Multiple SF Giants pitchers appear to be protesting team’s Pride Night

The San Francisco Giants have worn rainbow-colored hats on their annual celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community since 2021. But when Pride Night came to Oracle Park for 2026 on Friday, four of the five pitchers the Giants used in the game doctored their uniforms in what has been become an increasingly common form of protest from MLB players.

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Giants starter Landon Roupp and relievers JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker had verses from the Bible written on their hats, with Roupp and Brubaker writing on the front panels of the hat next to the rainbow-colored SF logo, while Walker wrote his on the side of his hat. Left-handed reliever Sam Hentges didn’t wear the rainbow hat at all, sticking with the usual orange SF logo hat that the team otherwise wears.

JT Brubaker, SF Giants reliever, sharing biblical faith on Pride Night. Landon Roupp, Giants starter, did the same.

Genesis 9:13 NIV
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. pic.twitter.com/jL9wsOOelE

— Mark Higuera (@mark_the_fig) June 13, 2026

While it wasn’t perfectly legible on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast, Roupp and Brubaker both appeared to have written “Genesis 9:13-15” on their hats. The New International Version of the Bible says that a rainbow represents the “sign of the covenant” between God and the earth. Other Bible translations have that specific quote in slightly different parts of the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis. But the words that are referenced in that portion of the Bible have been used by leaders in the Christian community to “reclaim” the rainbow’s symbolism from the LGBTQIA+ community.

MLB players have increasingly offered a silent-but-visible protest to Pride Night celebrations. In Los Angeles, retired Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw and current Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen spoke out against the team’s celebration of the LGBTQIA+ community before. Last year, Kershaw wrote that section of Genesis on his hat during the team’s Pride Night. And this year, Treinan decided not to wear the rainbow-colored hat on the team’s most recent Pride Night, opting a regular white LA logo hat. Outfielder Alex Call did the same, and each received praise by conservative media outlets for the move.

There has been one Giants player who has done so before. In 2024, shortstop Nick Ahmed told the San Francisco Chronicle he wrote a Bible verse on his rainbow-colored hat. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.) Ahmed said he didn’t know about that movement and said it was just about his faith. Until Friday night, no Giants player had declined to wear the rainbow-colored SF hat during Pride Night, making Hentges the first not to do so since 2021.

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Given the volume of Giants pitchers who either didn’t wear the rainbow-colored hat or wrote a Bible verse on it, it sure appears to have been a protest effort from multiple players. After the Giants lost 5-1, Roupp told reporters a similar line to what Ahmed said two years prior and added, “There’s no hate at all. It’s just what I stand for and what I stand on.”

If Roupp and the other Giants were writing this message on their hats every single night, that wouldn’t be as big a deal. But to do it on the only night the team celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community sure makes it appear to be a protest, whether they will say it is or not.