Rafael Devers First Week With the Giants Thoughts

He's not Barry Bonds... yet...

The stance and swing is a little busy for a big fella. Giving me Sadaharu Oh vibes. (photo by author)

I went to see new San Francisco Giants slugger Rafael Devers on Thursday afternoon, and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Actually, that’s not true at all. What I expected was for him to hit a home run so spectacularly that it cleared McCovey Cove and landed a half mile or so away at Crane Cove Park. Maybe get that extra quarter mile to Pier 70, if that wasn’t too much to ask.

But what I really wanted was the vibe that the game hung in the balance every time he stepped to the plate. I went to enough Barry Bonds games, and there was a palpable buzz when Bonds left the dugout and went to the on-deck circle, never mind stepped to the plate. Even the few times I’ve seen Aaron Judge, the in-park murmurs when he appears are similar- but not exact- to the anticipation to a Bonds at-bat.

Devers, so far, hasn’t given the Giants crowd that kind of buzz. Thursday was a prime day to see if it existed yet. It was beautiful day, and the park was absurdly full for a weekday day game. The Giants claimed a sellout of 40-thousand-plus, though as a weekday day game connoisseur I wouldn’t put it quite at 40k. High 30’s, sure. But I could at least move around with a minumum of fuss, find spots to stand in reasonably easily, and access refreshment stands with no lines.

Not many better places to be on a Thursday afternoon (though it was a noticably breezy) (photo by author)

(I do not take this attendance guesstimate ability lightly. I was at a number of claimed “sellouts” that didn’t break 30k when the Giants were on their “sellout streak” in the mid-2010’s that ended, conveniently, at 501 games, a rather significant number for then-major sponsor Levi’s… which I just realized isn’t a major Giants ad partner any more. When was the last time somebody mentioned “Levi’s Landing?”).

It’s reasonable that the Devers buzz will take a little time to develop. Hitting a home run this weekend against his former team, the Boston Red Sox, would certainly help. But the “Everybody stops to watch this at-bat” vibe isn’t there… yet…

I’ve been saying this year’s Oklahoma City Thunder team had 2015 Golden State Warriors vibes for a while this playoff run. A team that had a great regular season record but hasn’t proved it in the playoffs with the regular season MVP leading the way and the role players stepping up in a huge way in the playoffs. It was a perfect comparison, right down the Thunder also being down 2-1 in the NBA Finals and finding an extra gear to take control of the series…

Except… when the 2015 Warriors had a chance to put the clamps on and win the title, they did. In Cleveland for game six, they doubled up on the Cavs in the first quarter, withstood all pushes, never lost the lead and won their first title in 40 years.

That’s where this Thunder team faltered. In Indianapolis for game six, Oklahoma City quickly got out to an eight point lead… and then played like they had a game to give away and gave it away. Indy put the pedal to the metal, led by 22 at the half and coasted to force a winner-take-all game 7 Sunday night.

And if the Thunder lose at home in game 7, they will have nobody to blame but themselves. This series should already be over, and the entire state of Oklahoma should be in celebration mode for their first pro championship. They had game one wrapped up- except they didn’t, and Indiana stole it with 0.3 seconds to go on a Tyrese Haliburton jumper. And they have played a little ho-hum ever since, and now there is a game seven. This series should have gone five games, six at the most. And now the Thunder have backed themselves into a corner, and if they come out as lackadaisical as they did when they had their first-ever chance to win an NBA title, when they had a chance to seize the moment- then they deserve to lose…

Rafael Devers didn’t demand a trade from the Red Sox, but the writing was on the wall for months. A different scenario played out in Milwaukee recently. Brewers starter Aaron Civale was taken out of the rotation so they could bring up a flamethrowing kid named Jacob Misiorowski, who promptly hit 102 mph and threw six no-hit innings in his major league debut.

Civale refused to go to the bullpen and instead demanded he be kept in the starting rotation or traded. So the Brewers said “no problem” and sent him to the bumbling Chicago White Sox for one-time top prospect Andrew Vaughn (who they at once sent to the minors) AND agreed to pay most of the rest of Civale’s salary just to get him the hell out of there.

The Brewers are right there in the wild-card chase, while the White Sox… well, they’re lucky the Colorado Rockies exist. Civale promptly gave up two runs in his Sox debut… and lost. Well, at least he’s starting? He got what he wanted, but he might be having second thoughts. The White Sox have lost eight straight, nine of ten, and are the second club this season to hit 50 losses (they’re 23-52 in their first 75 games) …

The first, of course to hit 50 losses were those woeful Colorado Rockies… who have now gone 5-5 in the their last ten games and have “vaulted” ahead of the woeful 1904 Washington Senators and the even-more forgotten 1932 Boston Red Sox (hmm…) and now only have the third-worst record through 75 games since the modern era began in 1901. They’re at 17-58, and need only win one of their next five to avoid having the worst record to themselves through 80 games (the ’04 Sens were 18-62) …

It would take quite something for these Rockies to have the worst record through the next big number however, which is 100 games. That’s because the 1916 Philadelphia A’s (ahem, buy my book) were 19-61 through 80 games (tied with several other clubs that have been mercifully forgotten) … and then didn’t win again until game 100, making them 20-80.

It seems as though these Rockies will get 20 wins well before game 100, if only because they host the White Sox for three games on 4^th of July weekend and a sweep seems likely…

Rafael Devers had 15 homers and 58 RBI in 73 games when the Giants made the trade for him on Sunday. Although he was a dozen homers or so behind Judge and Cal Raleigh and in the top 10 in RBI, he would have led the Giants in both categories had he been on the team the whole season, which tells you a lot about why they made the trade in the first place. He’ll play about a dozen games less than that if he doesn’t miss any the rest of the way, and if he finishes with 15 homers and 58 RBI for the Giants that will be a successful beginning… although the whiners will find a way to whine about it anyway.

Already the “Will he play first base” question has been answered, however. He refused to do so in Boston because they had never mentioned it before, but is willing to do so in San Francisco because- as I speculated on Monday and has been reiterated by most insiders in various tell-all columns- the Giants have been clear about their expectations with him, he has been okay it. Funny how that works.

As for the “What happens to first baseman of the future Bryce Eldridge” question, the last time the Giants had too many power-hitting first basemen was 1965 with Orlando Cepeda and Willie McCovey. I would love to once again have too many guys hitting too many home runs who more-or-less play the same position. Heck, the Philadelphia Phillies have built an entire team around that premise, and it appears to be working out…

Before we got fretting about that, let’s have Eldridge earn his way to the majors first of all (and now with Devers there’s no reason to accelerate the process, though he will likely debut in September at the latest anyway), and then consider what the next step is.

The first step would be having Devers hit a home run into the water. Pier 70 is the preferred landing spot, but I suppose McCovey Cove would be acceptable. It would only be appropriate.

Almost action shot! (photo by author)