When Buster Posey was asked recently on KNBR what had gone wrong for the SF Giants in the first half, he didn’t point to the bullpen, the rotation or the sluggish start at the plate. He went straight to walks.
That answer fits the numbers. The Giants’ minus-121 walk differential is the worst in baseball, and it helps explain why a team that has shown real signs of life still hasn’t been able to put together a sustained run.
Since May, the offense has looked better in a lot of the ways that usually matter. The Giants have ranked seventh in batting average, third in slugging percentage and fifth in OPS over that stretch.
But they’ve also done almost nothing to earn free passes. Their 7% walk rate since May is the lowest in the league, and they’ve ranked last in total walks since April 8.
That lack of patience has blunted the gains elsewhere. Even with the seventh-most hits and the third-most doubles during that span, the Giants have managed only 18th in runs scored.
They’ve also taken the 12th-fewest at-bats with runners on base and the 11th-fewest with runners in scoring position. Add in the fifth-fewest stolen bases in the league, and walks have basically vanished as a weapon for this offense.
The problem hasn’t been limited to the lineup. Giants pitchers have issued the seventh-most walks in the majors, and two of the five starters - Landen Roupp and Robbie Ray - rank in the top six in the National League in walks allowed. The league average walk rate is 8.4%, but among the 14 Giants pitchers, starters and relievers, who have made at least 15 appearances, only Logan Webb (6.2%), Adrian Houser (7.6%) and Keaton Winn (8.1%) have been better than that mark.
The biggest issue is that the players who are supposed to draw walks haven’t done it at their usual clip. Rafael Devers posted a 15.4% walk rate last season, good for fifth in the majors, and set a career high with 112 walks.
This year, he’s on pace for his lowest total since 2022. Willy Adames came into his second season with the Giants having posted a double-digit walk rate in four of his previous five seasons, but his 6.6% rate so far would be a career low by a wide margin.
The drop-off runs deeper than that. Heliot Ramos, Jung Hoo Lee and Casey Schmitt all helped the Giants finish in the top six in total walks last season, but their numbers have fallen off sharply.
Lee’s walk rate has dropped by more than three percentage points. Ramos is on pace for a new career low.
Schmitt went 173 plate appearances without drawing a walk, the longest such stretch by a Giant since Hal Lanier in 1964, and his 2.8% walk rate is the lowest in the majors among qualified hitters.
Bryce Eldridge has offered a different look since arriving on May 4. The 21-year-old has helped revive an offense that looked dead in the water, and part of that impact has come from reaching base without a hit and forcing pitchers to work.
Since he joined the roster in May, only Luis Arraez has a higher on-base percentage. As of July 24, Eldridge has drawn the third-most walks on the team despite having 165 fewer plate appearances than Adames, who ranks fourth.
He is six behind Chapman and his 352 plate appearances, and nine behind Devers and his 433. Eldridge has 31 walks in 243 plate appearances, a pace that would put him atop the team by season’s end.
The damage on the mound may be even more painful. Giants pitchers have repeatedly watched innings turn because of a free pass, and the numbers show why.
In high-leverage situations, they’ve posted the fifth-highest walk rate in the majors. That showed up again in the Giants’ 3-2 loss to the Royals this week, when Kansas City’s two-run rally in the sixth started with a leadoff walk from Tyler Mahle.
That’s the story behind the minus-121 figure. It’s a strange place for a Giants team to be, especially given their recent history.
Since 2021, they’ve had a positive walk differential four times. They ranked in the top four in three straight seasons from 2021 to 2023, including first in 2021 at plus-186, and even with largely the same on-base threats last season, they finished sixth.
This year has gone differently in a lot of ways. Walks are one of the biggest reasons why.
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