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SAN FRANCISCO — Under appropriately gray skies Friday afternoon, players went about their business as usual at Oracle Park. Patrick Bailey conferenced with catching coach Craig Albernaz in the outfield. Brandon Crawford prepared himself for his possible sendoff Sunday.
Still, it was impossible to ignore the solemn news of the day.
They played so poorly, collapsed so totally, that their manager of four years, Gabe Kapler, was fired with three games to go.
“This is a s—ty day for the Giants baseball,” starter Logan Webb said. “As a whole, we haven’t done our job.”
Outfielder Austin Slater found out when he arrived in the clubhouse and said there “was definitely some shock.” His platoon partner, Mike Yastrzemski, called it “unfortunate” but acknowledged that “this is the nature of the beast and he wears the burden of our performance.”
The Giants went from 13 games over .500 in the first week of August to out of the playoff race by the final weekend of the season, needing to win all three games this weekend against the Dodgers to secure a .500 finish. They went 6-28 over their final 34 road games, including losing eight of 10 on their final road trip with their playoff hopes hanging in the balance.
Ultimately, Zaidi said, “as a group and as a team we played our worst baseball when it mattered the most.”
“We have a lot of work to figure out why that happened,” Zaidi said. “For us, we felt like step one was making this change. I think we’re looking for new and different leadership in our clubhouse, a different dynamic there. … I know I have to think about things differently. I know we as an organization have to do things differently. A lot of those things are difficult, starting with the move today.”
After operating in lockstep for much of their four years together, Zaidi acknowledged it might be more beneficial to create more separation between the dugout and the front office. That includes less of a reliance on platoons, a more traditional pitching staff and a focus on players here for the long haul.
“We don’t view ourselves as a front office or as a coaching staff as being a system organization, whether it’s platooning or using openers,” Zaidi said. “We want to have a product that our fans are excited about, that our fans want to come to the ballpark to see. I recognize that. I think that’s what ownership wants to see.”
Webb, the one player under contract beyond 2025, was the one who called for “big changes” just a few days ago.
“I didn’t mean anything like that,” he said in reference to Kapler’s firing. “I don’t think as a group we did good enough for him. I think there needs to be a standard set of how we are going to play baseball here. It’s one of the first things I learned when I first came up. I got to play in a clubhouse with Bum (Madison Bumgarner) and Buster (Posey) and (Brandon) Belt and Craw (Brandon Crawford).”
Kapler’s hands-off managerial style allowed the clubhouse to police itself.
While that was a positive in the eyes of most players, it also created a void of leadership. Music was played after losses. Joc Pederson did worship the card table and drew the ire of some coaches and teammates with his lackadaisical preparation.
“Personally I really appreciated it,” Slater said. “It was a way of managing to where players were responsible, not only for yourselves but the people around you. I think it’s getting a lot more attention than it probably deserves, what happened inside the clubhouse (and) the managing style. This is just what happens when you lose baseball games.”
But Yastrzemski echoed his pointed comments from last week about a lack of accountability and a fractured group of individuals, rather than one cohesive group focused on a singular goal.
“You can point fingers at a lot of us in the clubhouse and not holding each other accountable and not playing our best and holding each other to certain playing standards that we should have as big leaguers,” Yastrzemski said. “I think there was just a little kind of fend for yourself type of atmosphere that somehow fell into place. I don’t know where it came from, but it kind of just took over where everybody felt like they could do their own thing and made it feel like it wasn’t an entire group effort or a sense of unity.”
Webb said he hopes to be part of the decision when it comes to hiring the next manager.
Growing up in Sacramento, Webb said, “there just seemed to be a certain way baseball was done here.”
“Whoever comes in here, whether that be from here already or somewhere else, that’s part of the conversation I want to have with him,” Webb said. “Set the standard right away. As an organization, we lead the entire league in wins, right? We have the most wins in baseball history as an organization. There’s a standard when you put this jersey on. We’ve just got to get back to that.”
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