This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Giants first basemen ranked last in the Majors with a .622 OPS this year, but the club fully expects to receive better production at the position in 2026.
The reason is twofold: Between Rafael Devers and No. 1 prospect Bryce Eldridge, the Giants believe they have a pair of power hitters who have the potential to anchor their lineup for the foreseeable future.
One question that remains unsettled, though, is how exactly the Giants plan to divide playing time between Devers and Eldridge at first base moving forward.
Both are relatively new to the position — Devers is a natural third baseman who started the season as the Red Sox’s full-time designated hitter and then learned to play first base for the first time in his career after he was acquired by the Giants in mid-June; Eldridge (MLB Pipeline’s No. 12 overall prospect) mostly split time between the mound and DH as a two-way player in high school, and he didn’t become an everyday first baseman until last year — but they each looked comfortable playing defense down the stretch.
Devers got the bulk of the first-base reps after Eldridge broke into the Majors on Sept. 15, but president of baseball operations Buster Posey said the Giants will wait until Spring Training to determine how that dynamic will play out next year.
“I think we don’t get too far ahead with that one,” Posey said earlier this month. “I thought that Bryce — I was really impressed. I thought he looked good at first. I know he’s been working his tail off to improve his defense. I thought Devers got more comfortable at first. It’s a good problem to have, to have two guys that you’re really excited about that are left-handed power bats.”
Eldridge was initially brought up to serve as the Giants’ DH against right-handed pitching. He played only 34 innings at first base during his 10-game stint in the big leagues, but he’s probably the better bet to settle in as San Francisco’s long-term first baseman.
The Giants weren’t expecting to promote Eldridge this season, but they opted to after Dominic Smith went down with a right hamstring strain amid their late playoff push. Eldridge ended up going 3-for-28 (.107) with seven walks and 13 strikeouts in 37 plate appearances, though he flashed his tantalizing offensive potential by consistently making hard contact.
“The thing that I found most encouraging — obviously, he didn’t get a ton of hits — was that I did not feel that he looked overmatched, where the moment was too big, the stuff was too great,” vice president of player development Randy Winn said. “I thought he handled the zone really well. I thought that it seemed like he cut down some of the chase, which he had a little bit in the Minor Leagues. I thought that he looked like he belonged, so all of those are positives for a 20-year-old who got his first days in the Major Leagues in a pennant race, in games that we had to win.”
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Eldridge, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Monday, knows he still has some adjustments to make, but he thought it was valuable to get to a taste of what awaits in the big leagues.
“These guys, they have a specific plan to get me,” Eldridge said of big-league pitchers in late September. “They’re trying to get me to chase. I feel like I haven’t been chasing as much as I did in the Minor Leagues. That’s just more of an approach thing.
“Obviously, I’ve got to get better at hitting the balls in-zone with the slow stuff and the offspeed, but that just comes with experience. A lot of these guys have the best stuff I’ve ever seen. It’s just an adjustment. With reps, it’ll get better. But being here at 20 and getting to start that development now in this league is pretty important, obviously. It’s going to be hopefully a long road of just playing ball here and getting better every day.”
Eldridge recently underwent surgery to remove a bone spur in his left wrist, and while he’s expected to be fully recovered by Spring Training, it’s not a given that the 6-foot-7 slugger will be on the Opening Day roster next year.
If the Giants feel Eldridge could use more development, they could send him back to Triple-A Sacramento for the start of the season and have Devers man first base in the interim.
Devers said last month that he hadn’t received much clarity on what his primary position will be in 2026, but he expressed a willingness to play wherever the Giants need him.
“They haven’t told me anything, but I’m ready to work at whatever position they want,” Devers said in Spanish. “I know that those decisions are up to the manager and the front office, not me.”
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Senior Reporter Maria Guardado covers the Giants for MLB.com. She previously covered the Angels from 2017-18.
Freeman does it again! Ends epic 18-inning game with walk-off HR
Freeman’s homer off lefty Brendon Little in the bottom of the 18th inning of Game 3 punctuated the Dodgers’ 6-5 victory over the Blue Jays in an affair that tied Game 3 in 2018 – also at Dodger Stadium – for the longest in Fall Classic history.
The Dodgers prevailed in a 6-hour, 39-minute game that was as entertaining as it was exhausting to take a 2-1 lead in this Fall Classic behind a classic game from Shohei Ohtani.
“Oh my,” said Freeman, who is the first player with multiple walk-off homers in World Series history. “This one took a little longer, but this game was incredible. Our bullpen was absolutely incredible. Yeah, Will Klein, absolutely incredible.”
On the eve of his Game 4 start on the mound, Ohtani became the first player in a postseason game (and only the fourth player in any game) to reach base nine times, the second player (joining Frank Isbell of the 1906 White Sox) to have four extra-base hits in a World Series game and the first to be intentionally walked four times in a postseason game.
“What matters the most is that we won,” said Ohtani. “And what I accomplished today is in the context of this game, and what matters the most is we flip the page and play the next game.”
When any best-of-seven postseason series has been tied 1-1, the team winning Game 3 has gone on to also win the series 70 of 101 times (69.3%). In series with the current 2-3-2 format that have been tied 1-1, teams winning Game 3 at home have gone on to also win the series 29 of 48 times (60.4%).
Game 3 had a lot going on, even beyond Ohtani.
It saw six runners thrown out on the bases, including multiple plays at the plate — Dodgers first baseman Freeman nabbed by a beautiful Addison Barger throw from right field in the second and Jays pinch-runner Davis Schneider caught in the top of the 10th by a perfect relay from right fielder Teoscar Hernández to second baseman Tommy Edman to catcher Will Smith.
It had one of the more peculiar pickoffs you’ll ever see, as batter Daulton Varsho and runner Bo Bichette were both confused by home-plate umpire Mark Wegner’s slow strike signal on a 3-1 pitch. Bichette, thinking it was a walk, began heading to second and was picked off first by pitcher Tyler Glasnow.
It featured likely Hall of Famers Max Scherzer starting for the Blue Jays and Clayton Kershaw relieving for the Dodgers, who set a new World Series game record with 10 pitchers used.
It included the Blue Jays emptying their bench with four pinch-runners and an emergency pinch-hitter to replace ALCS hero George Springer when he injured himself during a seventh-inning plate appearance. And Jays reliever Eric Lauer actually recording more outs than their starter.
And it saw several would-be walk-off Dodger blasts die at the warning track.
Most of the game’s runs came early.
The Dodgers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to solo shots from Hernández and Ohtani off Scherzer.
The Jays, who had been scoreless since the third inning of Game 2, roared back in the fourth, taking advantage of an Edman error to put two on before Alejandro Kirk smashed a hanging curveball from Glasnow over the left-center field wall for a three-run blast that put Toronto ahead, 3-2. The Jays manufactured insurance later in the inning.
With a runner aboard in the fifth, Jays manager John Schneider pulled the 41-year-old Scherzer to bring in lefty reliever Mason Fluharty for the handedness advantage against Ohtani.
It didn’t work.
Ohtani’s third extra-base hit of the night was a lofted RBI double the opposite way to the gap in left-center that cut the score to 4-3. And when another lefty, Freeman, ripped a ground-ball single through the right-hand side, Ohtani motored home with the tying run.
In the top of the seventh, Guerrero’s hustle all the way home from first on a Bichette groundball single that ricocheted off Dodger Stadium’s side wall and away from the right fielder Hernández momentarily gave the Jays a 5-4 lead.
But then it was Ohtani Time. Again.
With one out, Toronto reliever Seranthony Domínguez made the grave mistake of not only throwing Ohtani fastball in the zone, but middle-middle. Seconds later, it was in the left-center seats — an oppo blast on another otherworldly evening for the player who can’t stop making history.
Between the clutch plays betraying baserunners and clutch outs from some unexpected sources on the mound, both teams squandered multiple opportunities to break the 5-5 tie.
One of the biggest outs came from Kershaw, summoned with two out and the bases loaded in the top of the 12th. He got Nathan Lukes to bounce one to the right-hand side, and Edman scooped it and flipped it to Freeman in time for the final out of the inning.
One year after his walk-off, extra-innings grand slam against the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series, Freeman just missed a chance to do it again in the 13th, coming up with the bases jammed and two out before lifting one to center that landed at the warning track.
On and on it went. Close calls. Missed chances. Tortuous outs (and yet, strangely, zero double plays).
Finally, in the 18th, the Dodgers prevailed. After Klein impressively completed his fourth scoreless inning of relief, Freeman led off against Brendon Little, worked the count full and lifted a sinker over the center-field wall to end it.
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