I sent this photo to my friends on Sunday, asking them to guess which Giants player this was. I'll invite you to do the same.
His last name includes both an A and a Z, plus a bunch of the letters in between.
But when he came up with the winning runs on base in the ninth inning Monday night, I was ready to eat my words about Mike Yastrzemski.
The Giants badly needed a jolt, the kind of shocking hit that could serve as an inflection point and redirect the season. Instead they got a popup.
Another opportunity spoiled, and eventually another game lost.
Yastrzemski is not nearly the sole cause of the Giants' tailspin. His OPS is league average and he's already equaled his WAR from last year in 45 fewer games. But when the 2025 team starts to resemble those of 2024, 2023, and 2022—getting sucked in by the gravitational pull of .500—it's hard not to look skeptically at the common denominators. Yastrzemski is one of them.
He's central to the identity of this era of Giants baseball, and unfortunately that's not a compliment.
Up next: Justin Verlander (1-8, 4.70) squares off with Bailey Falter (7-5, 3.82 ERA), who Kerry Crowley thinks would make for an excellent Giant. Given his last name, I think he’d fit right in. First pitch at 6:45 pm.