The San Francisco Giants have another mess on their hands, and this time it’s not just about losing games.
Over the weekend, Rafael Devers got pulled for a pinch-runner in a tight loss to the Marlins. He didn’t look thrilled about it. He gestured in the dugout. Then he skipped the postgame media scrum and went straight to the clubhouse. Nothing unusual for a frustrated competitor, except the Giants are 31-46 and getting swept at home tends to magnify everything.
By Tuesday, everyone wanted to know what the front office was doing about it. Buster Posey, the team’s president of baseball operations and a legend in his own right, told reporters he hadn’t spoken to Devers about the incident yet. That answer landed about as well as a hanging slider in Coors Field.
Olney Calls Out the Hall of Famer
ESPN’s Buster Olney didn’t let it slide. He posted on X that it made no sense for Posey to meet with the media before talking to his own player, especially four days after the whole thing went down. His point was blunt: we expect urgency from players on the field, so why not from the guy running the front office?
Olney’s not wrong. The optics are bad. You’ve got a franchise in freefall, a star player who clearly checked out in the moment, and the person in charge of the baseball operation is addressing the press before addressing the player. That’s a sequence that looks worse the more you think about it.
The Giants haven’t confirmed any private conversations between Posey and Devers since that Sunday game. Manager Tony Vitello made the call to lift Devers for Jonah Cox in the late innings of a one-run game, and the dugout reaction was visible enough to go viral. Miami completed a three-game sweep, and the story just kept snowballing.
Bigger Than One At-Bat
This isn’t really about a pinch-runner. It’s about a team that’s been bad for months, a fanbase that’s frustrated, and a front office that’s still finding its footing. Posey took over baseball ops with a ton of goodwill from his playing days, but goodwill doesn’t win arguments in June when you’re in fourth place.
Devers makes a lot of money and plays a premium position. When a player like that gets visibly frustrated on national TV, the front office can’t afford to let it fester. Olney’s post just turned up the heat. The response from the Giants’ front office in the next few days will tell you more about the state of that organization than any win-loss record ever could.
San Francisco led Oakland 2-1 in the third inning as play resumed Tuesday. That’s a footnote. The real game is whether Posey, Vitello and Devers can clear the air before this becomes a defining moment of a lost season.
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