The San Francisco Giants Have Never Cast A Smaller Shadow

At the time of this writing—the middle of the night, after the crying has stopped and the desperate regrets of yesterday have faded into the scheduled emotional mudslides of tomorrow—the Giants sit at 13-20, tied for second worst in the National League with Team McKinney, two games ahead of Team Roth, and barely a half-game ahead of Team Kalaf. This tells us that Defector's staff really know how to pick 'em, mostly. But there is more to learn in this squalid corner of the standings, none of it good. The Giants are particularly special because they not only lose their game each day, but they reliably do so in a hurry. Their average game comes in at 2:36, which is both shorter than One Battle After Another and the fastest such running time in baseball. The Giants manage these ultra-efficient game times in the most time-honored of ways—by not cluttering up the passage of one inning into the next with extraneous offense. Or, really, any offense. They have scored eight fewer runs (barely three per game) than any team in the sport, have hit only six more homers as a team than Chicago's Munetaka Murakami has managed on his lonesome, and rank barely ahead of the Mets and Phillies and no one else in most of your more sophisticated offensive metrics. Their two least productive everyday hitters, Willy Adames and Rafael Devers, are also their most expensive. Their manager, Tony Vitello, runs his bullpen like he's coaching a three-game series against Auburn, which he was just last year in his previous gig managing the University of Tennessee. They have been shut out seven times already, scored one run in four more instances, and two runs in four others. That's 15 of their 20 losses right there. In short, you know what you're getting at a Giants game—one trip to the concessions stand, one trip to the bathroom, and a slow walk to the ferry building in the top of the seventh.