The Giants left San Francisco with some momentum, hope, and resilience. They return home with none of the above.

In the wake of winning three series in a row, including a stunning takedown of the Dodgers, the Giants hit the road and collapsed. They went 0-6 against Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, were victimized by three walkoff losses, went homerless, and got outscored 26-9.

In their desperate search for a spark, the Giants are calling up top prospect Bryce Eldridge to join the team Monday at Oracle Park. Eldridge and utility player Jesús Rodríguez were held out of the Triple-A Sacramento lineup Sunday amid the Giants’ struggles, and The San Francisco Chronicle (opens in new tab) first reported that the duo is being called up.

Eldridge, the Giants’ No. 1 prospect, is hitting .333 with a .963 OPS at Triple-A Sacramento. It would be preferred if he hit more homers (he has five) and struck out less (he has 41), but he’ll get better as he goes and could energize the lethargic Giants with his bat and presence.

Where will he play? Rafael Devers is at first base and Casey Schmitt has become a potent designated hitter. Perhaps Schmitt eventually is turned into a super utility player to fill in at all four infield spots and maybe get some time in left field even though he never appeared in the outfield in pro ball. He seems athletic enough to be a Mauricio Dubón type.

That would free up at-bats for Eldridge, who is joining the Giants in May, the month a couple of franchise icons got called up for good, and it worked out quite well for them: Willie Mays and Posey. No pressure, kid.

Aside from turning to a 21-year-old slugger to rejuvenate the offense, everything should be on the table for president of baseball operations Buster Posey and rookie manager Tony Vitello, egos and contracts aside, to salvage this season before it goes further sideways. Let us count the ways:

No big-leaguer has an extreme batting technique quite like Devers, who has the most open stance in baseball, 62%, with the front foot way back in the batter’s box, atop the back line.

Obviously, it worked in the past. Devers’ OPS in his Boston years was .847. This year, it’s an anemic .562. There was a time in his career that the stance wasn’t nearly as open, and he even had a chance to use a toe tap for timing purposes. He was younger, trimmer, and quicker to the ball back then.

His bat speed has steadily decreased from 73.4 mph in 2023 to 72.5 mph in 2024 to 71.6 mph in 2025 to 71.3 mph this year. That doesn’t seem significant, but it is for a power hitter. Year to year, he has dropped from the 68th percentile in bat speed to the 61st to the 42nd to the 37th.

The result of losing more than 2 mph in bat speed is lower exit velocity (93.5 mph last year, 89.9 mph this year) and less distance (4.8% homer rate last year, 1.4% this year). He hit 35 homers in 2025. Now he has two.

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One problem is Devers’ strikeout rate, a career high 31.1%, up from 18.6% in 2022. He can’t catch up with fastballs down the middle, so that’s largely what he’s seeing, which explains his career-low 5.7% walk rate. He’s not getting pitched around — entering this season, he had a 19.5% strikeout rate on fastballs over the heart of the plate; this year, 48.5%.

Many hitters believe the fewer moving parts the better. Problem is, Devers said the other day he has no plans to make changes and is sticking with his approach.

Conversely, Willy Adames has been open to tinkering with his swing. In spring training, he became more upright with a reduced leg kick, an effort to adjust to pitchers’ higher velocities. But on the trip, his leg kick was back up to his belt level, and his upper cut remains one of the most dramatic in the majors, making him extremely vulnerable to upper-zone fastballs.

Adames swings with a 21.8-degree launch angle, 21st biggest in the majors, but he has just three homers in 133 at-bats after homering 30 times last year. For the sake of comparison, Heliot Ramos’ launch angle is 9.2 degrees, Matt Chapman’s 7.1 degrees.

Couple that with Adames’ gigantic swing, a whopping 8-feet, 1-inch, tied with Aaron Judge for the eighth longest in the majors. On the flip side, Luis Arráez’s swing is 5 feet, 8 inches, shortest in the majors.

Just when I was writing that Ryan Walker is better suited as a setup man than closer, he coughed up the tying run in the eighth inning Sunday, his third blown save. Maybe his next appearance comes in a soft landing spot, somewhere in the middle innings of a one-sided game.

Walker’s likely last straw as closer came Thursday in Philly, the double-header opener, when he blew a save and wasted a Logan Webb gem. That gave him a ninth-inning ERA of 6.75 after he had a 4.91 ERA in ninth innings last year while posting a mere 1.69 ERA in eighth innings.

Perhaps lefty Erik Miller should be the closer. Keaton Winn is an option, though he worked the ninth in the double-header nightcap and also blew a lead. There’s also Gregory Santos, who was called up last week after saving three games for Triple-A Sacramento and also earned five saves on a 2023 White Sox team that lost 101 games. Caleb Kilian never saved a game in his professional life but perhaps his 0.60 ERA and 1.000 WHIP could translate, though he gave up the deciding run in the 10th on Sunday.

Management’s biggest offseason blunder was not bringing in more relievers. While the bullpen has done better than expected, posting the majors’ second-lowest ERA, 3.01, there’s a glaring hole at the closer’s spot. 

I admit I was among those calling for less platooning and more regular playing time for position players. But doggone it, rest guys now and then. When they’re not playing well, sit ‘em down. It worked for Heliot Ramos, whose .226 average got him omitted from the lineup in consecutive games in mid-April. Since then, he’s hitting .317 with three homers.

Last year, Bob Melvin benched Adames and his .584 OPS on June 8. The rest of the way, he sported an .848 OPS. Vitello has been hesitant to assign time off because some veterans don’t want out. Back in the day, Bruce Bochy would simply walk up to a struggling hitter’s locker and authoritatively pronounce in his baritone voice, “I’m giving you a day.”

Give Devers a break. Give Adames more breathers. Chapman, who turned 33 last week, could use a blow here and there to keep fresh all summer. Christian Koss, anyone? It’s a shame Daniel Susac got hurt. He was on the verge of winning some serious playing time.

Perhaps the biggest embarrassment of 2026 is the fact the Giants have drawn only 69 walks, dead last in the majors by far, 18 fewer than the 29th ranked team, Arizona. At this pace, they’ll have their fewest walks in more than 100 years, not counting shortened seasons. Devers has eight, Adames six.

Quite the contrast from last year under Melvin and hitting coaches Pat Burrell and Damon Minor when the Giants ranked sixth in walks and were led by, of all people, Adames with 80. Devers played 90 games as a Giant and walked 56 times.

New hitting coach Hunter Mense came in stressing contact, for which his Blue Jay teams were known, and it helps that the contact guru, Arráez, is on the roster. But perhaps the Giants could be more selective – they’ve seen the second fewest pitches in the majors, 4,647. Interestingly, the Blue Jays have seen the fewest, 4,580.

The Giants were confident they’d dominate the ABS challenge system because two-time Gold Glove catcher Patrick Bailey was the best in the business at framing pitches. But they have one of the overall lowest ABS success rates.

Bailey is 15-for-28 (53.6%) in challenges, far down on the list from Dodger catcher Will Smith’s 23-for-32 (71.9%). Giants catchers and pitchers combined are 18-for-36 (50%) while their opponents are succeeding at a higher clip, 22-for-35 (62.9%). Similarly, Giants hitters are just 14-for-32 (43.8%) while opposing hitters are at 19-for-27 (70.4%).