The San Francisco Giants will not finish the first half of the 2026 season in last place. If the season is going to underwhelm, then so will the flags they fly above the ballpark. “The 2026 Giants,” this one will read, “1st Half — Not Last Place.” You’ll take it. For now. And maybe buy a shirt of it if the price is reasonable.The final game of their series win against the Colorado Rockies coincided with the second day of the 2026 MLB Draft, when teams start drafting based on outlier tools, senior signability or the statistical analyses their internal models spit out. The win was nice enough to offer a ready-made refresher about the importance of the draft. In chronological order, you had …Trevor McDonald (11th round, 2019) started the game and had an excellent outing, perhaps the best of his MLB career, allowing just one run and three hits, with a walk and four strikeouts in seven innings. He needed just 73 pitches to get that far, and with a bigger lead, he might have had a chance for his first complete game.McDonald pitching on the draft’s second day is perfect, because he’s the best example of the high school pitcher who gets signed away from his college commitment. Ahead of the 2019 draft, Baseball America ranked McDonald as the 151st-best prospect, one of the best high school right-handers overall, and he was expected to go in the first few rounds. But as he kept falling, teams assumed they wouldn’t have enough money left to sign him away from his South Alabama commitment. The Giants took a chance, and they convinced him to sign.It took a while for McDonald to make the majors, as you might expect from a high-school draftee, with stops and starts, injuries and rough adjustments to promotions. But he’s here, seven years later, affecting the Giants’ ability to win or lose. In this game, he helped them win, but in future games? Nobody’s really sure yet. He has obvious stuff, with a nasty sinker-slider pairing, but he’s also the poster child for the difference between command and control. McDonald doesn’t struggle because he gives up too many walks; he struggles because he’s not always hitting corners and edges with his pitches, which he needs to do. On Sunday, he hit them, and the Rockies were flummoxed. If he keeps hitting the same spots going forward, the Giants will always have a spot for him.Draft comp from this year’s class: The Giants selected 21 players in this weekend’s draft. They didn’t take a high school pitcher in the later rounds in this year’s draft, but they did take center fielder Josiah Kemp in the 12th round, and he’s a) a big-time Oklahoma recruit and b) the nephew of Matt Kemp, which means he may have met Rhianna. The Giants might not sign him, but they also took multiple seniors who aren’t likely to sign for slot money. And in seven years, you still might be wondering if Kemp will be a long-term major leaguer, and you’ll be happy to be doing so.Bryce Eldridge looks like the ultimate draft success story for the Giants thus far. (Stan Szeto / Imagn Images)The first run of Sunday’s game scored after Bryce Eldridge (1st round, 2023) drew a two-out walk. He’s the obvious manifestation of a draft dream: the first-round pick who does what he’s supposed to, when he’s supposed to, checking every box along the way. From the second Eldridge was drafted, a little devil appeared on your shoulder and whispered unreasonable expectations into your ear. “Imagine if he has the strike-zone judgment of Brandon Belt and the home-run beltment of Aaron Judge,” he said, and you thought, yeah, that would be neat. “What if he’s doing all this when he’s 21 and helping the Giants squeeze out low-scoring wins?” You thought against your better discretion, sure, that would be amazing.