Unexpected: Melvin new Giants manager

The Warriors lost their first game, which was unexpected. The 49ers lost their last game, which was unexpected. And, oh yeah somewhere among Steph Curry and Brock Purdy, the Giants named Bob Melvin their manager. 

Which was unexpected until a few days ago when it was disclosed that Melvin was unhappy in his role as manager of the San Diego Padres.

Then things became what they are in baseball, an activity that one of its practitioners, the late, great Yogi Berra, once told us “You don’t know nothing.” Melvin was expected to be available, if not necessarily in that order.

A manager can’t get hits or throw shutouts, but he can be a hit, and that’s what the Giants, searching for their place in the Bay Area’s crowded sporting landscape, very much need.

If not as much as a home run hitter.

Bo Mel, as he’s called, knows the territory, and growing up on the Peninsula while also playing ball at Cal and no less managing Oakland Athletics to the playoffs (if never the World Series), we know him.

What we don’t know is what sort of roster he’ll have. But you presume he wouldn’t have taken the job, even for a former colleague of Giants president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, with whom Mevin worked at the A’s unless changes would occur.

The Giants’ wish to sign Aaron Judge (yet another Northern Californian)  disappeared last spring, but there are other sluggers around, several on the Padres.

Maybe Melvin could help pry loose one of those high-priced players from the Padres, not that the Giants should expect help from the team that Melvin just extricated himself after a rumored strained relationship with A.J. Preller, head of baseball operations in San Diego.

Still, as everyone knows—and was verified in the two league championships that elevated the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks to the World Series—pitching wins.

The Giants have some pitching. They just need more.  

Apropos of nothing, but perhaps pertinent to everything, is the man who preceded Melvin as Padres manager in Bruce Bochy, who moved on to win three World Series for the Giants and now is in another with Texas.

San Francisco, the season of 2023 was rolling along until it mattered in September, then it tumbled from leading the wild card race to nowhere. How much that had to do with their very disciplined and analytics-based manager, Gabe Kapler being fired, is debatable.

Unless you’re Zaidi, who if only to prove he and the organization were intent on both keeping the Giants competitive and in a tough market, relevant.

Bob Melvin seems to be both the fortunate choice and the perfect one. No question he will get attention. Will he be able to get wins?