Brandon Crawford will play in Giants' last regular season game

The SF Giants will be without veteran shortstop Brandon Crawford from most of the final two weeks of the season after placing him on the 10-day injured list earlier this week with a hamstring strain. It seemed like the injury could end the 36-year-old's season in what could be his final professional campaign. However, Crawford told reporters on Thursday that he will be activated and start the final game of the regular season regardless of his health status.

“I guess the only fortunate thing is that there’s the last game,” Crawford said. “It’s gonna be emotional, probably. You guys know how emotional I typically get. I don’t know. In a way, I guess I’m looking forward to it just to have that, to have that game.”

During his 13-year career, the Bay Area native has established himself as the greatest shortstop in franchise history and a core player of the team's 2010-2014 dynasty. The two-time World Series champion has made three All-Star appearances, won four Gold Gloves, and a Silver Slugger. However, he has struggled over the past two seasons, particularly this year. Crawford has landed on the injured list four times this season and has hit just .197/.276/.319 in 316 plate appearances. In the final year of a two-year, $36 million contract, there has been ample speculation that he will retire this winter.

Crawford has been noncommittal about retiring, although he has openly discussed considering it. He told reporters earlier this week that he's "had a lot of thoughts. I don’t have an answer. But I’ve had plenty of thoughts.”

The thought of Crawford signing elsewhere seems highly unlikely. He grew up in a family of avid Giants fans that settled in the Bay Area suburb of Pleasanton. The Crawford family even owned season tickets and attended the infamous final regular season game in 1992, when the city of San Francisco thought the Giants were going to move. The family has a commemorative brick with an engraving at Oracle Park.

Crawford was drafted by San Francisco in the fourth round of the 2008 MLB Draft out of UCLA, where he helped lead the Bruins to three straight NCAA Regionals for the first time in school history. In a little under four MiLB seasons, he made his MLB debut on May 27th, 2011, against the Milwaukee Brewers and hit a grand slam.

Crawford has a career .250/.319/.396 triple-slash in 6,234 plate appearances across 1653 games with the Giants in MLB. While his overall line is roughly league average, he has consistently been one of the best defensive shortstops in the league and finished fourth in National League MVP voting in 2021, when he hit .298/.373/.522 with 30 doubles and 24 home runs and was the biggest contributor on the 107-win Giants.

Brandon Crawford is the last vestige of the SF Giants 2010-2014 dynasty left on the active roster. It's fitting that the only core piece of the three World Series teams with deep-rooted ties to the franchise is the last one standing. It remains to be seen whether the 2023 regular season will be his final one, but it's clear that Crawford knows it could be, and for that reason, he will be lacing up his cleats at Oracle Park for the final game of the season against the Dodgers on October 1st.