He has the best true shooting percentage by a guard in NBA history at 63.2%, ahead of Steph Curry who’s in second place (62.6%).
Through the first three games of this season, Reaves has a stunning true shooting percentage of 82%.
Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers drives to the basket against Darryn Peterson of the Utah Jazz during the second half of an NBA basketball game at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. Getty Images
He’s averaging career-highs in points (26.7), field goal percentage (63.9%), 3-point percentage (61.5%) and assists (6.3).
Reaves signed a four-year, $180 million deal with the Lakers this offseason, the richest contract in NBA history for a player who went undrafted.
Austin Reaves of the Los Angeles Lakers smiles after the game against the Utah Jazz at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images
He has helped the Lakers jump to a 3-0 start and is playing like an All-Star.
Said Lakers coach JJ Redick: “AR so far in these three games has just been Mr. Consistency.”
Added Luka Doncic, who made it clear to Lakers’ brass that he wanted to play alongside Reaves this season: “Obviously his efficiency, it’s off the roof. And just to have him next to me, leading this team, it’s awesome.”
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 24: Christian Yelich #22 of the Milwaukee Brewers prepares to bat against the Tampa Bay Rays during the eighth inning in game two of the 2026 World Series at American Family Field on October 24, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Milwaukee Brewers took early punches from the Tampa Bay Rays at home in Game 2 of the World Series back on Saturday evening. Then, they fired right back – all the way to a 5-4 come from behind victory that saw them surge to a 2-0 lead in this Best of 7 affair.
Tampa’s in a bind. Lucky for them, though, they’re finally back at home in the friendly, remodeled confines of Tropicana Field.
Milwaukee will send lefty Robert Gasser to the mound to start, while the home squad will turn to former Brewer stud Freddy Peralta for the game’s first pitch – and, hopefully, another hundred or so after that. Peralta, who went 70-42 with a 3.59 ERA across 931.0 IP with the Brewers prior to being dealt to the New York Mets before the 2026 season – reinvented himself yet again after Tampa acquired him prior to the 2026 trade deadline, and now he’ll get to face his former club in what could be his final start of any sort prior to hitting free agency for the first time.
First pitch will be tossed shortly after 8:00 PM ET per usual, with FOX on the broadcast.
Stephen Curry was cooking Monday night, and the Warriors were feasting. He was making every shot, their leads growing to 10 and then 13 and even 15. They led 87-77 when Curry was subbed out with 3:42 remaining the third quarter.
Uh-oh. Time for the historically worrisome non-Steph minutes against the proud Denver Nuggets at Ball Arena, where the Warriors had not won since 2022.
To the rescue came Yaxel Lendeborg. With Curry observing from the bench, the rookie was superb, engineering a response that pushed the lead to 16 at the end of the quarter and clearing the path to a 134-114 win that was Golden State’s first of the 2026-27 NBA season.
“Basically, in all the critical moments of the game, we just put the ball in his hands,” coach Steve Kerr told reporters in Denver. “And for a rookie to be that advanced already, it’s extremely rare.”
Playing in his fourth NBA game, Lendeborg’s performance allowed the Warriors to take flight against a team they struggle to beat, in a building where they rarely succeed.
From the time Curry and Draymond Green went to the bench late in the third quarter, Golden State outscored Denver 47-37. Lendeborg’s third quarter consisted of 12 points, six rebounds and one assist, and the floor generalship of a vet.
“He’s able to impose his will on the game,” Green said. “I don’t care what age you are, it’s the NBA. If you don’t know the NBA game, you’re already at a deficit. He don’t know the game. Not that he don’t know the game of basketball; he don’t know the NBA game. And to be able to have the ability to go out there and still do that, not knowing what the NBA brings on a nightly basis, is special.
“But it’s no different from what I’ve been saying for weeks now. I think he’s a special player.”
Lendeborg produced a career-high 31 points, on 9-of-19 shooting from the field despite being only 1 of 8 from beyond the arc. He added 12 rebounds and six assists, finishing plus-27 over 31 minutes and getting a procession of daps, high-fives and embraces upon being subbed out with the 2:34 left and Warriors leading by 21.
Four games into the season, Lendeborg has been so impressive on offense that the Warriors are living with his defensive lapses. He’s averaging 21.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game. His 83 points through four games is the most for any Warriors rookie since Wilt Chamberlain poured in 150 in his first four games.
The quick start is something of a surprise to Lendeborg. Behind his shiny veneer of confidence and fearlessness is a man who realizes he was playing college basketball at the University of Michigan only seven months ago.
“I definitely thought I was going to wet the bed first half of the season,” he told NBCSN. “I definitely didn’t have the best hopes for what I was going to do, but with the confidence that Steph and Draymond are providing me, I’ve been playing with a lot more energy and confidence and just going out and having fun.”
Yaxel Lendeborg gave a hilarious answer on how he envisioned his first NBA games to go! pic.twitter.com/TEcrHpaeqn
Lendeborg’s 12-of-13 shooting from the line left Kerr marveling over the now and comparing him to Jimmy Butler III while visualizing a fantastic future.
“When you get to the line consistently, you can control the game,” Kerr said. “If the other team goes on a run, you go to a guy like Yax or Jimmy, they get fouled, the game slows down and you set your defense. The game just gets a lot easier. Yax having that ability, combined with his passing skills, he’s going to be a guy who’s going to close games like he did tonight.”
To put a finer point on it, Lendeborg’s second-half takeover required only 15 minutes to score 16 points, grab seven rebounds and ring up four assists.
Though Lendeborg closed out the Nuggets, it was Curry who provided a runway for the Warriors during that pivotal third quarter, scoring 17 points on 7-of-7 shooting from the field, including a pair of triples. He posted the second “immaculate” scoring game of his career, totaling 24 points on 8-of-8 shooting, including 3 of 3 from distance.
“I knew at a certain point I had to get some opportunity,” Curry told NBCSN. “I didn’t know it was going to be a perfect night like that, but I’m glad it all came together. “Yaxel played amazing and we were flying around on defense. That’s how we got the win.”
After losing their first three games of the season, including blowing a 12-point lead inside the final four minutes of their home opener last Friday, this was the kind of victory the Warriors needed. One that cleansed the souls of everyone on the payroll.
Facing a 2-0 deficit in the World Series, the Tampa Bay Rays shook up their lineup for Game 3 at Tropicana Field, benching All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda and penciling catcher Nick Fortes into the lineup instead of Liam Hicks against Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Robert Gasser.
Aranda has started all 11 postseason games this year and recorded four hits in Games 1 and 2 of the World Series. He committed a pair of misplays in the field in Game 2, allowing a grounder to go between his legs that enabled a run to score and failing to reel in a pop fly that was dropping near the screen in foul ground.
He was also doubled off second base on Junior Caminero's line drive to third base to end the first inning of Game 1. Aranda is generally considered among the Rays' "big three" bats that hit near the top of the lineup, along with slugging leadoff batter Yandy Díaz and Caminero.
Hicks started all but one of the Rays' playoff games, coming off the bench in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against Cleveland, when ace Drew Rasmussen started. Hicks hit a two-run homer in Game 2 to cap the Rays' four-run first inning.
But he got hit on the right elbow by a DL Hall pitch leading off the sixth inning. With dominant lefty reliever Aaron Ashby on the mound in the eighth, manager Kevin Cash pinch-hit Ryan Vilade in his place; Vilade struck out, but is starting Game 2 at first over Aranda.
The Brewers stole four of their five bases in the game with Fortes behind the plate after Hicks was removed, although all the steals came with reliever Kevin Kelly on the mound.
Fortes flew to Jupiter, Florida, for the birth of his first child on Sunday before crossing the state from Palm Beach County to Pinellas County for Game 3.
While Aranda and Hicks are both left-handed hitters and the Brewers are starting lefty Robert Gasser, Aranda started all four playoff games in the Rays' previous matchups against lefties, including the Yankees' Max Fried, a pair of starts from Guardians rookie Parker Messick and another against Cleveland lefty Foster Griffin. Hicks started three of those games.
ST. PETERSBURG, FL - OCTOBER 26: The facade of Tropicana Field prior to Game Three of the 2026 World Series presented by Capital One between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on Monday, October 26, 2026 in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Kelly Gavin/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
It’s time for the third game of what so far has been a strong World Series between the Rays and the Brewers. And tonight, the crown jewell of the baseball world heads to… uh, the Trop.
As a child of the 90s, I am somewhat nostalgic for gross old domes. The first World Series I ever remember was won in the SkyDome, after all. But now that a 30-year ballpark building boon has transformed the aesthetics of big league baseball forever, it’s hard to stomach games played on plastic grass under a tarp. At least it’ll be loud maybe?
Anyway, while I’m rooting for the Brewers to win the whole thing, I care first and foremost about seeing a long series. Six games minimum, seven preferred, obviously. So let’s go Rays, who will be taking the field behind Freddy Peralta.
Jalen Williams suffered a dislocated left ankle and fractured fibula from a horrific fall in Sunday's win over the Clippers, Thunder General Manager Sam Presti said Monday in a media briefing. While Presti wouldn't discuss a return timeline, Williams will miss most — and more likely all — of the remainder of this season.
"This is an injury that generally we see more in football players," Presti said, adding that the former All-Star was in good spirits. "I spent a lot of time speaking to different doctors and his agents, us, his family, and it's a surgical situation."
In that same game, starting guard Cason Wallace left with a shoulder injury which turns out to be a torn labrum in his left shoulder, Presti said. That also is going to require surgery and, while again Presti would not give a timeline, Wallace is likely out for the season.
"I think everybody knows he's a total warrior and probably would have gone back in the game if we let him," Presti said of Wallace. "So obviously tough night last night. There's no way to paint that differently."
Through three games, Williams has averaged 13.7 points and 4.7 rebounds a game. While he's struggled with his shot (38.5% so far this season), he's stepped up in clutch moments. When Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had an off night against Denver, Williams stepped up with 21 points. Just having him out there as a secondary shot creator and threat took a lot of pressure off SGA.
Wallace took on a major defensive role for the Thunder to start the season, but his offense was still coming around, averaging 6.3 points per game and shooting 30% from 3-point range.
Both players were starters and played key roles in the Thunder's 3-0 start. When asked whether these injuries might push the Thunder to make a trade to help fill out the roster, Presti said he hasn't thought about it yet.
"For me, the last not even 24 hours, whatever it's been, it's all about people," Presti said. "I know you got to ask the question... but I really haven't given a lot of thought to that. Right now, it's about those two guys, their families."
Oklahoma City can and very likely will file for a disabled player exception for both Williams and Wallace, which would give them some financial flexibility to bring in another player (Williams' salary would let them bring in a player being paid up to $15 million). However, that does not open up a roster spot.
Presti also talked up Oklahoma City and the Thunder culture.
"I'm not going to sit up here and say this is exactly where we want to be, or this is how we'd like to have it. But at the same time, we're extremely optimistic about the recovery for both the players," Presti said. "Most importantly, you know, things could have been a lot worse. And I think in these types of situations, it's important to kind of take stock, take a step back, realize we're dealing with people, realize we're dealing with the greatest athletes in the world. They're going to be back out there. They'll be playing for our team. They'll be representing our city and our state in short order...
"We're, as an organization, and also as a city and a community, this is what we're built for. This is the kind of thing that gets thrown at you here, and you just plow right through it. You walk through punches, and you step over roadblocks. And I think our guys are ready to do that. But it's certainly disappointing. I don't want to sugarcoat that for anybody."
Luka Doncic (77) of the Los Angeles Lakers smiles while talking to the media during a game against the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026.
Grizzlies guard Ty Jerome and 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey have been named the NBA Western and Eastern Conference Players of the Week for the opening week of the season.
The other nominees in the Western Conference included Lakers’ Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, as well as Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards, Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Rockets’ Amen Thompson.
Luka Doncic (77) of the Los Angeles Lakers smiles while talking to the media during a game against the Utah Jazz at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. NBAE via Getty Images
Doncic is coming off a thrilling 52-point performance on Sunday afternoon against the Utah Jazz. Interestingly though, he did not play particularly well in the season’s first two games.
Meanwhile, Reaves has looked incredibly steady to start the season. He is averaging 26.7 points, 6.3 assists, and is shooting a whopping 63% from the field over the Lakers’ first three games.
In the Eastern Conference, the nominees included Pistons’ Cade Cunningham, Hawks’ Dyson Daniels and Jalen Johnson and Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam.
Jerome, who’s in his second season with the Grizzlies, is leading the league in scoring with 34.7 points a game, ahead of Doncic who’s No. 2 with 34.3 points a game.
Both Jerome and Doncic have led their respective teams to 3-0 starts.
Maxey is averaging 28.8 points, 4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and two steals for the 76ers, who opened the season with a 3-1 record, including wins over the reigning champion Knicks, Cavaliers and Bucks. The 76ers fell to the Pistons on Sunday, 106-93.
The Brewers are up two games to none after overcoming a first-inning 4-0 deficit in Game 2.
But you know, the Rays had the tying run on base in the ninth inning in both Game 1 and Game 2. Freddy Peralta has been nails for them. They’re playing at home, where they went 55-26 during the regular season and are 4-1 in the Postseason. Of Milwaukee’s nine wins so far this Postseason, five have been by one run.
This series is far from over, in my opinion.
7 p.m. CT: Brewers at Rays (Brewers lead series 2-0)
TV: Fox-TV, Fox One (streaming). Announcers: Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal and Tom Verducci.
ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 19: Freddy Peralta #51 of the Tampa Bay Rays reacts during the fourth inning against the Cleveland Guardians in game six of the American League Championship Series at Tropicana Field on October 19, 2026 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Brewers lineup
Jackson Chourio – LF Jake Bauers – 1B Christian Yelich – DH William Contreras – C Brice Turang – 2B Garrett Mitchell – CF Cooper Pratt – SS Sal Frelick – RF David Hamilton – 3B
SP: Robert Gasser – LHP
Rays lineup
Yandy Diaz – DH Ryan Vilade – 1B Chandler Simpson – LF Junior Caminero – 3B Ben Williamson – 2B Jonny DeLuca – CF Victor Mesa – RF Nick Fortes – C Taylor Walls – SS
SP: Freddy Peralta – RHP
Broadcast info
Time: 8:00 PM EDT TV: FOX / FOX ONE, Fox Deportes Radio: ESPN Radio
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 24: Yandy Diaz #2 of the Tampa Bay Rays strikes out for the final out against the Milwaukee Brewers to end the ninth inning in game two of the 2026 World Series at American Family Field on October 24, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) | Getty Images
This World Series is proving to be very fun to watch.
With a pair of one-run victories for the Brewers in Games 1 and 2 in Milwaukee, it’s proving to come down to the wire each game — and even a highly contested swing call for the final out of Game 2. The Rays are hoping for a different outcome tonight as they will play their first game of the World Series at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay.
Game 3 features an intriguing matchup of former Brewer RHP Freddy Peralta (2-0, 1.08 ERA) against Milwaukee lefty Robert Gasser (0-0, 1.00 ERA). Peralta spent seven years in Milwaukee, including two NL All-Star seasons in 2021 and 2025.
Then the trades came prior to the 2026 season. On Jan. 21, the Brewers traded Peralta and RHP Tobias Myers to the New York Mets for RHP Brandon Sproat and SS Jett Williams. Peralta went 5-9 with a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts for the Mets before New York traded him to Tampa Bay for RHP Gary Gill Hill, outfielder Aidan Smith and shortstop Émilien Pitre just before the trade deadline on Aug. 2.
As a Ray, Peralta posted a 3.25 ERA in 10 starts, going 5-2 to finish out the regular season. In four postseason appearances, including three starts and totaling 16.2 innings, the 30-year-old has recorded 12 strikeouts and a 1.14 WHIP.
Gasser, 27, is in his third season in Milwaukee and his first as a major part of the rotation. In the regular season, he put up a 3.87 ERA and a 5-5 record in 20 starts and one relief appearance. In the playoffs, Gasser has thrown nine innings over two starts with six strikeouts and a 0.89 ERA.
Will Peralta show the Brewers they made a mistake in trading him or will Milwaukee move one win closer to its first World Series title?
Milwaukee Brewers (2-0) at Tampa Bay Rays (0-2) – 6 p.m. MDT
Pitching Matchup: RHP Freddy Peralta (2-0, 1.08 postseason ERA) vs. LHP Robert Gasser (0-0, 1.00 postseason ERA)
Baseball: ALCS Playoffs: Tampa Bay Rays Jonny DeLuca (21) in action at bat vs Cleveland Guardians at Tropicana Field. Game 6. St. Petersburg, FL 10/19/2026 CREDIT: Erick W. Rasco (Photo by Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Set Number: X164966 TK1)
Here we go. After yesterday’s travel day the two teams in this year’s World Series have arrived in Tampa Bay to continue their series. The Brewers took both of their home games back in Milwaukee and now find themselves in control of the series and just two wins away from their first championship. The Rays, who are also fighting to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy for the first time, are back at home and have their backs up against the wall. No team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit in the World Series so the Rays are going to come out desperate to take an early lead.
Rays at Brewers (5:00 PST)
Tampa Bay has the big trade deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta (5-2, 3.25 ERA*) taking the ball tonight. The right-hander has looked like a different pitcher since joining the Rays and he’s kept that up in the postseason. In four games (three starts) he’s allowed just two earned runs, rewarding the Rays for their mid-season acquisition. Tonight will be the biggest start of his life. Can he continue pitching like an ace for a Tampa Bay squad that can not afford to lose tonight? A lot will depend on if he’s able to hold down the Milwaukee offense.
Numbers with the Rays, excluding his first half with the Mets*
Here’s how the Rays stack up for this must-win Game 3:
While the Rays have a veteran of the sport taking the ball tonight, Milwaukee meanwhile has a rookie scheduled for the start tonight. Left-hander Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87 ERA) will be making his third postseason start this evening. The rookie has a chance to put his squad just one more win away from winning it all and he’s been pitching well in October, including last year. In two starts this postseason he’s allowed just one earned run. Manager Pat Murphy may pull him earlier than the regular season though if Milwaukee has a lead in the middle of the game. If Gasser can keep Tampa Bay off the board for a few innings and get the ball to the bullpen they’ll be in excellent position to go up 3-0 in this year’s Fall Classic.
Does the series more or less end tonight with a Brewers’ win? Or can the Rays get back into the World Series with a win? Who do you got? Should be exciting either way!
MILWAUKEE, WI - OCTOBER 24: Junior Caminero #13 of the Tampa Bay Rays looks on at third base during Game Two of the 2026 World Series presented by Capital One between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field on Saturday, October 24, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
We have Game 3 of the World Series tonight. The Rays, down 2-0, are at home and will try to get back in the series against the Brewers.
The University of Houston’s own Robert Gasser pitches for the Brewers, while the Dominican Republic’s own Freddy Peralta goes for the Rays.
ST PETERSBURG, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 19: Freddy Peralta #51 of the Tampa Bay Rays reacts during the fourth inning against the Cleveland Guardians in game six of the American League Championship Series at Tropicana Field on October 19, 2026 in St Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Brewers took both games at home to start the World Series. They take that 2-0 lead to the Trop tonight as the Brewers and Rays face off for Game 3.
The Brewers look like they’ll start Robert Gasser, a fly ball pitcher who got 1.5 fWAR in 109.1 innings and 21 appearances (20 starts). This season was his first major work in MLB; he threw only 33.2 MLB innings across 2024 and 2025. He has given up only 1 run in 9 innings across 2 starts in the 2026 postseason.
The Rays will start former Brewer Freddy Peralta tonight. He has given up only 2 runs in 16.2 innings of postseason work, which included a brief appearance out of the bullpen against Cleveland.
The game starts at 7:00pm US Central time. You can watch on FOX/FOX ONE or listen on ESPN Radio.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 6: Logan Webb (62) and Ryan Walker (74) of the San Francisco Giants prepare for the game at Oracle Park on April 6, 2024 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Tony Avelar/San Francisco Giants/Getty Images) | Getty Images
A straightforward and fulfilling series of blog posts might involve looking at the top 5 moments from a given season, but this is McCovey Chronicles and I’m me, so, let’s look at the top 5 stories from this dreadful series. Whereas a moment encapsulates a series of events — or a single event! — and its commensurate emotion(s), a story is a range of events and a host of emotions that creates a narrative. The San Francisco Giants wanted to tell a certain story in 2026 but instead let’s look at the one they actually told.
We’ll start with the aspect of the roster that heralded the 2026 team’s downfall. That area of the roster that was the “key offseason target” last year netted a group that included Tyler Mahler and Adrian Houser for the rotation and, um, some guys for the bullpen: Sam Hentges, Jason Foley, Reiver Sanmartin, Caleb Kilian, Rowan Wick, and Ryan Borucki. For some, this list might be uninspiring. For the Giants, it was basically a perfectly executed plan:
“We’re most definitely open to trying to add some arms that we think are going to help us on the starting side and the bullpen side.”
Now, why did the Giants think that this group would help? Well, add it all up, and Mahler and Houser were basically worth 4 WAR combined. Hentges and Foley were both ~1.5-WAR relievers at their peaks (2023) — adding those into the mix basically put a possible floor at where the pitching staff ended 2025 (+15.8 fWAR), and then it would be a matter of younger players taking a step forward.
That this group wound up amounted to just about 2 WAR total (3.5-WAR gap) is a good reason why the staff finished at just 9.8 fWAR in value after the season. The other, of course, is that a lot of players failed to develop or simply slid into disaster territory (Ryan Walker). Logan Webb missing time with injury and missing his projected WAR by maybe 1.5 is another factor, along with all those other injuries, but the point is: the Giants thought they had a good plan that just didn’t work out.
It’s not exactly arrogance, but it does smack of something personality-driven. It was pretty clear from the outside looking in that their offseason decisions signaled some sort of shrug or fingers crossed theme or simply being comfortable with the results of a Lotto scratcher, but it does seem like the Giants — led by Buster Posey, of course — seems to be constructing a front office pitching philosophy from first principles. Maybe it’s the hubris of thinking that all the collective knowledge from the Moneyball era is bunk or maybe it’s the result of really coming to underst and that “baseball is hard,” but if a dumb, worthless pile of loser blogger nonsense like me could see that Tyler Mahle, Adrian Houser, and some TJ recovery guys weren’t going to bolster a pitching staff and that relying on development success was a risky proposition in the face of a decade of relative non-success and that expecting things to improve significantly under the direction of a neophyte major league coaching staff was a bad idea, then I can only draw the conclusion that they didn’t see something I didn’t, they thought something different about their own decision-making.
“So with the way the game’s changed, to me, we have to make an effort to increase stuff in our system and get it to the big-league level.
Again, this feels like constructing a pitching staff from first principles.
Perhaps this is just a necessary evil or built-in aspect of a first-time org leader, but, yeah. Pitchers have been throwing harder for a while now. Logan Webb has stood out as an exception to that, which is why he’s always been remarkable. But, yeah, Carlos Rodon, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto — why else would the Giants be extremely interested in them? Hard-throwing strikeout guys.
Baggarly’s piece does verify something that was easy to suspect while watching the team pitch this season: confusion and discoordination when it came to messaging and emphasis.
It took weeks of discussions in October to identify deeper issues that included a muddled hierarchy among the pitching coaches under a manager, Vitello, who was navigating a 162-game season for the first time.
“When we sat back and analyzed the way the group operated this year, we all felt there needed to be a clearer chain of command,” Posey said. “That’s where we’re going to start: It’s going to flow through Meccage and we need these guys to work as a team. […] if we have to sit and meet as a group for 15 or 20 minutes each day to get everybody on the same page, and they can argue through everything there is to argue, that’s what we’re gonna do. That was not done daily last year.
So, the Giants had part of a plan. It’s hard not to imagine that this disorganization and limited imagination on the pitching side stayed in that group, and that’s why this was one of the key storylines of the season. Of course, the biggest incident of the season involved the pitching staff, too, so, between that and Posey’s comments in The Athletic piece and the simple matter of their dreadful on-field performance (eighth-worst team ERA and sixth-worst WAR total of the Oracle Park era).
The thing about “stuff” is that it’s expensive if you don’t develop it internally. The Giants’ 7.58 K/9 (the easiest marker of stuff) ranks 17th out of 27 seasons at Oracle Park, right between 2017 (7.65) and 2014 (7.52), right between the eras where you couldn’t have a bunch of groundballers (2017) and you could (2014). The 3.75 BB/9 is the third-worst of the Oracle Park era, after only 2008 (4.07) and 2000 (3.88). And their player development seemed to be focused on producing more Logan Webbs than strikeout guys before lucking into Jackson Flora, and so course-correcting seems like a really tall task, especially in a single offseason.
CLEVELAND, OHIO - JANUARY 10: Center Evan Mobley #4 of the Cleveland Cavaliers drives to the basket around center Rudy Gobert #27 of the Minnesota Timberwolves during the first quarter at Rocket Arena on January 10, 2026, in Cleveland, Ohio. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images) | Getty Images
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