The fans had lots of hope for championship gold entering the 2024 season for the San Francisco Giants. With big additions to the roster during the off-season acquiring third baseman Matt Chapman, power hitter and World Series Most Valuable Player Jorge Soler, two-time Cy Young award winner pitcher Blake Snell, another former Cy Young award winner pitcher Robbie Ray and a younger pitcher, Jordan Hicks, who plays as a bullpen or starting pitcher. And lastly, they also acquired a Korean superstar center fielder named Jung Hoo Lee who won Rookie of the Year in the Korean league, also known as the Korea Baseball Organization, in 2017.
It was a slow start for the Giants to start its season. Their first series was on the road against the San Diego Padres. The Padres tookLeague game one of the series winning 6-4. The Giants’ ace Logan Webb starting pitcher pitched a strong six innings giving up five hits, two earned runs, walking two players, and striking out five. Unfortunately, the bullpen couldn’t keep the lead.
The Giants were able to win the next two games but in the last game of the series they took a tough loss losing 13-4 only managing to get five hits. Before the Giants first homestand of the season they played their division rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers and got swept.
Even when the Giants did win, they’d typically lose again right after making them lose momentum in the standings. Thirty seven games later, the Korean superstar Jung Hoo Lee had a season-ending injury after he injured his left shoulder when he crashed into the center field wall at Oracle park trying to make a play. Lee’s injury was a big blow to the team because great things were expected from him in his rookie season. And the other new players were either off to a slow start or on the Injured reserve list. The Giants struggled to stay over .500 throughout the season.
When Jung Hoo Lee got injured, Heliot Ramos, another center fielder, was called up in early May from the Sacramento River Cats, the team’s Triple A affiliate. He played great and was a catalyst for the Giants fans giving them hope to what has been a rocky season. Ramos sustained this high level of playing and the MLB world was starting to catch on. The Giants record before the 2024 All Star break was 47-50. But two players from the Giants stood out and got to be a part of the All Star game for the first time in their career. Those players were pitcher Logan Webb and center fielder Ramos.
The MLB had scheduled a game at RickWood Field to pay tribute to the Negro League and Willie Mays. This game took place June 20 and featured the Giants against the St. Louis Cardinals. Days before the game started news broke out that Hall of Famer Willie Mays died at the age of 93 on June 18. The Giants lost the tribute game 6-5.
It broke the hearts of the MLB world, and it hit hard to the SF Giants fans because he was a Giants legend and his impact as a player and person was huge. Mays was a part of the Negro League and played for the Black Barons and also played for the New York Mets before playing the majority of his career in a Giants uniform. He also took two years off to serve in the Korean War as a part of the U.S. Army.
The Giants started to play better in the second half and weren’t an easy team to face. A reason for this were key players finally heating up together. Post All Star Break, Snell, Chapman, Ramos, Mike Yastrzemski, Tyler Fitzgerald and Lamonte Wade JR all started to heat up at the right time. Ray also came back from a 60-days injured reserve list to make the pitching rotation finally complete.
The Giants managed to get eight games under .500 and have been climbing their way back up ever since. So the trade deadline for them was very pivotal. Other teams wanted the Giants’ best players to help build their roster for the postseason since the Giants were having a tough time staying consistent for a playoff run.
Names like Chapman and Snell were on the market because of their value and their great play. The Giants survived the trade deadline but unfortunately Soler got traded and his stint didn’t last long. His production was underwhelming than what the general manager hoped for.
Another loss for the Giants was all-star starting pitcher Alex Cobb, who made the All-Star last season. Since the emergence of rookie pitchers Hayden Birdsong and Kyle Harrison they locked up their spots in the starting rotation and Cobb got traded to the Cleveland Guardians.
The Giants were a .500 team when they had close games with a record of 24-24. But in late innings the team was ranked in the top 5 for most comeback wins having eight.
Even though the Giants entered the season with high expectations and didn’t live up to it, there were lots of positive outcomes. They secured Chapman for six years up to $151 million, found a star in Heliot Ramos from Triple A with a batting average of .269, 22 HR, 72 RBI, and solid fielding at center during the season.Giants fans also witnessed Blake Snell first career no hitter, and the last two weeks of the season played spoilers for playoff teams finishing 7- 4 to finish the season at 80-82.
