Rotation watch:
With recent issues, Giants starters bear watching.
MILWAUKEE — There is little doubt the Giants, with all their power, can outscore teams. The bullpen is clicking as well as it has all year and is among baseball’s best.
The rotation, such a strength for the club in the first half, is something of a question mark, however, with 53 games remaining entering Friday.
AllStar Kevin Gausman appeared to right himself in his most recent outing after losing some of the effectiveness with his best pitch, the splitter, which he wasn’t locating as well. Throwing his fastball far more now is working, but can he go the rest of the way with basically two pitches, one of which is something of a work in progress? He’s away on paternity leave — Gausman and his wife, Taylor, welcomed their second daughter, Sutton, who arrived Friday at 6 pounds and 5 ounces. But he isn’t expected to miss a start.
“I’m impressed with Gausman,” said one American League scout who has seen the Giants numerous times in the past month. “He will be fine.”
No. 2 starter Anthony DeSclafani is on the injured list, with the team skipping him one time through the rotation, Saturday, because of shoulder fatigue; he’s closing in on 130 innings after just 332⁄3 innings last year. He’s the exemplar when it comes to the Giants’ dropoff in results since the break, with a 2.68 ERA in the first half and a 6.63 mark since. “He’s having issues with command and repeating his delivery,” the scout said. “Maybe it is the tired arm, but he’s going to have to step it up.”
Alex Wood has been terrific when the team is coming off a loss, going 80 in such starts with the Giants winning all 10 of those games. After wins, the Giants are 36 in his starts — and were very nearly 27 after he went just four innings in Thursday’s late comeback victory at Arizona. Those are smallsample numbers, certainly, and there is much to be said for a solid stopper in the rotation but the scout noted, “As competitive as he is, Wood is very inconsistent with that delivery and it’s hard to count on six innings.”
Johnny Cueto is the longesttenured member of the rotation, and has veered all over the place with some superb outings early, a handful of rough ones in May and July. He has been the starter most likely to get through at least five innings for the past two months.
Rookie Logan Webb is something of a wild card: He’s got oodles of talent, and he’s the one forsure returning starter next year. When he’s on, Webb can dominate — he’s striking out a batter per inning — but he’s still gaining experience.
The Giants believe in the bunch, clearly. The team opted not to add a starter at the trade deadline last week, with the price tags high for the top targets. And on The Chronicle’s Giants Splash podcast, general manager Scott Harris said, “First, we have a lot of confidence in our current rotation ... Webby is throwing the ball about as well as anyone right now and we’re committed to giving him the runway to continue to grow into a dependable starter for us.
“I don’t think we’re naive enough to think that we’ll only have five starters for the rest of the season. And I think we may try to manage workloads for our starters and keep them fresh by skipping a start here and there. But we feel really good about them right now. They’re performing as a topfour rotation in the game right now.”
Still, an injury or two, or some major underperformance down the stretch could be the difference between winning the division or being stuck in the wildcard game.
The Giants do have options. Aaron Sanchez is expected to get the bulk of the innings Saturday in what usually would be DeSclafani’s spot, and he’s a former AllStar who had a terrific April before injuries sidelined him for two months.
Scott Kazmir remains in the organization after a starring role at the Olympics, at age 37 no less. Tyler Beede, considered a member of the future rotation, is back from Tommy John surgery and is at TripleA Sacramento. Top pitching prospect Sean Hjelle was just promoted to Sacramento. But the first option at Sacramento might be promising lefty Sammy Long.
For the Giants, though, the best outcome would be for the current group to stay healthy, throw strikes and be consistent.
“That rotation is solid,” the AL scout said. “They all just have to be the best version of themselves.”