Nobody from Opening Day started, and two newcomers made it seventy Giants
San Francisco beat Minnesota on September 21 with a lineup that shared no one with its March 25 card. Bo Davidson, signed for $50,000, and Marcelo Mayer, a fourth overall pick, were the 69th and 70th players the club has used this year. Camilo Doval would be the 71st.
The lineup card San Francisco posted at Oracle Park on September 21 had nine names on it, and none of them was on the card the club posted on Opening Day, March 25.
The paperwork accounts for all nine of the originals. Luis Arraez and Heliot Ramos were traded on August 3, and Patrick Bailey in May. Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers, Casey Schmitt and Harrison Bader are on the 60-day injured list. Willy Adames is on the 10-day list with a left elbow sprain. Jung Hoo Lee, the last of them still active, fouled a ball off himself at Dodger Stadium on September 20 and went on the 10-day list the next day, and his roster spot is how the September 21 lineup came to exist.
The Giants won that game 5-2 over Minnesota. Two of the men in it were playing their first game for San Francisco, and they were the 69th and 70th players the club has used this season, a franchise record. The 2022 club used 66.
Two roads to one lineup card#
Bo Davidson batted third and played right field. He was signed in 2023 out of Caldwell Community College in Hudson, North Carolina, after a summer in the Coastal Plain League, a wood-bat circuit for college players, and according to MLB.com's Maria Guardado the bonus was $50,000. The part-time scout who signed him, Paul Faulk, signed a right-hander named Trent Harris out of the same league that summer for $10,000. Harris got the last three outs of the September 21 game for the save.
Davidson's first plate appearance lasted nine pitches. The ninth was a 91 mph cutter from Zebby Matthews, and he lined it into right field at 103.8 mph to send Drew Gilbert to third. He stole second while the next hitter was striking out, and Brett Harris singled both runners home with two out.
The next hitter was Marcelo Mayer. He was the fourth overall pick in the 2021 draft, and San Francisco got him from Boston at the August 3 deadline for left-hander Erik Miller and outfielder Carlos Gutierrez. He had not played a major league game since June 25, when a bone stress reaction in his left ulna ended his Boston season, and a bone bruise in his right foot ended a four-game rehab assignment at Sacramento in August. He started at designated hitter and struck out in all four of his at-bats.
One of those men cost the club $50,000 in 2023, and the other cost it Erik Miller and Carlos Gutierrez this August. Neither line from one night says anything about either player. Davidson is 3 for 10 in three games and left the September 23 game after fouling a ball off his right foot. Mayer is 0 for 6 with five strikeouts. Those are not samples, and the club did not bring either man up to collect one. What the transactions say is narrower. San Francisco wanted a look at both of them this year rather than next spring, and it made room on the final Monday of the season to get it.
Seventeen first games#
Davidson was also the seventeenth player this season to make his major league debut in a Giants uniform. That is one more than the 2008 club, the largest debut class San Francisco had produced in any season since at least 2000. By month:
- April: Daniel Susac
- May: Jesus Rodriguez, Victor Bericoto, Jonah Cox
- June: Wilkin Ramos, Drew Cavanaugh
- August: Nate Furman, Eddys Leonard, Trent Harris, Turner Hill, Matt Wilkinson, Braxton Roxby, Seth Lonsway, Yunior Marte
- September: Cesar Perdomo, Scott Bandura, Bo Davidson
Duncan Davitt made his first San Francisco appearance on September 19, but his major league debut came with the White Sox in April, so he counts toward the seventy and not the seventeen.
Seven of the seventeen came before the August 3 deadline and ten came after it. Jesus Rodriguez, the catcher who debuted on May 4, came to San Francisco from the Yankees on July 31, 2025, in the trade that sent Camilo Doval to New York.
The seventy-first#
The count may not be finished. On September 24 the Giants claimed Camilo Doval off waivers from Pittsburgh and moved Blade Tidwell to the 60-day injured list to open the 40-man spot. Tidwell's MRI showed a sprain of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, and surgery has been recommended.
Doval debuted for San Francisco in 2021 and pitched for the club until that trade. This season he posted a 4.54 ERA over 44 games in New York, then a 3.79 ERA with 14 walks across 19 innings in Pittsburgh, according to MLB.com. He is making $6.1 million and is eligible for arbitration again this winter, so the claim buys the club three games of looking before it decides whether to tender him a contract. The league's 40-man roster lists him as not yet reported, and he is not on the 28-man active roster.
If he pitches against the Dodgers this weekend, he is the 71st player the Giants have used in 2026. That would tie the major league record held by the 2025 Braves, who used 71 across 162 games.
San Francisco plays Los Angeles three times at Oracle Park, starting Friday night. The record is one relief appearance away. Whether the club wants Doval for 2027 is a question the tender deadline will answer, and whether it wanted him badly enough to find him an inning this weekend is the one the box scores will answer first.
Sources: MLB Stats API (all 159 completed 2026 Giants regular-season box scores, and every box score from the 2022 Giants and 2025 Braves regular seasons; the full-season, 40-man and active rosters for team 137; the club's transaction log; debut dates and game logs; the September 21 play-by-play, gamePk 823169); MLB.com (Maria Guardado, September 21, September 23 and September 24); San Francisco Chronicle (Susan Slusser, September 21).
