Matt

Chapman

Chapman has been showing signs of breaking out of his season-long slump with five multi-hit performances in his past seven games. He’s been striking out less than ever, but his quality of contact has suffered with a career-worst barrel rate. His track record suggests a hot stretch is coming, and this might be it.

Chapman also drew a walk before knocking in pinch-runner Jonah Cox for the decisive run tonight. Chapman is 7-for-12 with 12 RBI over the last four games as he looks to move back up the Giants lineup after being dropped to seventh in recent days. He’s second on the Giants with his 33 RBI overall.

Chapman started with a grand slam off Edward Cabrera in the fourth inning, knocking a hanging curve just barely into the left-center nets at Wrigley for a 382-foot blast. He added a three-run shot off Ethan Roberts in the sixth, denting a sign in left field to keep it from heading out on to Waveland at 432 feet. His other RBI came on a sacrifice fly. This is an MLB-best RBI total for this season so far, topping Luke Raley’s seven against the White Sox on May 8. Chapman is starting to heat up (obviously), with a .309/.381/.564 line and three homers over his last 15 games. He’s still trying to recover from a frigid late April-early May stretch where he went hitless for seven games, but his .241 season average is now in line with what we’d generally expect from him going forward.

Chapman has been the team’s least productive qualified hitter, so it’s encouraging to see him contributing in the box score. He hasn’t homered since March 31, though, which was his only one of the season. Chapman’s plate discipline metrics look normal, but his batted-ball quality has collapsed in 2026. His track record warrants patience outside of shallower formats.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today had reported earlier in the week that the Giants would love to trade away some of their biggest contracts, including Devers, Chapman, Adames, and Jung Hoo Lee. Murray’s report seems to counter that and suggests that the Giants, who are just six games out of a playoff spot, believe there is “plenty of time between now and the deadline for them to climb out of this hole.” If the Giants are not able to do that, perhaps “further subtractions” would be on the table, but that doesn’t appear to be the case right now.

The Giants made one big move already, sending Patrick Bailey to the Guardians, and it seems like that could just be one step in a full-on rebuild. All of Jung Hoo Lee ($85 million left on his contract), shortstop Willy Adames ($161 million remaining), first baseman Rafael Devers ($226.5 million remaining), and Matt Chapman ($125 million remaining) are owed plenty of money going forward, so the Giants could have plenty of interesting levers to pull as we get closer to the trade deadline.

Heliot Ramos is up to third. Chapman had hit sixth once and somewhere between second and fifth the rest of the time this year. Chapman is batting just .227/.301/.305 this year, with a 32 percent hard-hit rate way off his career mark of 48 percent. Plus, he’s never been a particularly good RBI guy even in his better seasons. Still, he’ll warm up and resume hitting higher at some point. Unless Rafael Devers is back, there just isn’t much difference in quality among the top seven hitters in San Francisco’s lineup.

Who is this contact-oriented version of Chapman? His two-out, two-run single in the second cemented what turned into a big inning for the Giants to put the Nationals to bed early. Through three weeks of play, he now has an uncharacteristically high .291 batting average, low strikeout rate, and just one home run. He’s made an adjustment to shorten up his swing a bit, but that hasn’t detracted from his high bat speed. This might be a fun, new version of Chapman.

Chapman continues to see the ball well as he collected three hits on Tuesday for his third straight multi-hit contest. He started with a pair of base hits in the first and third before knocking a double 111.7 mph off the bat in the fifth to drive in a run before scoring. The 32-year-old third baseman has just an 18 percent strikeout rate while hitting .304/.360/.478 with one homer, seven runs scored, and seven RBI across 50 plate appearances.

Chapman was caught stealing, and he also made an error. A productive offensive game from the 32-year-old despite those blemishes, however, and he also drew a walk. Much of the lineup has struggled in San Francisco for most of 2026, and despite the good game he’s still slashing a disappointing .237/.310/.368.