The Giants’ lineup heated up in Milwaukee; here’s a suggestion on how to keep it going

MILWAUKEE — The San Francisco Giants’ lineup card Thursday afternoon listed Casey Schmitt as the left fielder and leadoff hitter — two places that no living and sober soul, Schmitt included, could have envisioned when the season began a little over two months ago.

Schmitt has been the Giants’ most productive hitter. He’s made major strides in his two-strike approach. He’s doing enough damage at the plate to be a legitimate All-Star candidate, even if he might as well be the Peace and Freedom candidate on the designated hitter ballot with Shohei Ohtani. As a leadoff guy, though, he appears as miscast as John Travolta in “Battlefield Earth.” He’s drawn just seven walks. He doesn’t see a ton of pitches per plate appearance.

But the Giants had a problem that lacked a solution. They entered Thursday with a major league-worst .262 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot. The way they figured it, at least Schmitt has been making something happen in his at-bats all season. When you’re trying to set a tone, you could do worse than to start the game with your best action guy at the plate.

Schmitt created action on the first pitch. He lofted a drive that slipped past the outstretched glove of Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio, hit the yellow padding on the top of the fence and bounced over for his career-best 13th home run of the season. It was a lid-lifting swing to what became a three-run inning, and that rally was merely the opening act in a 20-hit performance as the Giants earned a four-game series split with a 12-9 victory at American Family Field.

The Giants received 10 of those 20 hits from their Nos. 5-7 batters. Jung Hoo Lee continued to be the toughest out in the major leagues this week, going 4-for-5 to extend a 12-game hitting streak in which he’s batting .521. Bryce Eldridge, the 22-year-old rookie DH ballyhooed for his power, demonstrated yet again that he’s far more than a one-dimensional hitter while reaching base four times and taking one professional plate appearance after another. And Matt Chapman, batting seventh while he tries to emerge from a season-long slump, collected his first three-hit game since April 17, including two that drove in runs.

Catcher Eric Haase, the No. 8 batter, only finished with one hit, but he made it count. His grand slam in the seventh inning was the third of his career, and it blew open the game, but only for the moment, because the Giants’ bullpen nearly gave it back in the ninth.

Right-hander Wilkin Ramos didn’t retire any of the four batters he faced, and the Brewers brought the tying run to the plate against Caleb Kilian. Milwaukee’s David Hamilton gave the home crowd a momentary thrill when he hit a deep drive to center field, but defensive replacement Jonah Cox ran it down on the warning track and allowed the visiting dugout to exhale.

The Brewers’ near comeback also transformed center fielder Drew Gilbert’s seventh-inning home run robbery of Andrew Vaughn from a feel-good highlight play into what might have been a game-saving catch. Gilbert, who might be 5-foot-10 in spikes, leapt at the wall like a 6th-grader trying to dunk a basketball and got enough air underneath him to reach over the top of the fence and turn a two-run homer into an inning-ending catch.

DREW GILBERT TAKES A HOME RUN BACK pic.twitter.com/iE4w9xtHSG

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 4, 2026

“The only way you win a game like that is if our offense was as electric as they were, and then you probably needed to sprinkle in some good defense, too,” said Giants manager Tony Vitello, who watched Gilbert make more than a few leaping catches at the fence when he coached him at the University of Tennessee.

“Not that the pitchers didn’t do some good things, but … you’re not going to win games when you walk eight guys. You’re just not. But they were able to do some things today to make it happen. … The guys we’ll keep using in the bullpen and that will stay with us are the guys, at the very least, that will throw strikes. When you have a lead, you need strikes more than ever. It’s got to be a theme for us.”

The Giants knew from the start that they’d have to win a few games this way, with their offense running up the score on days when their suspect pitching staff didn’t have it. The problem in April and much of May is that their offense could barely run up a bar tab. The pitching issues remain, and they might be more concerning than ever, but at least their lineup appears better equipped to compete in a high-scoring game.

“Today we felt like an actual team offense, not just a bunch of guys going up there trying to make stuff happen,” Haase said. “At-bats were leading off each other, and it led to wearing down starters, wearing down bullpen guys. That’s the kind of stuff we want going forward — tons of eight- and nine-pitch at-bats, get on for the next guy to come up and have success.”

Rafael Devers was the only member of the lineup without a hit as he entered the ninth inning riding an 0-for-16 series. Then he hit a double off the base of the right-field wall.

Devers remains the most important piston in the engine block, but the time might be fast approaching when Eldridge overtakes him. The rookie has a .512 on-base percentage over a 12-game streak in which he’s reached safely. He’s leading the team with 4.11 pitches per plate appearance. Despite playing just 21 games, he’s already tied for fifth on the team in walks.

Which, say, now that you think about it …

“Oh yeah, I batted leadoff in high school, in Little League,” Eldridge said. “Honestly, I was way faster, like, early on in high school. In Little League, I was always the fastest.”

If you haven’t noticed, speed isn’t the top prerequisite for a leadoff hitter these days. Being the team’s best run producer isn’t a disqualifier, either. That Ohtani guy bats leadoff for the Dodgers, after all.

Vitello and his staff have discussed lineup concepts with Eldridge at leadoff, but they don’t want to put too much on the rookie’s plate right away, especially when he’s producing lower in the order. But there might come a time soon when they no longer harbor those concerns. With every professional at-bat, Eldridge keeps putting everyone more at ease that he belongs.

“I think he has our best takes, and I don’t think I’m gonna upset any of the veterans if, for some reason, that got back to them,” Vitello said. “Not that there’s other guys that don’t have moments that are pretty dang good in the box for us, but for the youngest guy on the roster, he has the best takes as far as the calm and the position he’s in to hit. And I think that allows him to get on base in addition to the hitting, because the walks are there. … It’s obvious he adds length to the lineup no matter where he’s slotted.”

The Giants tried Willy Adames at leadoff for 31 games. They tried Lee there for 16 games, and his .296 on-base percentage from the top spot was the best anyone on the team has managed. Schmitt, who was batting leadoff for the fifth time on Thursday, is less a permanent solution than a hot hand.

For a more permanent solution, how about a lineup with Eldridge leading off, Adames hitting second and Luis Arraez third? The Giants could put Adames in motion with the league’s best contact man at the plate, perhaps vacating some spots on the infield that would allow even more hits to sneak through. As long as Schmitt keeps hitting, he could fit at cleanup with Devers and Chapman behind him. (If Chapman gets going, he could move up to cleanup.) Lee might be way too hot right now to make sense as the seventh hitter, but his contact abilities could be even more valuable with traffic on the bases. That arrangement would create a Fort Bragg cadence — left, right, left, right, left, right, left — before you get to the catcher and center fielder in the final two slots.

Of course, the batting order is of secondary importance. It’s more important to have a deep supply of productive hitters. For once, the Giants are getting several of their hitters into a productive groove at the same time. They’ve quietly raised their team batting average to .256, which is tied for third behind only the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves. Arraez (.324) and Lee (.322, after raising his average 59 points over the past 18 games) rank third and fourth among all major-league hitters and could end up pushing each other for a batting title.

Lee’s numbers on the road trip got some extra helium because it started at Coors Field, where he collected 11 hits in three games. But it’s tougher to dismiss the Giants’ 25-hit explosion there last Sunday when they were able to post 20 hits on Thursday. The Giants had achieved a 20-hit game just twice this decade before doing it twice in a five-game span on this road trip.

It’ll be a good problem if new third-base coach Gary Pettis is so busy that he has to ice his shoulder after he takes the field for Friday’s series opener against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Maybe Eldridge won’t be asked to bat leadoff against the Cubs. But the idea could begin to make more and more sense.

“The name of the game is getting on base and finding ways to help the team win,” Eldridge said. “If I can do that with working a walk or getting a guy over, even if it’s a groundout to second, or hitting the ball over the fence, if I can help out in a lot of different ways, then I feel I just bring more value to the team.

“Everyone knew coming into the season what we were capable of. We’ve definitely shown it here. I just look forward to continuing to see us get more consistent with it and to just keep banging, man. I mean, this lineup is fun, it’s fun to be a part of, and this is going to be very fun to watch the rest of the year. I think we’re just coming out of our shells as a group.”