Making sense of the lineup’s last 30 days

If the San Francisco Giants have been too much of a bummer for you this season such that you’ve limited the amount of information you’ve taken in about them, then you probably missed how for the past month they’ve been the best offense in Major League Baseball. It’s a shocker for those of us who’ve been watching every game, too, believe it or not, and I’m going to try to make some sense of it.

The easy answer is that a group of guys started hitting to their career averages and 2026 projections and that simple regression to the mean timed out to look like an offensive explosion. Top that off with the franchise’s top hitting prospect in Bryce Eldridge and Orange-o, Black-o you’ve got the best lineup in baseball for a month. Except, looking at the numbers, it sure does seem like the Giants changed their approach in the offseason and needed two months to translate that approach to the regular season.

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Overall, this collection of guys is walking well below their career averages. The team will probably wind up with the lowest walk rate in the sport come the end of the season (it currently stands at 5.9%, 1.6% behind the next-lowest team, the Toronto Blue Jays), which is incredibly impressive feat (derogatory) when you consider the offensive environment of the 21st century. Indeed, just seven teams since 2000 have ended a season with a walk rate of 6.5% or lower:

• 2002 Tigers, 6.1 BB% — record: 66-96

• 2005 Tigers, 6.3 BB% — record: 71-91

• 2007 Mariners, 6.3 BB% — record: 88-74

• 2008 Royals, 6.4 BB% — record: 75-87

• 2006 Cubs, 6.4 BB% — record: 66-96

• 2006 Mariners, 6.5 BB% — record: 78-84

• 2009 Giants, 6.5 BB% — record: 88-74

But I digress! Walks are evil in this new Giants era and earlier in the season the low walk rate was evidence of opposing pitchers gleefully throwing the ball right down the middle (basically) knowing that Giants hitters couldn’t do any damage. Right?

Well… yes. The data only points to this unfortunate fact.

Through May 6th and the first 37 games of the season, the Giants saw the most pitches in the strike zone (43.6%) of any team. The Dodgers, Brewers, and Nationals were 2nd, 3rd, and 4th about a percentage point behind the Giants in this respect. When you look at the other plate discipline statistics, the Giants aren’t such an obvious outlier that it would explain why they had scored the fewest runs and done the least damage except that once Giants made contact it was weak.

As a reminder, the Nationals were 4th in runs scored (205), the Dodgers 5th (196), and the Brewers 9th (181). The Giants were last (30th — 115) by a good measure (Mets, 29th — 134).

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But look at that chart. The Giants were comparable to some of the better lineups in the sport through the first 6 weeks of the season or so in terms of swinging the bat. The only real difference — and it’s significant to be sure — is that the Giants, on top of seeing lots of pitches in the strike zone, were swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone at a really high rate. Given the results, it’s probably a decent enough conclusion that the Giants were making subpar contact on the good pitches and making plenty of the same quality of contact on the bad ones.

I’ll show that here with the expected weighted on base average. According to Statcast, the league average for that figure (the weighted on base average based on the quality of contact) is .320. Through 5/7/2026, only 3 Giants in the top 5 of hitters (and out of 18 who had an at bat) reached that threshold:

1. Jesus Rodriguez (9 AB), .391

For comparison, 10 of 15 Dodgers were above that .320 mark, 8 of 18 Brewers crossed the threshold, and 6 of 14 Nationals did it, too. What a nightmare! What a disaster!

But you’re reading this a month after that mark and quite a lot has changed. The Giants have scored the most runs in the sport over their last 29 games (since May 8th: 157 runs) ahead of the White Sox (155), Dodgers (149), Brewers (148), Pirates (148) and Nationals (147). But beyond that, they’ve just been a good lineup: a 126 wRC+ that also leads the sport with a triple slash of .277 (1st) / .331 (5th) / .480 (1st). Their 6.5% walk rate is 29th (only Boston is worse at 6.4%), but their 19.9% strikeout rate is tied with the Dodgers for second behind the Diamondbacks (18.2%) and ahead of the Nationals (20.0%). And, by the way, the team’s season-long strikeout rate (21.1%) has kept them top 10 all season long with the Dodgers (20.2%) and Brewers (20.4%) and even Atlanta (20.7%) — the Nats are 11th (21.3%). The mark of a good lineup when the quality of contact is there, which it hasn’t been until right now.

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But why has the contact gotten better? Have the players simply improved their timing? Are they jumping at the first pitch more often? Laying off those pitches outside of the zone?

The only real differences here are that the Giants are seeing fewer pitches outside the strike zone but they’re swinging even more and swinging more in the strike zone. That hasn’t changed the amount of contact in the zone, but as I’m about to show you with this other list, the quality of that contact has improved dramatically.

Over their last 29 games, 8 Giants have hit better than the league average in terms of xwOBA:

1. Jonah Cox (9 AB), .530

2. Bryce Eldridge (73 AB), .397

4. Jung Hoo Lee (87 AB), .364

5. Heliot Ramos (31 AB), .356

8. Casey Schmitt (116 AB), .326

And you can play around with the start date a bit if you want, too. If you adjust it to start on the Dodgers series in Dodger Stadium, then Luis Arraez becomes one of the 8. If you start it at the A’s series, then Matt Chapman becomes one of the 8 (Luis Arraez drops down to .315). If you narrow it down to the last 2 weeks then you still get about 8 guys who are hitting at or better than the league average just based on the quality of contact. All they’re doing is swinging slightly more and at pitches in the strike zone.

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But it’s pretty clear that they’re getting off better swings. The team’s groundball rate through those first 37 games (44.8%) was the fifth-highest in the sport. Their 10.9% infield flyball percentage was 13th. A 6.6% HR/FB rate (lowest in the sport, of course). 23rd in pulled ball rate (38.7%). I know there’s a deep, unyielding group of baseball fans who can’t accept that the game has changed, but hitting the ball in the air in the modern game is more conducive to scoring runs and being a successful team. Over their last 29 games, their groundball rate has dropped to 38% (26th), their infield flyball percentage is 9.7% (20th), a 12.7% HR/FB rate, and a pulled ball rate of 40.2% (19th).

It probably helps that they’re seeing more fastballs than any other team in the National League (51.2%). That rate has gone down a bit since those first 37 games (52.3%), and even better: the average fastball velocity has dropped to 93.9 mph from 94.7 mph earlier in the season. Save for two notable exceptions, the Giants have gotten better against some average-to-bad pitching. A list of their opponents over these past 29 games with season ERAs:

• Pirates, 4.06 (15th)

• Dodgers, 3.17 (1st)

• Athletics, 4.58 (23rd)

• Diamondbacks, 4.19 (17th)

• White Sox, 4.38 (20th)

• Brewers, 3.26 (3rd)

• Cubs, 4.29 (19th)

This isn’t damning with faint praise! Good lineups are supposed to feast on bad pitching. This isn’t to say that the Giants do have a good lineup, but it’s plausible that they have an average enough lineup that if they could actually get their act together on the pitching side then 2027 could wind up being a really special season. But for this season, despite missing the playoffs, the Giants have actually started to realize the lineup they touted in the offseason. I think it’s sustainable based mainly on the fact that it is a bunch of guys hitting to their projections.

That should make for a summer that’s slightly more fun than the one we were pitched in April.