The Giants — a team most analysts wrote off before Opening Day — keep finding ways to bully the Los Angeles Dodgers, a franchise that spends money like a city supervisor with a discretionary fund. The latest chapter? Catcher Eric Haase, a journeyman who's bounced around the league, became the first Giants catcher to hit two home runs in a single game at Dodger Stadium. Oh, and he's also now the first player to go multi-homer against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers' $325 million import from Japan.

Let that sink in. The Dodgers' payroll could fund a small nation's infrastructure. They signed Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and seemingly half the free agent market. And yet Eric Haase — a guy whose salary is roughly what the Dodgers spend on clubhouse snacks — keeps finding a way to make them look mortal.

There's something deeply satisfying about watching a bloated budget get outperformed by grit, scouting, and good old-fashioned competitive fire. San Francisco knows this feeling well. We live in a city where throwing more money at a problem almost never produces better results. (See: homelessness spending, Muni, public restrooms that cost more than most apartments.)

The Giants aren't supposed to be here. They don't have the payroll, the star power, or the ESPN hype. But they keep showing up in LA and playing like they own the place.

Is this a championship-caliber team? Maybe not. But in a rivalry that thrives on pettiness and pride, watching a roster built on value picks and castoffs punk the Dodgers' billion-dollar machine is the most entertaining thing happening in San Francisco right now.

Spend smarter, not harder. Even baseball knows it.