Manager Tony Vitello #23 of the San Francisco Giants looks on before the game against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on March 30, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Mandatory Photo Credit: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)

By Jeremiah Salmonson

San Francisco — The San Francisco Giants have had a tumultuous first week of the 2026 campaign, and we aren’t even two full series into the season.

After being swept at home by the New York Yankees to open the season at Oracle Park in San Francisco, the Giants went into Petco Park in San Diego and took the first two games of a three-game series against the Padres. Game three is scheduled for Wednesday, and as of this writing, that game is yet to take place. The Giants are now 2-3 on the season, and I have a few takeaways after being in attendance for the Giants’ home series and from my early observations in San Diego.

So, Giants fans, don’t panic. We have no idea what the 2026 Giants are yet.

Of course, following the sweep of the Giants at the hands of the Yankees, the city of San Francisco fell to its proverbial knees in agony as the team scored only one run over three games. The offense appeared to pick up right where it left off last season with a deep inability to perform situational hitting and score runs.

However, three games is, of course, not nearly enough of a sample size to understand what the Giants offense will be in the 2026 campaign, and the following two games proved just that.

Let Vitello Cook: Five Games, Three Different Lineups

While the Giants only scored one run against the Yankees in their three-game series, Tony Vitello tweaked his lineup for game three and again for game four.

The game three tweaks were highlighted by elevating Jung Hoo Lee to the leadoff spot and dropping Luis Arraez and Rafael Devers to the third and fourth positions in the order, respectively. Heliot Ramos was moved to the fifth spot, and Willy Adames was dropped to sixth on the card while Patrick Bailey remained at eight. Vitello’s final change was that Harrison Bader was elevated to seventh and Casey Schmitt dropped to ninth in the order.

This initial pivot from Vitello paid immediate dividends as the Giants went from tallying just four hits in the first two games to nine hits in the third game of the season alone. However, the Giants still only mustered one run with the new-look lineup and fell to 0-3 on the season.

So, Vitello pivoted again after the Giants’ off day on Sunday for their first game against the Padres on Monday. With Bader, Bailey, and Schmitt anchoring the seven-through-nine slots in the order, Vitello switched up his top six in hopes of finding something. Vitello elected to go with Willy Adames in the leadoff spot while also moving Rafael Devers up to the second spot and Heliot Ramos to the three-hole. By necessity, that meant Jung Hoo Lee fell to sixth and Luis Arraez and Matt Chapman slotted down to fourth and fifth, respectively. The offense didn’t erupt, but Willy Adames and Matt Chapman each recorded hits while the bottom three in the Giants’ lineup (Bader, Bailey, and Schmitt) each recorded an RBI and were responsible for the team’s runs. It was a sign of life for the club.

On Tuesday, Tony Vitello elected to go with the same lineup that netted him his first win as a big league manager, and it paid off big time in game two of the series.

The Giants secured their first series win of the season, defeating the Padres 9-3 behind a 16-hit performance from a lineup of Willy Adames leading off, followed by Rafael Devers, Heliot Ramos, Luis Arraez, Matt Chapman, Jung Hoo Lee, Harrison Bader, Patrick Bailey, and Casey Schmitt.

The Giants go for the sweep of the Padres on Wednesday, and you may already know the outcome when you read this.

Was it the lineup construction that clicked? Was it simply a team that was due to break out? Who knows. I’m not here to act like I or anyone else has a crystal ball to know exactly what or why it worked. However, you have to give the young manager credit for being willing to make drastic tweaks to his lineup so early in the season to do his best to spark the team. The inverse has been a complaint of recent Giants managers and their slow pace to change things up when it wasn’t working.

It’s obviously much too small of a sample size to tell anything significant, but Vitello appears up for the task, and his recent lineup tweak appears to have his guys in a better spot than even just a week ago. Will the Giants be 16-hit and nine-run scorers every game? Probably not. Will the Giants be a team that is one-hit and routinely shut out this season? Again, probably not. The team is too talented for that to become the norm on a daily basis. The Giants will inevitably fall somewhere in between those points, and it’s incumbent on the fans and the media to give them the chance to figure it out.

After the conclusion of the series in San Diego, the Giants will return home for a four-game series against the Mets and three games against the Phillies. That will be a big test to see what the 2026 Giants are made of.