Outburst or not, reliever plagued by inconsistency
Richard Pryor had a classic bit about boxing as a kid and facing a challenger, who at the sound of the bell started punching himself in the head as he advanced out of the opposite corner.
Pryor said considering his opponent was going about beating himself up as a warmup, he most certainly could not care less about Pryor’s welfare.
I thought about that and got quite the chuckle the night in May when Ken Giles came off the field and punched himself in the face.
I was sure Giles cared about his Astros teammates, though. It was his disappointment in himself that led to the meltdown.
My guess is that was again the case Tuesday night as Giles left the mound having failed to do what his team needed him to.
Instead of a self beatdown, this time Giles cursed to himself. Or cussed at the Minute Maid Park crowd that has become as comfortable booing him as it is doing the wave.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch happened to be walking up at that moment to take the ball away from Giles, opening the door to the theory that Giles had lit into his boss.
Even if amateur lipreaders are accurate, the vulgar utterance isn’t nearly as big a deal as some have tried to make of it. It wasn’t the reason Giles was demoted to Class AAA on Wednesday.
If you have never been good enough at something to curse your boss and not get fired, too bad for you.
Unfortunately, Giles isn’t good enough at his job right now to do anything but curse himself.
It mattered not who he was cursing. What most concerned the Astros was not what came out of Giles’ mouth, but what came out of his hand.
General manager Jeff Luhnow says shipping Giles off to Fresno was “a baseball decision.” After entering Tuesday’s game with the Astros ahead of the A’s 4-0, Giles threw eight pitches, gave up three hits and did not record any outs.
He ended up being charged with three runs, and though the Astros would claim a comefrom-behind win in extra innings, they had seen enough.
Inconsistency an issue
Almost everything in baseball is a gamble. It’s a percentage game.
The Astros, who have the second-best record in baseball, believed Giles had become too inconsistent to predict.
“We can’t roll the dice every time he’s out there and hope it’s the three-out save as opposed to three hits and out of the game,” Luhnow said.
In many areas, Giles put up good numbers. He has a teamhigh 12 saves, has not allowed a run in a save situation and has walked only three of 129 batters he faced.
But in non-save situations — as was the case Tuesday — he has been horrendous, surrendering 17 runs in 182⁄3 innings for an 8.20 ERA.
Giles hasn’t gotten consistent movement on his fastball and slider, so perhaps there is a need for some mechanical tweaking, but that could have been done in the majors.
His biggest issue is mental. He doesn’t trust himself and the Astros surely don’t trust him.
“We need to get him right,” Hinch said. “He’s not right.”
Hector Rondon, who is 7for-10 in save situations, will take most of the late-inning, high-leverage situations.
Despite the Astros’ assertions that they expect Giles to contribute to this team later in the season, look for him to be wearing the visiting team’s uniform the next time he pitches in Minute Maid Park.
Giles, who turns 28 in September, came up four years ago with the Phillies and hasn’t been back to the minors since.
A team that believes in a player, specifically a closer, rarely makes this type of move.
No position on a baseball team is more mentally demanding than closer. When a lateinning reliever believes he is invincible, he can be almost impossible to hit.
Hinch has been hesitant
Take the mound without that air of invincibility, and blowups like Giles had so often this season are likely.
In last year’s playoffs, he surrendered a run in six of seven appearances. In Game 4 of the World Series, he threw eight pitches to three batters and didn’t get any outs, and Hinch didn’t call on him again the rest of the series.
He has been up and down enough this season that Hinch is hesitant to call on him.
Hinch was even more reluctant to talk about cursing and carrying on.
“He pitches with a lot of emotion, and when things are going well we love it, and when things aren’t going well we have our concerns because of the volatility of the end-of-thegame type stuff,” Hinch said.
There is no predicting how Giles will handle this demotion.
He probably went down kicking and screaming, and punching and cursing.
That isn’t why he went down, but could be why he won’t be back.