What is happening with Brandon Belt’s facial hair?

This morning, while perusing Twitter in search of my next great investigative journalism story to pursue, I saw a tweet from San Francisco Giants beat reporter Alex Pavlovic. It was a picture of a man with some facial hair.

At first I scrolled right on by. I assumed there was a reference I didn’t get. A screenshot from a movie, perhaps? A picture of another writer who I didn’t recognize?

And then it hit me. By god, that’s Brandon Belt.

That’s Brandon Belt with an entirely different grooming regimen than we’ve come to expect.

Belt was on this week’s episode of “Chalk Talk @ Home”, a Giants quarantine YouTube series where broadcasters Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, Dave Flemming, and Jon Miller talk with various Giants people. In this case, they talked with Belt and Brandon Crawford.

Five of the six men looked the way we’ve come to expect. Belt did not.

Let’s go through this one by one.

Dave Flemming

Dave looks like Dave. He looks like he’s loving that the quarantine is allowing him more time to hang out with his kids, prune the bushes out front, and clean out the garage.

Duane Kuiper

Kuip might secretly be my favorite here. He looks like a man who has finally realized that he doesn’t have to travel around the country eight months a year for work, and could instead retire to a sprawling vineyard estate and start every morning sitting on the porch drinking Pinot Grigio.

Mike Krukow

I don’t know what courses Dr. Krukow teaches at the university, but I’m signing up for all of them. I’m pretty sure he’s talking in a Ken Burns documentary in this still.

Brandon Crawford

Yep, that’s Brandon Crawford.

Jon Miller

Miller looks like he decided to have multiple sourdough starters in his house, to see if they react differently in different rooms. He’s keeping detailed notes.

Brandon Belt

Ahh, now we get to our star pupil.

ENHANCE!

I have no idea what’s happening here but I am one million percent here for it, and if Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris ever trade Belt to the New York Yankees (presented by Manscaped), I will never, ever, ever forgive them.