Wednesday BP: The Belt Wars are over

Good morning, baseball fans!

Last night’s game was...let’s just say we’re going to be talking about this game for a long time. But for now, and just on a surface note, it was great to see Brandon Belt hit his second home run of the season to kick off the absolute bashing of a San Diego Padres organization that, in my personal opinion, kind of deserved it based on their behavior during the game. But that’s a story for tomorrow’s BP. You came here for dingers and here you go!

For years, a battle was raging among fans of the San Francisco Giants. That battle consisted of those who looked at numbers and watched games and concluded that Brandon Belt is, actually, a good baseball player. And then there were those who believed that no matter what he did, no matter what the numbers said, that he was a bust. Those people have, ultimately, been proven to be the losing party of the Belt Wars.

Over the last two seasons, Belt has been one of the best offensive players in the game. With the retirement of Buster Posey, Belt became the longest tenured player on the team, and the organization has already shown that he’ll be one of the more marketed players this year. Especially given his self-appointed status as “the captain” which led to him getting brought out on a freaking boat and throwing out the first pitch for Opening Day, followed by a captain hat giveaway the next day.

Belt took the qualifying offer to return to the team this year, but it seems likely to me that both he and Brandon Crawford will play for the Giants until they decide to retire as well. The Buster Posey era is over. Now we are in the Brandon era, at least until the torch gets passed yet again, as is the cyclical nature of both life and baseball.

What time do the Giants play today?

The Giants wrap up this three-game series with the San Diego Padres this afternoon at 12:45pm.