Giants' situational hitting pays dividends

[Auggie]

San Francisco Chronicle

The soundtrack to the San Francisco Giants’ spring training featured hitting coach Pat Burrell yelling situations — “two outs, two on!” or “one out, runner on third!” — from behind the batting cage for players to consider as they took hacks in batting practice.

Productive situational hitting has been a focus for the Giants in 2025. Knowing they can’t count on out-slugging their divisional opponents or hitting a ton of home runs at Oracle Park, the team knows the way to success is executing with runners on and making RBI collecting a team-wide goal.

While crafting a 7-1 record entering Sunday’s game (now 8-1), the Giants were batting .282 (22-for-78) with runners in scoring position with an .821 OPS in such at-bats. Three of those hits have been home runs, which speaks to the success of a measured approach in scoring situations.

They were even better under duress. With two outs and runners in scoring position, the Giants had scored 21 of their 44 runs (47.7%) with two outs entering Sunday. Their .353 average and 1.081 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position ranked second in MLB behind the Minnesota Twins, who had a .379 average and 1.24 OPS in similar situations entering Sunday.

Paywall: https://eedition.sfchronicle.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=c125557b-9f70-4756-bc51-268770939d87&id=63485914-ef91-470c-8a41-dd37c84db994

Manager Bob Melvin quote (from the link): “It really is an approach that guys seem like they’re laser focused on. We stay on some things as a coaching staff and guys all buy into it, and a lot of those things are still going on. There are going to be times where we struggle with those, but to be able to get to a good start with a lot of these things is a confidence boost for the team.”

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Off to a good start: focuses on situational hitting, pitching, and defense. Kudos to Director of Baseball Operations Buster Posey, Melvin, his coaching staff, and the players.