You could make a fairly strong case that the period between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning was the worst 20-hour stretch in the history of the San Francisco Giants bullpen.
On Wednesday afternoon, the bullpen took the mound for the ninth inning holding a 9-3 lead over the Cincinnati Reds, with the first series sweep of the season standing before them. It was the 2,209th time in franchise history that they had led a game by six or more runs entering the ninth inning.
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And moments later, it became the first time in franchise history that they lost such a game.
Those shenanigans were compounded on Thursday morning, when general manager Zack Minasian went on KNBR and authored one of the most strange and unnecessary defenses I’ve ever seen from an executive. Minasian was asked about the bullpen, and surely knew that no one would fault him for admitting that the ‘pen — which ranks 19th in ERA, 19th in FIP, 25th in fWAR, and 26th in SIERA — is an issue that needs addressing. In fact, that level of transparency for something so obvious would have been, dare I say, refreshing.
But no. Minasian instead pointed out that the bullpen has actually been quite strong if you just remove all the times when it hasn’t been.
Yet even in the most tragic of seasons, baseball has a way of being poetic. So it was only fitting that, immediately following that 24-hour circus of absurdities, the Giants beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-1 in a game where their bullpen was the shining star.
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Despite the low score from their opponent, the Giants needed to cover four innings with the bullpen, since what Landen Roupp possessed in grittiness he lacked in efficiency. Roupp was on cruise control until the fourth inning, when he gave up a leadoff home run to Gabriel Moreno, which tied the game. That dinger was a harbinger of things to come later in the inning, as the wheels came eerily close to flying off.
Geraldo Perdomo followed with a single, and then Roupp lucked out slightly when Max Kepler scorched a 110.7-mph liner that found the glove of Drew Gilbert in right field. After Perdomo stole a base standing, Roupp walked Tim Tawa, and ceded a single to Jose Fernandez. The bases were loaded, and there was only one out.
Yet Roupp found a way to dig deep. He worked a fly ball out of Ildemaro Vargas that was just shallow enough to keep Perdomo at third, then struck out Ryan Waldschmidt to end the inning. It had taken him 30 pitches, but he had somehow made it out relatively unscathed.
But with that heavy inning in the books, Roupp was destined for an early night. He set down the side in order in the fifth, but it required 18 additional pitches, which brought his tally up to 95 on the night. And with that, it was bullpen time.
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And so the relief corps inherited a lead, but with a daunting task of needing to cover four innings to maintain it. It was the slimmest of leads, too: just 2-1, thanks to Gilbert. The same Gilbert who is heating up in a big way, and surely making the front office feel more comfortable by the day that center field is handled in 2027.
Gilbert led off the first inning with a home run hit to a part of the park that does not see very many home runs. I think there were probably some cobwebs collected on that baseball.
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And Gilbert was there to bring in the second run as well, when he knocked a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning that completed a small-ball rally, in which Christian Koss had reached base by way of a hit by pitch, and taken two bases on a Nate Furman bunt.
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So that was where things stood as Trent Harris took the mound for the sixth inning. Harris has been wickedly intriguing during his short debut stint in the Majors, but the formerly undrafted prospect hasn’t been altogether impressive. But that’s exactly the time of arm that a team 25 games below .500 (only 24 now!) should use in such a situation.
Harris was unhittable. He struck out Perdomo, induced a weak fly ball from Kepler, and struck out Tawa. He stayed in for the seventh, where he worked two pop-ups and a soft grounder, throwing just nine pitches along the way.
Brilliance.
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Next up was Carson Seymour, another inexperienced player auditioning to be a part of the answer to a bullpen that is the largest of question marks. Seymour quickly got two outs, before walking Moreno. As if to atone for his mistake, Seymour promptly proceeded to pick Moreno off. All’s well that ends well.
Eight innings were in the book, and here’s where things got a little silly. The Giants, wisely, decided to accrue some insurance runs in the bottom half of the eighth inning. It began when Jung Hoo Lee drew a pinch-hit, leadoff walk, and then moved to third on a funky, one-out infield single by Rafael Devers. The big hit then came from Bryce Eldridge who, in his first game back following a three-game stint on the bereavement list, doubled Lee home.
But the rally wasn’t there. Eldridge may be the most heralded rookie on the team, but a pair of fellow rookies stood behind him in the order, with Jonah Cox and then Turner Hill each ripping RBI singles. All that was left was a Shay Whitcomb bunt, which easily scored the hyper-speedy Cox.
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With that, the Giants had pushed the lead to 6-1. Which led to one of the more questionable managerial decisions in recent memory.
Ryan Walker.
A day after the Giants blew a six-run ninth inning lead for the first time in franchise history, the Giants were attempting to preserve a five-run lead that no one in the stadium was fully confident they could do. And they turned to Walker, who has lost the closer job too many times to count in the last few years, and who carried an 8.38 ninth-inning ERA into … umm … the ninth inning.
Truthfully, it wasn’t actually a bad time to use Walker, as the Giants have exhausted their bullpen lately and would love to get the funky righty comfortable again with high-leverage situations. But the narrative … my goodness the narrative. The fanbase probably would have given Tony Vitello more grace if he put a position player on the mound for the ninth than if Walker blew a five-run lead a day after Wednesday’s outrageousness.
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And you could feel the tension mount when Perdomo laced a leadoff single, and Kepler followed with a single of his own. Here we go again.
But Walker dug deep and struck out Tawa, and then his defense bailed him out: Whitcomb, playing third, made a sensational to not just rob Fernandez of a likely double, but get an out in the process.
That killed whatever momentum was mounting towards historical nonsense, and Walker quickly dispatched of Vargas.
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For one day, at least, the bullpen was a strength.
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