Giants Pitcher Robbie Ray Stands Firm in His Faith: ‘Child of God’

Published: June 2, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

After two years, Giants pitcher Robbie Ray finally returned to the mound this season as he keeps his faith first.

In 2023, Ray underwent Tommy John surgery to repair his elbow. Now, two years later, he “is tied for the major-league lead with seven wins, has yet to take a loss, and is sporting a 2.56 earned run average,” Sports Spectrum reported.

When the athlete underwent surgery in 2023, he wasn’t able to play or workout, instead digging into his faith in God which he has carried with him into this season.

“As long as you’re grounded in what your true identity is — and that’s a child of God — it makes everything a lot easier,” Ray said at the Tales from the Dugout event in 2024. “For me, throughout this whole process, understanding that is who I am. I’m not defined by what I do; I’m defined by who I am, and that’s a child of God.”

Robbie Ray: 6.0 IP | 3 H | 1 R | 1 BB | 7 Ks

He moves to 7-0 on the season 👀 pic.twitter.com/ChZpVP0Msl

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) May 25, 2025

The athlete’s relationship with Jesus began in the 2012 offseason following a bad year.

“I was like, ‘God, why are you doing this to me? Why?!’” he recalled wondering.

The answer God gave him?

“‘I’m not doing this TO you. I am doing this FOR you,'” Ray revealed. “‘So you can see that life is bigger than just baseball. I have a purpose for you.’ It’s like He was saying, ‘I have given you this great opportunity, this awesome platform and you’re squandering it. I gave you this gift of baseball to reach out to people and you’re doing nothing with it.'”

From that point, he gave everything to Christ and strives to be available for God to use at any moment.

“I felt like, for me, when I walked into the clubhouse, I said I’m just going to make myself available and I’m going to put myself in a situation where I can just be there and listen to someone talk if they need me. It was pretty amazing,” Ray said during the 2022 Tales from the Dugout event.

“I had multiple occasions where a teammate of mine who wasn’t a believer would come up to me and ask me something about the Bible or about sin or about heaven and hell, and it was nothing I did. I’m just sitting in a food room, eating my food, just making myself available for those conversations. Walking in saying, ‘Holy Spirit, if it’s today, then I’m ready.'”

He added, “It goes back to living your life as an example. Being the example of Christ to these guys. They knew that they could come to me in those situations and ask those questions because they had seen the way that I had lived out my daily life at the clubhouse.”

Ray and the Giants take on the Padres tonight at 8:45 p.m.