Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...The Giants called the press conferences.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey — the head honcho — 2 p.m. Tuesday, home dugout at Oracle Park.
[Rafael Devers](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/23/san-francisco-giants-devers-vitello-posey-miami-pinch-run/) would speak after that in the clubhouse.
[Tony Vitello](https://www.mercurynews.com/2026/06/21/kurtenbach-a-pathetic-ninth-inning-conflict-perfectly-summarized-the-sf-giants-miserable-season/) would be in the dugout after that.
There had been a lot going on around the team — trade rumors, federal legal issues, a public temper tantrum from the team’s highest-paid star — so no subject matter was needed in the email announcing the times.
They called the press conferences.
Because how can there be leadership without accountability?
And how can there be wins without leadership?
I’m still asking. Tuesday provided no answers.
When Posey took his seat on the top of the bench, he seemingly had no interest in talking.
He was there because there was an expectation he would be. Because someone called the presser.
It has long appeared as if the Giants were a rudderless operation. Tuesday, they confirmed just that.
Posey dodged the team’s ongoing Pride Night controversy. A cabal of lawyers likely advised him that silence is cheaper than honesty.
He wouldn’t even engage much in the approved baseball questions. He hadn’t even spoken to Devers about his first-base meltdown in Miami.
He was present, but unaccounted for.
The whole meeting could have been an email.
Then came Devers. The highest-paid player on the payroll marked the summer solstice by talking to the media for the first time in months.
Rather than own an embarrassing public display of insubordination by admitting that, like anyone, he lost his cool and messed up, Devers claimed it was just a media smear campaign. He claimed we didn’t see what our eyes clearly saw.
Like him wagging his finger at the dugout. Or him telling a rookie pinch-runner to get off the field. Or him yelling into his helmet and ducking out of the dugout so no one could talk to him. All things that are unimpeachably insubordinate. All things that found no defenders amid former players, the media, or, as far as I can tell, any fan, in the 48 hours following the outburst.
But according to Devers, he wasn’t showing up his manager with that little show. No, it was just a giant misunderstanding about a sore hamstring.
It takes a special level of skill to throw a public fit and then insult the intelligence of everyone who saw it. To say — earnestly or not — that, actually, it was just him having zero situational awareness in the game; that he was merely putting his desires over what was best for the team in that critical moment.
Is that really better?
“You guys are the ones who blow things out of proportion. I don’t know why. I’m a person who doesn’t talk a lot and doesn’t give a lot of interviews. Maybe that’s why most of you don’t like me. Every time something happens with me, you guys make a big deal out of it,” Devers said through interpreter Erwin Higueros. “I don’t care what you guys think of me because you guys are the ones who always focus on the negatives.”
Have you ever seen an IMAX movie? Well, now you’ve seen a bigger projection.
With leadership like that from the team’s highest-paid player, however could the Giants be fending off the Rockies for last place in the National League West?
And, of course, Vitello finished the circus by brushing the whole thing under the rug. To be fair, what else can he do? Stand up for himself? Draw on some authority? That’s funny.
Devers was right back in the lineup Tuesday night, batting fourth. He hit an RBI single in a tidy 3-1 win over the A’s.
Dust settled? Perhaps.
But nothing was accomplished, and the discord around this team grew a little louder in the process.
The most staggering part of this farce is the math.
The Giants had two full days off to prepare for this media availability.
That’s 48 hours for Posey — the boss — to talk to his $200 million superstar about a situation that, at the very least, was embarrassing to the club.
It’s two days for the front office, the manager and the player to get a story straight — to come up with a tight script from which everyone would read.
It was more than enough time for the public relations team to draft an answer better than Posey’s blank stare, or to put someone else in front of the media to discuss the Pride night controversy.
What did they do with those two days?
If there was any connective thread that showed on Tuesday, it was to gaslight both media and fans and insult our intelligence in the process. But, I say again, the team called the press conferences.
If you want to understand how a once-proud franchise has collapsed this spectacularly, look no further than Tuesday afternoon. There is plenty of movement inside the building, but zero coordination.
Plenty of action, but no real plan.
It’s a team that’s built via reaction, not strategy. Public relations first, substance second and winning will magically come if the baseball gods grant it.
They haven’t. Because the baseball gods don’t reward dysfunction.