a likely sendoff to a player who spent four months entertaining and connecting with everyone who watched him compete.<\/p>\n

If Arraez was giving home fans a final glimpse of himself in a Giants uniform, it was a fitting one. He went 4-for-5. If he hadn\u2019t been lifted for a pinch hitter in the eighth inning, when Milwaukee had a position player on the mound, there\u2019s a good chance he would\u2019ve made it 5-for-6.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s our modern-day version of Tony Gwynn,\u201d said Logan Webb, who pitched six innings to get the victory. \u201cWatching him from the opposing side, I wasn\u2019t a fan of him because he\u2019d get hits off me. His power takes are incredible. But getting to know him as a friend and teammate and see the work he puts in every day, it\u2019s pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arraez\u2019s four-hit game boosted his average to .331, which leads the major leagues. At home, he\u2019s been a .361 hitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to hit here,\u201d Arraez said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big ballpark. But I just try to do my job, put the ball in play, and I get results.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arraez claimed that he wasn\u2019t focused on the trade deadline. Whenever his time as a Giant is up, though, he said he would be grateful to the organization for giving him a shot to reestablish himself as a second baseman.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody trusts me,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this organization trusts me to play second base, and I really appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the crowds of 30,000-plus?<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, they are amazing,\u201d Arraez said. \u201cEvery day they show up for us and get loud every day. I love the fans. I want to say thanks for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

As much as Arraez has endeared himself to everyone in the Giants organization, it would be malpractice for a 46-62 team to keep him through the rest of the season. He likely isn\u2019t a candidate for a qualifying offer, so there isn\u2019t even the potential for draft pick compensation if he signs elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Casey Schmitt\u2019s season-ending knee injury<\/a> \u2014 he\u2019s headed for surgery to repair a torn left meniscus that he sustained on the basepaths Monday night \u2014 would make the body blow of trading Arraez land even harder. Schmitt was set to take over as the everyday second baseman. Now, it\u2019s an opportunity that could go to Jesus Rodr\u00edguez, Jonah Cox or Christian Koss, in some combination.<\/p>\n

Survey the Giants clubhouse, though, and what the players say they\u2019ll lament about an Arraez trade is losing the person.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell people this a lot: He\u2019s the exact type of guy that you want on your team,\u201d rookie first baseman Bryce Eldridge said. \u201cObviously, there\u2019s a lot of talk about him getting moved, which is unfortunate. But he\u2019s a great baseball player. He\u2019s got that competitive edge that he brings literally every single day. It\u2019s a lot of games, and it\u2019s hard to do that every single day, but he does it. It\u2019s above my pay grade, but I\u2019d like to play with him for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going through a pretty tough stretch, and (Tuesday) night, he\u2019s at my locker,\u201d Eldridge continued. \u201cIt\u2019s,\u2019You\u2019re a great player. You\u2019ll be all right.\u2019 He picks up everyone like that, and I\u2019m very, very thankful I\u2019ve gotten to play with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giants manager Tony Vitello said Arraez \u201cmade everybody\u2019s day better. We don\u2019t have enough time here, and I\u2019d put it in a note to him. \u2026 But I think a succinct, exact answer is he literally made everyone\u2019s day better, every day, and there wasn\u2019t any days off for that theory either.\u201d<\/p>\n

So many similar things were said about Andrew McCutchen when the Giants acquired him in 2018 and then traded him, at the deadline, after their ambitious offseason didn\u2019t produce the winning season they\u2019d envisioned. McCutchen was a daily inspiration in his four months as a Giant. It\u2019s a shame it couldn\u2019t last longer.<\/p>\n

In 2018 and again now, the Giants haven\u2019t played well enough to deserve to keep nice things. They are playing better of late, though. They took two of three from Milwaukee to win their second consecutive series and finish a 4-2 homestand. On their last road trip, they should have won and could have swept a series against the Seattle Mariners, but they wound up dropping two of three. Kansas City swept them after the Giants led in all three games there, too.<\/p>\n

As strange as it might be to point out, when you count the two games they won against the Colorado Rockies just before the All-Star break, the Giants haven\u2019t been too many bounces and breaks away from winning 13 of their last 14 games. Even in that wildly best-case scenario, they\u2019d still be a shade under .500 and likely sellers at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019ve been playing better baseball lately, and that makes the impending sell-off \u2014 starting pitchers Robbie Ray and Tyler Mahle are coming up on free agency \u2014 even more of a bummer for anyone who just wants to see cleaner baseball down the stretch.<\/p>\n

No doubt, trading Arraez can help the Giants organization get healthier. But it\u2019ll also make the team a whole lot duller over the final two months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 Not many major-league franchises do sendoffs and acknowledgments as well as the San Francisco Giants.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,512,82],"class_list":["post-835715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}