San Francisco Giants are Focusing on a Key Detail Late in the Season

The San Francisco Giants have struggled on defense this season and are now back to basics as the season winds down.

Sep 8, 2024; San Diego, California, USA; San Francisco Giants shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald (49), left, and second baseman Marco Luciano (37) collide while trying to catch a fly ball from San Diego Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar (not pictured) during the seventh inning at Petco Park. / Chadd Cady-Imagn Images

In what's been a frustrating season for the San Francisco Giants, both offensively and from an injury standpoint, there has been one thing bugging Bob Melvin: fundamentals on defense.

The Giants brought in Matt Chapman to be the anchor at third and Jung Hoo Lee to do the same in centerfield. Lee has been out for the majority of the season, which is what began the trend of San Francisco having players out of position.

One player emblematic of this is Marco Luciano. A shortstop by trade, the former top prospect struggled at the position in Spring Training, losing his job to Nick Ahmed and eventually making the switch to second base.

In what seemed to highlight why the Giants wanted to focus on basics, there was an incident of miscommunication between Luciano and Tyler Fitzgerald in which the two collided. There are bound to be growing pains with a young player learning a new position for the first time, but Luciano isn't the only one playing out of position.

"When you haven’t played together before — Wise [Brett Wisely] is out of position, Marco is playing out of position, Mark Canha hasn’t played first base with these guys," said manager Bob Melvin.

After miscommunication and missed relays, the San Francisco coaching staff decided it was time to work on the fundamentals with a new looking infield.

Coaches Matt Williams and Ryan Christenson, as well as special assistant Ron Wotus took the time during batting practice over the weekend to do as much. Williams turned the music off and the team worked on relay throws and cut-offs before having a meeting.

It was a big enough concern for Melvin and company to make it an emphasis, but it is not a long term concern for the team.

"It’s just a completely different group we’re looking at right now, so that’s the tough part. Late in the year, you do stuff like this, but in spring training, we worked on our defense a lot and early in the season, we were a pretty good defensive club. It’s just different personnel," said the San Francisco skipper.

For this to be a concern of the team this late in the season is not something the team wanted, but something that is very fixable. The Giants are eighth in baseball in errors, but with the injuries, particularly to the infield, it may not be indicative of their talent.

Next season, Lee will be back patrolling center and with Grant McCray in the fold, they will have two plus defenders. With the season coming to an end, the team appears to be getting a head start on 2025.