Giants decide to go defense over bullpen help
Recall outfielder Duggar to aid struggling defense
When a bullpen is overworked and a reliever is struggling in the midst of a blowout, a manager sometimes has no choice but to let the pitcher “wear it,” and keep him in the game despite his troubles.
In baseball lingo, a pitcher who “wears it” almost always finds himself off the roster the next day. Pitchers know that when they finally do give up the ball, they’ll be handing in their uniform too.
That was the case for San Francisco Giants right-hander Dereck Rodríguez, who was left on the mound to suffer through a nine-run fifth-inning for the Oakland A’s offense in a 15-3 blowout loss at Oracle Park on Sunday.
There was little doubt Rodríguez,
who gave up seven hits and five runs over 1 2/3 innings, would be optioned to the team’s alternate site so the Giants could rotate in a new player for Monday’s game against the Angels.
The Giants executed the transaction on Monday, but they made a surprising decision to replace Rodríguez with a position player instead of a pitcher. Rodríguez traveled with the
team to Anaheim and will remain on the taxi squad, but it’s outfielder Steven Duggar, not a long reliever, who is taking his place on the Giants’ 28-man roster.
Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler discussed possible replacements for Rodríguez immediately after Sunday’s defeat, but didn’t settle on Duggar until Monday morning. The decision wasn’t easy considering the Giants’ leadership is attempting to solve catastrophic problems in the team’s bullpen and on defense.
Giants relievers have given up a major leagueworst 24 home runs in 23 games this season while the team’s defense has committed a major league-worst 22 errors, which don’t include the countless mental mistakes that have cost the team several runs and two potential victories against the A’s.
The team’s 8-15 record suggests there’s no shortage of issues to solve, but the Giants ultimately chose Duggar to replace Rodríguez because Kapler said they felt as if they had enough coverage in their bullpen to cover Monday’s starter, Tyler Anderson, and Tuesday’s probable pitcher, Trevor Cahill.
Anderson
is built up to go five innings while Cahill can give the team “four or four-plus,” meaning Giants fans probably shouldn’t expect a quality start or two over the next two games.
Considering how much the Giants’ defense struggled with routine plays during the team’s three-game sweep against the Oakland A’s, the bullpen may be thrilled that Duggar, the club’s best defensive outfielder, is returning to the big leagues.
Because Duggar didn’t fly with the team to Southern California, he isn’t expected to arrive until 30to-60 minutes before first pitch on Monday. Kapler expects him to be available off the bench, meaning he should play in center or right field if the team has a lead to protect in the late innings.
Kapler didn’t want to provide many specifics during a pregame Zoom call with reporters Monday, but it sounds as if one of the primary reasons the Giants added Duggar is because Austin Slater (right elbow flexor strain) still isn’t available in the outfield.
Slater is out of Monday’s lineup and available off the bench to pinch-hit or run, but his elbow injury has prevented him from starting a throwing program and there’s no timetable set for when he could return to the field.
“We are definitely taking Slater day-by-day, but he may not be ready to play defense for us and for that reason, Duggar is on our roster and he gives us another option to go play defense
late in games or start some games for us,” Kapler said.
With Slater down, the Giants had a maximum of two outfielders — Mike Yastrzemski and Mauricio Dubón — who could be considered league average defenders. Given Dubón’s up and down play in center field and the struggles Hunter Pence and Darin Ruf have had in the outfield of late, adding Duggar became a higher priority.
“This is not an indictment on any one individual, it’s an opportunity for us to upgrade our outfield defense on the bench,” Kapler said.
If Anderson or Cahill fails to have a clean start over the next two days, the Giants could once again be scrambling for help in the bullpen. Kapler said the team is entering a series with the Angels without a designated long reliever, and with Rodríguez and Andrew Suárez having recently been optioned, it’s not clear when help might be on the way.
The best-case scenario for the Giants is for their starters to have efficient outings, the offense to perform well enough in the early innings that Duggar can enter late and for Slater’s elbow trouble to clear up soon, but there’s clearly not much margin for error.
As the Giants learned against the A’s this weekend, things can spiral out of control quickly.
When that happens, not pretty.
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