![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.mccoveychronicles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/105\/2026\/07\/Gausman-comp2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow, the total amount for the Giants\u2019 side of the equation is based on two assumptions: that the Giants, owing Alex Cobb $10 milion for 2024, saved about $3.333 million the rest of the season after trading him away to the Guardians before he\u2019d finished his rehab; and, that in trading Robbie Ray with approximately two months to go in 2026, they will have paid Robbie Ray $16.7 million and gotten half a win above replacement out of him (yes, this is envisioning a trade before his next start).<\/p>\n
So, if all this holds, the Giants\u2019 missed it by\u2026 an awful lot. From a straight money perspective, they were off by just about $2 million, and for most wagon circling front office lovers out there that might be more than enough to still bother to affirm the previous regime\u2019s \u201cgenius<\/a>,\u201d but the substantive part of the analysis \u2014 that wins above replacement total \u2014 is a big whiff. The Giants were so afraid of committing long-term to a pitcher out of fear of injuries or ineffectiveness that they wound up acquiring THREE pitchers with injury histories and 2\/3 of them saw their production hampered by injuries. This was some penny wise, pound foolish nonsense and I\u2019m glad we all got to experience it. Farhan Zaidi, encouraged by ownership, attempted to recreate Kevin Gausman in the aggregate so that the Giants could have a formidable 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation, and the team failed.<\/p>\n Anyway, this post\u2019s headline is a reference to the penultimate episode of Star Trek: The Original Series<\/a>, which was about Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beaming down to a planet that was about to be obliterated by its star going supernova after getting signs of life. Upon beaming down, they discover that the entire civilization has devised a time travel technology that will allow every single person to escape into their planet\u2019s past to live out their lifespans and not have to be lost to the supernova.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good enough episode that if it had been the series finale it would\u2019ve been a good one to go out on \u2014 certainly better than the actual finale, the genuinely awful and misogynistic \u201cTurnabout Intruder\u201d \u2014 but as a talking point for the 2026 San Francisco Giants it carries exactly this weight: as nice as it is to escape into the past to avoid a terrible future, the punishing nature of the major league schedule and the cruel passage of time prevents that from happening.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll never know if re-signing Gausman would\u2019ve worked out as well as it did for the Blue Jays and if that working out would\u2019ve meant a couple more winning seasons interspersed in the last 5 seasons, and as nice as it would be to escape into that past or that reality, the supernova is here and the Giants must once again ask if the rules they\u2019ve self-imposed that have brought them into its path were of any use. Hmm, why bother wondering. Powerful, successful people have made these rules. They can\u2019t fail, they can only be failed.<\/p>\n But I can\u2019t be totally critical. Since 2020, when the Blue Jays kicked off this latest competitive window, their pitching staff (with or without Gausman) hasn\u2019t been as valuable as the Giants, trailing the orange and black 82.2 to 94.1 Sure, they have a better record over this same span (514-446 to 494-465) and four postseason appearances including a World Series loss, but the Giants have had the better pitching \u2014 or, at least, Logan Webb along with their aggregate approach has mostly worked.<\/p>\n Not this year, of course. This year has been an unmitigated disaster. Not much the Giants have done has worked.<\/p>\n That\u2019s sort of what\u2019s happened with the Blue Jays. They\u2019ve done all the things a big market\/high-spending team is supposed to do: build through the draft and international signings, developing talent through the farm system, retaining the most valuable farm players with long-term deals and supplementing the roster with free agents. They signed Vladimir Guerrero to a 14-year, $500 million deal last April. Gausman was brought in to be the #2 behind Alek Manoah, and when that didn\u2019t work out, he\u2019s managed to be the steadiest pitcher behind whoever was considered \u201cthe ace,\u201d ascending to that role in the 2025 World Series year. This year, he\u2019s part of a three-headed monster with Trey Yesavage (drafted) and Dylan Cease (free agent).<\/p>\n Still, with all that talent at the top of the rotation, Toronto\u2019s pitching staff is a lot closer to middle of the pack (13th in fWAR). Compounding problems is that their lineup just hasn\u2019t clicked. Their 92 wRC+ is just 23rd. They are second to last in runs scored (356), making them the lowest-scoring team in the American League. The cause? Well, they let Bo Bichette go and 36-year old George Springer won\u2019t replicate 35-year old George Springer\u2019s 32 home run season of 2025. The team\u2019s power dropoff is precipitous and their team batting line compared to last year \u2014 keeping in mind that the 2025 squad is the type of lineup the Giants seem to want \u2014 is stark:<\/p>\n 2025: .265\/.333\/.427 (.162 ISO), 8.4 BB%, 17.8 K% Walking less, striking out more, hitting for less power, making less contact \u2014 a bad recipe that makes a bad lineup, which is just what Toronto has had. Since getting back to 39-39 a few weeks ago, they\u2019ve gone 3-9 thanks to averaging just 3 runs per game. They\u2019ve been shutout in 3 of their last 5 games including 2 straight. They were 3-7 on their last homestand.<\/p>\n This team still has playoff aspirations. The Giants do not.<\/p>\n Who: San Francisco Giants (37-52) vs Toronto Blue Jays (42-48) Projected starters Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: Vlad Guerrero has yet to homer at home this season! That has no bearing on this series, necessarily, but it\u2019s an interesting factoid. He has just 4 all season anyway and a very bad .698 OPS to boot. Baseball Savant took a look at Vladito\u2019s power drought<\/a> and found some reasons to think he\u2019s due for a turnaround in-season. You\u2019d like to think that the slump would linger a little longer, though. He\u2019s played at Oracle Park just twice in his career (2019 & 2024) and the two homers he\u2019s hit came in 2019. He was 1-for-13 in the 2024 series.<\/p>\n Tyler Rogers: Why didn\u2019t I make the whole series preview about the Tyler Rogers\u2019 return? Well, because he\u2019s got two more years left on his deal. Instead, Buster Posey will get to watch the funky submariner attack Giants hitters and see if the organization\u2019s familiarity with him gives any of the hitters an edge. Rogers has allowed 0 homers in 42 appearances (40.2 IP). Toronto\u2019s closer, Louis Varland (18 saves, 2.2 fWAR) has allowed just 1 in 47 IP.<\/p>\n Ernie Clement: I am not the only one who remembers how he absolutely obliterated the Giants at Oracle Park back in that 2024 series. Total annihilation. He was 5-for-11 with 2 homers and 7 RBI. Both of his homers were 3-run homers, one off of Ryan Walker and another off of Logan Webb, both of whom he\u2019ll face in this series. But! He\u2019s just 13-for-55 in his last 16 games (.236\/.276\/.273) with only 2 extra base hits (doubles) and a single RBI.<\/p>\n Logan Webb: Can the Giants\u2019 ace get back on track after a disastrous start in Coors Field or have the wheels come off the season and now it\u2019s all about turning to next season?<\/p>\n Rafael Devers: He has 24 career homers against Toronto across 108 games and 449 plate appearances. A career .927 OPS hitter in the matchup. His two homers yesterday gave him 18 on the season which ties him with Manny Machado, Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, and CJ Abrams \u2014 good company. Half of them have come since June 15th\u2026 the day I published a post assessing Devers\u2019 present and projecting his future<\/a>. I didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be much better than around the league average. Since that post went up, he\u2019s hit .306\/.386\/.790 (70 PA), an 11.4 BB%, and 20 K% \u2014 far, far better than the league. Is he reading my posts???<\/p>\n Heliot Ramos: He\u2019s got a couple of homers in 7 games off the IL with a 6.9 BB% and surprising 17.2 K%. Whether or not the Giants trade him is irrelevant. He\u2019s an easy Giant to root for and if he\u2019s back on track, really fun to watch.<\/p>\n Kevin Gausman will strike out some Giant at least twice. Tyler Rogers will get a pair of strikeouts in at least one appearance. Jung Hoo Lee will hit a home run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I just can\u2019t wait until the end of the season to do the final analysis of the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,107062,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-388097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants-game-information","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
2026: .244\/.306\/.382 (.139 ISO), 7.4 BB%, 20.0 K%<\/p>\n
Where: Oracle Park | San Francisco, California
When: Monday & Tuesday at 6:45pm PT, Wednesday at 12:45pm PT
National broadcasts: Peacock (Sunday)<\/p>\n
Monday: Landen Roupp (RHP 5-8, 4.55 ERA) vs. Kevin Gausman (RHP 4-7, 4.19 ERA)
Tuesday: TBD vs. Trevor McDonald (RHP 3-6, 4.42 ERA)
Wednesday: Logan Webb (RHP 5-6, 3.66 ERA) vs. Dylan Cease (RHP 5-4, 2.79 ERA)<\/p>\n