The San Francisco Giants, feckless and fully on life support after one of the worst road trips in franchise history, were in desperation mode after Sunday’s defeat. As we’ve been told since birth, desperate times call for desperate measures, and in baseball parlance, desperate measures means desperate transactions.

And so it wasn’t surprising that the team that flew out of Tampa Bay on Sunday was not the same as the one that arrive to Oracle Park on Monday to face the San Diego Padres to kick off a six-game homestand.

The reports trickled in on Sunday night while the plane was likely still on the tarmac in Florida. They were confirmed by the beat reporters later in the evening. They were announced by the team on Monday afternoon.

Exactly a month ahead of the schedule set by last year’s “it’s time to go” quote, Buster Posey was pulling the trigger on the biggest in-house moves he could make.

Bryce Eldridge, the team’s top hitting prospect since Posey himself, was coming up. Jesús Rodríguez, one of the top contact hitters in all of the Minors, was accompanying him.

The third move was almost an afterthought, both in the announcement and in the literal sense. After opting to use two starters during Thursday’s excruciating doubleheader, the Giants needed to add a starter for Monday. With a shrug, a sigh, and perhaps even a blindfold, they waved their collective finger around and landed on Trevor McDonald.

If you could inject truth serum into a press release, here’s what the one from the Giants would have said: Giants call up top prospect Bryce Eldridge, oh my god that’s exciting and they also call up Jesús Rodríguez, and my goodness that’s going to be so much fun, all of this is for Monday’s game and oh yeah, if you’re curious, not that you care, Trevor McDonald is also up to start that game, don’t get used to him, he’ll be gone tomorrow.

That was the sentiment, and I don’t say that negatively. It’s just the reality of the situation, and it was entirely justified.

But that chasm in excitability was forgetting two of the foundational tenets of baseball.

The first tenet: inexperienced hitters tend to take quite a lot of time getting their feet wet and their gears spinning and their numbers numbering. They’re usually pretty bad for a while, making it a little bit of a paradox that Posey was calling on two such players to fix a broken offense.

And so it was that neither of the young electric hitters did much in the batter’s box.

Eldridge, making his season debut, hit a weak pop up that carried into left field in his first at-bat, and struck out in his final one, and while he sandwiched those two negative outcomes around a walk, it’s hard to give him much credit there when it was a four-pitch bases on balls in which Randy Vásquez couldn’t find the strike zone if you built a new mega strike zone out of four normal-sized strike zones.

Rodríguez, making his Major League debut, used his three at-bats to make four outs, hitting a line out and two ground outs, the first of which erased Eldridge’s walk with a double play.

The second tenet: no player in the history of baseball has as large of a gap between their ability to be bad in AAA and their ability to be good in the Majors as McDonald.

And so it was that McDonald, who entered the game with a 5.40 ERA in five AAA games this year, and with 15 walks in 15 innings, made the Padres look feeble and foolish from start to finish, pitching seven of the most efficient innings the Giants have seen all year, allowing just two hits and one run, walking nobody, and striking out eight.

It truly defies explanation. McDonald now has pitched 205 innings in AAA and has a 5.18 ERA, with 192 strikeouts and 91 walks. He’s pitched 25 MLB innings and has a 1.44 ERA, with 23 strikeouts and just three walks. I don’t know what kind of bizarre magic that is, but if the Giants are going to take at-bats away from Matt Chapman to facilitate time for Eldridge, one would have to imagine they’ll be compelled to siphon some of Adrian Houser’s innings in the direction of McDonald.

McDonald stated his case immediately, striking out Ramón Laureano on three pitches to open the game. It was a statement for McDonald, for McDonald’s sinker (which he threw all three times), and for Rodríguez, who suited up behind the dish and saw his first taste of MLB action calling and receiving a strikeout.

For as impressive as the punchout was, it arguably wasn’t the best thing that McDonald did in the inning. After retiring Fernando Tatis Jr., he faced his first bit of adversity: following five straight sinkers to open the game, McDonald finally deviated on the first pitch he threw to Jackson Merrill. Instead of his best pitch, McDonald went to a changeup, which not only hung, but floated into the worst spot of the plate. Merrill responded the way All-Stars do, by taking on center field with absolute ease, clearing the fence with room to spare, and earning a slow jog around the bases while admiring a 436-foot blast.

A lot of things have plagued the Giants over the last five seasons of relentless mediocrity. A whole lot of things. That’s a can of worms for another day. I recommend following our own Bryan Murphy’s writing if you really want to get into it.

But the defining characteristic of the Giants during this half-decade of futility has been an inability to right the ship once the bad times commence. Miniature obstacles turn to small slumps turn to large swaths of failure. The inability to get the team to stand up after falling over ultimately cost Bob Melvin his job, and plenty of players have exited the stage for the same reason.

So it was a breath of fresh air — and an injection of something sorely needed (no, not steroids) — that McDonald galumphed about on the mound as he watched Merrill run his 360 feet, then rubbed up a new baseball, dug in, and attacked Manny Machado, earning a two-pitch out. And then he needed just 10 pitches to cruise through the second inning, while striking out a pair of batters. To that point, McDonald had thrown 18 pitches, and 17 of them had been strikes.

If there’s a way to Posey’s heart, it just might be that (if there’s a way to mine, however, it is food; I am not beating that stereotype).

From that point on, McDonald would only allow two more baserunners: one in the third, when he hit Jake Cronenworth, and one in the fourth, when he gave up a single to Merrill. And this time he was once again prepared to bounce back from the baserunner: after Merrill reached second on a fielder’s choice, McDonald provided one of the highlights of the game, and one that showed his deft theatrics, as well. Right as Kruk and Kuip were alerting fans to the fact that McDonald can field his position well, he stabbed a comebacker from Xander Bogaerts, whipped to third, and fired a strike to Casey Schmitt to get the lead runner out. It was a gutsy play, and one that required a tremendous amount of skill.

Thankfully, neither guts nor skill seem to be in short supply for McDonald.

The offense, meanwhile, may not have been jumpstarted by the arrivals of Eldridge and Rodríguez, but it wasted no time giving McDonald a lead to play with. It took only until the second batter in the first inning for the Giants to have one of their best at-bats of the season, and it’s not hard to guess who provided it: Schmitt.

Starting at third base while Chapman rested (it appears Schmitt will be roving around the field now that Eldridge has arrived), the breakout star of the team continued his torrid start on Monday. After falling behind in the count 0-2, Schmitt took three consecutive brilliant pitches, all off the plate by merely an inch or two.

The fish weren’t biting, and with the count now full, Vásquez was forced to find the strike zone. He opted for the pitch he (and most people) can most reliably accomplish that with, and Schmitt was waiting for it all the way. The four-seam fastball entered batter’s box at 95.6 mph and exited it at 102.5 mph, finding a home comfortably up the left field bleachers as Schmitt rounded the bases.

That was the equalizer, but the Giants were hungry for more. Luis Arráez followed Schmitt by smacking a double in an 0-2 count, and then the Padres reminded you that they, too, are capable of a little bit of ineptitude. With one out, Heliot Ramos grounded a ball to the shortstop Bogaerts, while Arráez broke for third. Bogaerts attempted to take out the lead runner but was unable to do so, and suddenly Giants had runners at the corners thanks to the no-out fielder’s choice. Two pitches later, they would cash in one of those runs on a Rafael Devers RBI single.

They added a critical insurance run in the sixth inning in remarkably similar fashion: Arráez doubled for the second time and Ramos (who would later triple as he continues to come to life) once again grounded the ball to Bogaerts, who this time did the smart thing and got the easy out, allowing Arráez to take third, where he would score on a Devers sacrifice fly.

That run proved necessary, as the the bullpen took a bend-don’t-break approach. Tony Vitello opted to not risk ruining a good thing, and didn’t let McDonald go out for the eighth inning, despite the righty having thrown a mere 81 pitches (60 of which were strikes). Instead, it was Keaton Winn, who appears to be settling into the setup man role, especially with Erik Miller currently injured. Winn played that role excellently, needing just eight pitches to retire the side in order.

The ninth was a little less smooth, but reminiscent of the first inning. Vitello continues to search for the right bullpen buttons to press, and on Monday opted for a very sensible one, as he gave Caleb Kilian a chance to close. And the very first batter he faced, Laureano, hit a 447-foot moonshot — as no-doubter as a no-doubter can be at Oracle Park.

Suddenly it was just a one-run game, and the heart of the order was showing up.

But if McDonald provided the first example of a Giants player proving that you can stop negative momentum in its tracks, Kilian brought the closing blow. He responded by completely breaking down Tatis, getting him to strike out with all three strikes coming via ugly swings-and-misses.

Then he got Merrill to weakly ground a ball to second base … so weakly, in fact, that it almost wasn’t an out, save for the brilliance of Arráez, who had a truly sensational game with the glove, making highlight play after highlight play.

And finally, with the Giants faithful rising to their feet, Kilian struck out Machado swinging as the crowd erupted.

Eldridge and Rodríguez will have their time in the sun. Hell, it might be as early as tomorrow. But it’s a team sport, and sometimes it’s the less heralded call ups that stop the bleeding, and lead you to a 3-2 victory.

After all, there’s no wrong way to win.

Every Star Wars Day (May the Fourth, in case this particular branding hasn’t been pounded into your skull) produces the same opportunity to lay the story of the baseball game over the Star Wars leitmotif. Last year we had an uninspiring 8-1 loss to the Rangers where Zach purposefully trolled by mixing up Stars War and Trek, but ultimately got trolled by the game being so bad no one got particularly mad about it. Maybe the only person he really made mad was staffer Jake Parr, who wrote his own Star Wars-themed recap a week later, repeating a theme of his from 2024 (and 2023!), when he was mad I had the recap on Star Wars Day and neglected to do anything with it, because by this point I have been through so. many. baseball Star Wars Days, while still having only ever seen the original trilogy, and at that only in 20-minute asynchronous increments on my break at the Cineplex Odeon Southcenter Theatre (-tre because we were Fancy).

But sometimes the narrative pull is so strong, and tonight that narrative pull involves a guy named Luke using the force to win (or help win) a baseball game, you just have to throw up your hands, pour a nice [frantic googling sounds] Tarisian Ale, put on some [more frantic googling] Max Rebo Band, and give yourself over to the story being told.

The story tonight was of two halves. The first half: bad. I will not be making an analogy to a Star Wars Thing here because I don’t want to make anyone mad, but it’s Jar Jar, right? Jar Jar is universally regarded as Bad? Anyway, things got off to a rough start right away, with Logan Gilbert surrendering a homer on the third pitch of the ballgame, a slider that reigning NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin was able to elevate over the right-center wall for a no-doubter. Gilbert said postgame he wasn’t unhappy with his slider, saying he thought they hit some good ones – and he did get two of his four strikeouts on the slider – but that’s also the number of home runs he have up on the slider, and I am not sure that is a tenable ratio going forward.

The other concerning aspect of Gilbert’s outing was how much hard contact he gave up. The Braves finished this game with an xBA of .314, and that was down from the .385 it was earlier in the game while Gilbert was pitching. This is just way too much good stuff, too much in the middle of the plate, especially on the fastball:

So, things could have been worse, for Gilbert, but conversely, they also could have been better for the Mariners. Facing Bainbridge Island-raised JR Ritchie, the Mariners were able to get traffic on against the rookie, pitching in the ballpark he grew up attending as a fan. Ritchie’s command was far from pinpoint, and he only struck out two over five innings, but the Mariners continually shot themselves in the foot with runners on, generally looking like the disconnected, discombobulated mess we’ve come to expect from them offensively over the last week-plus. They hurt themselves at seemingly every opportunity: Braves catcher Sean Murphy, making his first start back after off-season hip surgery, blew both Atlanta’s challenges in the first inning, leading to a leadoff walk for J.P. Crawford, but Josh Naylor lined into an inning-ending double play to kill that momentum. A leadoff infield single by Randy Arozarena in the second, followed by a walk by Luke Raley, similarly went nowhere. A Naylor leadoff single in the fourth was erased by Randy Arozarena immediately grounding into a double play; and then when Dominic Canzone tried to keep the line moving with a single, Raley flew out harmlessly to end the inning.

The real crushing moment was when the Mariners loaded the bases without a hit with two outs in the fifth – Leo Rivas was hit by a pitch (a fireable offense, says one Brad Adam) and Crawford and Julio Rodríguez each worked walks behind him, but Naylor grounded out easily on the third pitch he saw to end the threat.

That last inning might have been the back-breaker for Logan Gilbert, who did everything he could to hold the Braves’ powerful offense down but lost the battle in the sixth, as all the hard contact he’d given up during the game came home to roost at once. It started with back-to-back solo home runs, first to Ozzie Albies, who smacked a fastball on the plate over the wall; and then another one, to Matt Olson, on one of the aforementioned sliders. Two batters later, Austin Riley, who had been pushed down in the lineup because he is off to such a slow start this season, demolished another fastball on the plate for a 4-0 lead that felt like game over facing the Death Star of Atlanta’s scorching-hot lineup.

But this is Star Wars Day, and the Mariners have a guy named Luke. Ritchie led off the sixth by walking Arozarena on four not particularly close pitches followed by a walk to Dominic Canzone on five pitches, four of which were nowhere close. Atlanta manager Walt Weiss opted to leave Ritchie in to face Luke Raley, who was on an 1-for-24 skid with 11 strikeouts over his past 11 games (and that one was…a questionable ruling). I feel like we’ve all earned this: Luke Used The Force.

After that bit of managerial misconduct, Weiss went out and collected his starter, bringing in Tyler Kinley. Kinley was able to strike out Cole Young, who had a rough game offensively, but walked Mitch Garver on four non-close pitches, something one Brad Adam calls a fireable offense. With two outs, J.P. Crawford came up, battled the count full, and punished a slider of his own:

Because who else could it be but J.P. Crawford? Author of so many walkoff wins for the Mariners, king of the two-strike hitting, subject of much criticism over this past week for his defense, flipping his bat like a light saber into the dark Seattle night.

The bullpen held it down over the stretch, with José Ferrer pitching in 1.1 innings of work, Eduard Bazardo – maybe the most Star Wars-coded names of the current Mariners – doing his Bazardo thing and hanging another Bazero, and Andrés Muñoz protecting that one-run lead like the Mandalorian protects Grogu (because if there’s a Mariner with Pedro Pascal vibes, it’s definitely Muñoz). The Braves’ last (not new) hope was the dangerous Baldwin, up with a runner on after pinch-hitter Dominic Smith came up with a sharp single on a 98 mph fastball. Baldwin took a called strike on a slider and then chased one, putting himself in an 0-2 hole, but declined to chase a third straight slider. Muñoz went to the slider one more time and Baldwin helpfully hit it to the Mariners’ most surehanded infielder, Cole Young, for an easy 4-3 putout and a losing streak-snapping win. Just like the script said.