Giants Have Found Plenty of Success Despite Star's Unsuccesul Start to Campaign

The San Francisco Giants are off to a fantastic start to the season with the team 10 games over .500 heading toward the middle of May.

So far, the Giants have emerged as one of the biggest surprises in baseball to begin the year. This was a team that had been mediocre or worse in the last few campaigns, and didn’t make too many notable changes to get better.

However, they are proving every game to be a legitimate contender so far.

With new leadership, it has been a complete effort by San Francisco, but the one area that has really exceeded expectations has been the bullpen. As one of the best units in the league, when the Giants get a lead, they generally hold on to it.

One of the major concerns for the team coming into the year was how the offense would perform. While this isn’t an elite unit, they are better than in years past.

Surprisingly, That Success Has Come With a Key Member Starting Slow

Tim Kelly of Bleacher Report recently wrote about the Giants finding success despite their star signing in free agency struggling.

“Even with Willy Adames off to a slow start after signing a lucrative seven-year deal in free agency, the Giants have had a great opening in their first year with Buster Posey as president of baseball operations.”

This winter, despite losing some notable names in free agency like Blake Snell and Michael Conforto, the big add for San Francisco was Willy Adames.

The slugger from the Milwaukee Brewers was brought in to fill a positional need and most importantly provide some pop in the middle of the batting order.

Adames was coming off a few good years with the Brewers and was considered to be one of the top free agents in baseball last winter. However, he is notoriously a slow starter to begin a campaign, and that’s exactly what has happened with the Giants.

In April, Adames slashed .219/.308 /.324 with just two home runs and 14 RBI. It’s a testament to the improvements from other players in the lineup that, despite arguably their best hitter performing poorly, the unit has been able to get the job done.

Luckily, with the calendar flipping to May, Adames has started to perform better. In seven games, he has slashed .321/.406/.607 with two home runs.

The slugger is starting to heat up, and with the Giants having as much success as they have had with him struggling, it’s exciting to think about what they can accomplish when he gets hot.

So far, the Buster Posey era is off to a great start in San Francisco. Furthermore, this might just be the beginning of their success.