Natives getting restless

Also non-natives. No one's resting.

In the wake of the Giants getting swept in Arizona, with that second loss in particular being a tough one to take, let’s check in on Giants fans across the internet, so that we can put our finger on the pulse of Giants fan opinion today.

Perhaps most damning of all:

And most Bryan of all:

You know, I’m beginning to suspect that the Giants might be in for a rough season.

Fan confidence will always be low after being on the losing end of a sweep, no matter how objectively good a team is. There will always be a sense of panic and skyisfallingness that takes hold, eases a little with a win, and only fully vanishes after a longer stretch of competent play. This is who they are, you think, until they convince you that they are something else.

But it’s become more and more clear that the 2026 Giants aren’t something else. The outlier is the competent play; the norm is that they lose. Their run differential is -52, which is the second worst run differential in the NL, and they’re a whole lot closer to the worst — the Rockies, naturally, at -54 — than the third worst — the Reds, at -28. What they are is simply a bad team, and the more games they play, the more they confirm that this isn’t a fluke. This is their identity.

Naturally, then, Giants fans will be unhappy. This will be the fifth consecutive season in which the team fails to finish over .500, which will be the longest streak in franchise history, going back to 1883. Giants fans have never seen this long of a stretch in which the team is never above average. This isn’t supposed to happen to us, people felt. Now, it feels like it is kinda supposed to happen to us.

Maybe I shouldn’t assume that the Giants will continue to be a bad team for the next four months, but on the other hand, I feel pretty confident assuming that the Giants will continue to be a bad team for the next four months. Feel free to call me a dummy in September if I’m wrong. I’ll be delighted to be a dummy about this.

But if the Giants are what they look like, if Buster Posey and Zack Minasian have utterly failed to put together a competitive roster, then things aren’t going to get any better. The team will keep being bad and the fans will just get more angry, exasperated, and eventually indifferent. There does come a point when even a longtime fan looks at their team and decides, nah, not worth it.

I don’t want to get too much into Posey’s hire, because I’m assuming I’ll be dealing with that in (very negative) detail at the end of an unsuccessful season — I’ve already got my first sentence written, and boy is it harsh! — but I think that impending fan revolt was a big part of his hire in the first place. He was supposed to head that off at the pass (obligatory link), but instead, uh, they all went through the pass, un-headed off.

In his opening press conference, Tony Vitello said, “What a challenge is is something that you find out what you can and can't do.” Well, the Giants are finding out that there are a whole lot of things they can’t do. Challenge accepted! And also challenge failed. Buster Posey likes to talk about being in the “memory making business.” You can’t deny that the Giants are making memories. You’ll remember how crappy this team is for a long time. And during the offseason, Logan Webb was clear that he was sick of finishing .500. So it’s great news all around, because this team will not be anywhere close to .500.

I’m not saying I’m happy that the genie granted all those wishes in that ironic genie way, but objectively it is pretty funny.

This is the kind of season that creates a mandate for change, but on the other hand, so was 2017, and that front office hung on for one more year afterwards. The Giants are traditionally very slow when it comes to front office change, but they’re going to have to move faster if they don’t want the murmurs of discontent to become screams.