Was The Rafael Devers Trade A Swing And A Miss?

 SAN FRANCISCO — How do you like that Rafael Devers trade now, Giants fans?

Yowza.

Another Orange Friday at Oracle Park produced another red flag alert for the struggling home team. Devers, acquired in a blockBuster trade by Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey on June 15, struck out four times. He is swinging and missing more times than the Gashouse Gorillas against crafty right-hander Bugs Bunny.

In all fairness to Devers, he is playing through groin and back injuries so he’s not in peak shape. But Devers addition to Giants hasn’t jump started their offense. Devers’ numbers with the Giants are below average for his career, yet not awful. As Red Sox fans will attest, he is a streaky hitter and he’s a bad streak now. Beginning with four strikeouts on August 1, he has struck out 18 times in 49 at bats this month and 67 times in 50 games with the Giants. He is currently seventh in the major leagues in strikeout this season.

When Devers arrived at Oracle Park on June 17, he said all the right things. There was joy in Bo Melville. The Giants won the press conference.

The Giants haven’t won much since. Going into Friday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays the Giants’ record since the trade was 13-23, the worst in Major League Baseball. The Giants were scuffling to score runs prior to the trade and targeted Devers to add some umph to their lineup. They have actually been worse. With Devers the Giants scored only 132 runs, tied for fewest in baseball over than same span.

The team ought to change the “O” in Oracle Park to 0. In their recent three-game home series against the San Diego Padres, the Giants were outscored 30-5. Prior to Friday night, they had lost 13 of their last 14 home games, the first time 13 games in a 14-game home stretch since 1958.

Consequently, the Giants have fallen to fourth place in the NL West for the first time this season and Giants fans are fed up. There were large patches of empty green seats in the ballpark on Friday night. There are calls for manager Bob Melvin to be fired and even suggestions that Buster Posey has lost his Midas touch.

Giants fans were ecstatic when Posey, the team’s Hall of Fame bound catcher, took over the president of baseball operations last year. He won over ownership and opened the pocket book.

Posey signed free agent shortstop Willy Adames to a seven-year, $182 million contract. Adames entered Friday night’s game hitless in his last 21 at bats. He was 5-for-49 (.102) over his last 12 games before he homered in the third inning. He is batting .223 this season and yet he’s batting third in the Giants impotent bating order.

Posey also signed big name free agent pitcher Justin Verlander in the off season. Verlander will take a record of 1-9 with a earned run average of 4.53 into Saturday’s start against the Rays. But, hey, the 42-year-old right-hander did record his 3,500th career strikeout last week.

Posey also picked up the option on manager Bob Melvin’s contract through the 2026 season. That announcement came on July 1 after the Giants had lost six of their previous seven games. Since that announcement the Giants have lost 22 of 36 games.

Under Melvin this season, the Giants have slipped fundamentally. They’ve been unGiant-like in the field and on the base paths. The Giants are 27th in the major leagues in defensive efficiency and their 69 errors — 14 by Adames — are the second most in the National League behind the gawd-awful Colorado Rockies.

Which brings us back to Devers. He is playing first base for the Giants — a position he refused to play this season for the Red Sox in a time of need. Presumedly the Giants offense would benefit from Devers playing first base which would allow the team to use Wilmer Flores as its designated hitter. But that scenario hasn’t sparked the Giants offense either.

Eventually Flores will be flossed out of the Giants lineup and Devers will become a full-time DH as the Giants inherited the 10-year, 313.5 million contact the Red Sox inked with him. That contract at some point will handstrung the Giants.

The Giants reached another low on Friday night. They loaded the bases with no outs in a tie game in the eighth inning and didn’t score. Didn’t even hit the ball out of the infield.

After the Rays took the lead in the top of the ninth inning Devers led off the bottom of the ninth. At least he didn't strike out. He doubled, but he was stranded on the base paths when Adames grounded out, DH Dominic Smith (another ex-Red Sox player) grounded out and Tyler Fitzgerald flied out.

Boos. Game over. Season over. 

Yowza.