As Giants losses pile up, Matt Chapman defends Bob Melvin: 'It's on the players'

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No player in the Giants’ clubhouse knows Bob Melvin like Matt Chapman, who’s in his ninth season as a big-leaguer — seventh with Melvin as his manager.

Naturally, Chapman doesn’t like to hear negative comments targeted at Melvin as a cause for the Giants’ downfall. The third baseman said as much after Friday night’s latest loss, this one 7-6 to the Rays. The Giants have dropped 14 of their last 15 games at Oracle Park, their worst home stretch since … 1901 at the Polo Grounds in New York.

Not even the great Christy Mathewson, then a rookie, was able to prevent that wild slide 124 years ago.

And no one seems to be able to prevent the current slide, either, including Melvin, who has tried all kinds of strategies and approaches to pull the Giants out of their slump, to no avail.

Through it all, Chapman continues to have Melvin’s back. He said those most responsible for the team’s demise aren’t Melvin and his coaching staff as much as the folks who play the games.

“Everybody in here believes in the coaches, believes in Bob,” Chapman said. “No, it's on the players.”

Indeed, the players put up all those disappointing offensive numbers including the .159 batting average with runners in scoring position during this rotten 15-game home stretch. But Melvin and his coaches still get heat on social media and talk shows, which doesn’t sway Chapman, who said in spring training that he wouldn’t have signed with the Giants before the 2023 season if Melvin weren’t the manager and that he didn’t sign his six-year, $151 million extension imagining he’d play for another manager.

“People can say what they want to say,” Chapman said. “It's easy for people to point fingers or say why things aren't going the way they should, but at the end of the day, it's up to the players in this clubhouse, and we have to play better as a team.

“It’s not one guy. It’s not one coach. We win as a team. We lose as a team. Everybody here is a whole. We just have to play a little bit better, and it’s on the players. We're the ones that go out there every single night. We're the ones that swing the bats, throw the ball, make the plays. So there's nobody to blame but ourselves, and we've put ourselves in this situation.

“But we can also get ourselves out of it. So it's up to us to get this thing turned around, and that's why everybody here believes that we still have a chance.”

We still have a chance.

It’s a bold statement considering the Giants fell to 59-63, the first time this season they’ve been four games below .500. As Chapman noted, they’re still within five games of the final playoff spot. It’s because the Mets – the team in possession of that final spot, albeit barely – seem to lose every day.

If the Giants are going to make any noise in the near future, they’ll do so without Chapman, who was placed on the injured list before Friday’s game with inflammation in his right hand, the second time this season he was shelved with a hand injury — he initially was hurt when he slid headfirst trying to avoid a pickoff. He missed 23 games the first time and returned July 5, but hit just .200 in 31 games (.133 in his last 13 games) and found it tough to adequately swing a bat. He took Wednesday off but wasn’t improving through Thursday’s off day. So Friday, he had an MRI and two cortisone shots.

As it turns out, Chapman was playing through pain and doesn’t expect to get fully healthy until the offseason. He could have extended his first IL stint to let himself heal more but felt good enough to play and was cleared by the medical staff.

“The first couple of weeks coming back, it wasn't bad,” Chapman said, “and then these last couple of weeks, it got progressively more sore, probably just because you're compounding inflammation and not really letting it recover. So we're just hoping the cortisone is going to get it over the hump.”

Making matters worse, Casey Schmitt, who replaced Chapman at third base, was drilled by a pitch Friday and sustained a right forearm contusion. He’s expected to miss at least a couple of games. After Schmitt exited, Christian Koss played third.

Early in the game, the Giants played like the good ol’ days of April — they stole bases, hit the ball to the opposite field, and produced with runners in scoring position and two-out scenarios. They scored six runs in the first three innings for the first time since April 14 at Philadelphia, four with two outs.

But reality set in. Landen Roupp, making his first start since July 22, gave up five runs, and the Rays tied it 6-6 in the fourth and moved ahead 7-6 in the ninth. Rafael Devers opened the bottom of the ninth with a double and was stranded.

Despite all the losing, fans keep coming. A crowd of 34,172 endured the latest downer.

“It has been a rough stretch,” Chapman said. “Obviously, we haven't been able to get much going, especially at home, and I feel bad for our fans because they come out here and support us every single night. They pay their own money to come see us, and we haven't been playing good baseball for them. Regardless if we win or lose, they stay all game. It’s packed. Everybody here feels that. We want to win for a million reasons, with the fans being one of them.”