San Francisco Giants: What’s up with All These Errors?

The San Francisco Giants’ defense has been a cause for concern early in the spring, with errors and poor play keeping the team from a couple wins early on.

We’re less than a week through the Cactus League slate, and as usually happens in baseball, some trends are emerging for the San Francisco Giants. The offense is working, just like it’s supposed to in the hitter-friendly conditions in Arizona. The guys in competition for jobs on the pitching staff are, for the most part, putting their best foot forward in their early outings.

And the defense has been absolutely abysmal. Through six games, the team has committed 16 errors. It started last Friday against the Milwaukee Brewers, when they had six in the month’s first game. They came back well, posting a zero in the error column the next day against the Dodgers, and only one against the Cubs on Sunday.

They avoided committing any again on Monday, but had four on Tuesday against Arizona and five more on Wednesday against the Brewers. Overall, those 16 errors have led to 22 unearned runs, and have made for some extremely long innings along the way.

More from Golden Gate Sports

• Raiders: Rookie stock report following Week 3 performance
• 49ers sign new long snapper amidst a flurry of roster moves
• Oakland Athletics win Game 2 of Wild Card round with late-inning drama
• 49ers: George Kittle and Deebo Samuel cleared to return to practice
• 49ers expected to place DE Dee Ford on injured reserve

First off, the good news. The good news is that only one of those errors has been committed by a player who is expected to be in the opening day lineup. The vast majority of them have been from non-roster players (Chase d’Arnaud with three, Alen Hanson, Orlando Calixte, and Kyle Jensen all with two). Two more came from players who were brought over from minor league camp (Jonah Arenado and Jordan Johnson).

However, that still leaves five errors from players who will likely play a large part in the 2018 season. Joe Panik is the only regular that has committed an error, throwing a ball off-target during their game against the Cubs. Kelby Tomlinson and Pablo Sandoval have combined for the balance of those errors, both players with two on their record.

That is fairly concerning. Those two players figure to be the backup infielders come opening day, with Tomlinson playing the role of Brandon Crawford’s main understudy at shortstop. Sandoval should play the role of backup corner infielder, and so far, both have looked mighty rusty with the glove.

It is important to remember how early it is, though. It’s not even March yet, and baseball games have already been going on for almost a week. There weren’t many full-team practices before the games began, so players are basically getting warmed up as they go. While there’s definitely room to worry about this, there’s also plenty of time for everyone to get their acts together and start putting together some good defensive performances.

Next: Three Standouts from Game Six

As time goes on and players get their bearings back, the defensive side of the ball should get cleaned up. But for the time being, it’s difficult to watch.