BOSTON — Brandon Crawford, the splendid shortstop for the San Francisco Giants, is the best defensive player in baseball. If only he knew what to make of it.

“I’m on social media, so I see it, but probably the reason I don’t look at it is because I don’t know how they calculate it,” Crawford said Wednesday. “I don’t know what to do better. Like I know, if my average is low, to get more hits. It’s a pretty simple fix; not that it’s easy, but you know what you have to do. With defensive runs saved and all the sabermetric stats, I don’t know. I just want to make the plays.”

Crawford makes so many that when Fangraphs packages all its defensive metrics into one number — defensive runs above average — Crawford ranks first in the majors. The Giants, who visit Yankee Stadium for three games starting Friday, also rank first as a team.

Success on defense has propped up a roster hobbled by injuries to right fielder Hunter Pence (hamstring), second baseman Joe Panik (concussion) and third baseman Matt Duffy (Achilles’ tendon). The Giants lost their fifth game in a row on Wednesday, by 11-7 to the Red Sox at Fenway Park, yet with a 57-38 record they stand just a half-game behind the Chicago Cubs for the best in the majors.