Bryce Eldridge's recent dominance makes early Giants lineup decisions look a lot worse

The San Francisco Giants have not been having a very good 2026 season at all, as the first year of the Tony Vitello experience hasn't gone well.

While there are plenty of reasons for the struggles of the team this season, including the lackluster offensive production of a few of their key stars, one of the more confusing decisions the team was making was the playing time situation for Bryce Elridge.

Vitello and company didn't start Eldridge much to begin his MLB career, which was clearly a mistake. Now, as USA Today's Bob Nightengale highlighted, the decision from the Giants to not play Eldridge often looks a lot worse with his recent dominance at the plate.

Giants' early Bryce Eldridge decisions were baffling in retrospect

"Now that the Giants are putting him in the lineup every day, they may have found a star in Bryce Eldridge, who is hitting .316 with a .959 OPS, and embracing the responsibility of being an aircraft carrier," Nightengale writes.

Back on May 4, the Giants called up Eldridge to the big league roster, giving him his first chance in the Major Leagues after being a very promising prospect.

He started his first game and played the next two days on May 5 and 6. But, over the next four series, Eldridge only played in seven of the 13 contests the Giants had.

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Eldridge played twice against the Pittsburgh Pirates, twice against the Los Angeles Dodgers (four-game series), once against the Athletics, and twice against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Not playing Eldridge every day was a decision that looked strange in the moment. Through those first few series of his MLB career, Eldridge hit .156 with a .510 OPS.

However, since then, and since playing in 20 of the next 21 games, Eldridge is hitting .391 with a 1.157 OPS with four homers, 11 RBIs, eight doubles, and a 12-15 walk-to-strikeout ratio.

Eldridge should never come out of the lineup again, which makes their decision to slowly implement him into the MLB lineup look a lot worse in retrospect.

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