San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Moronta sharp no matter what glove he wears
SAN DIEGO — When Bart aimed his pistol at Mongo in “Blazing Saddles,” the Waco Kid warned the new sheriff of Rock Ridge, “If you shoot him, it will only make him mad.”
Reyes Moronta is the Mongo of the Giants’ bullpen. In the sixth inning of their 3-2 victory over the Padres on Saturday night, their first win of the year, Moronta struck out Manny Machado with nobody out and the potential tying run on second base. Right then, somebody made Moronta swap out his gray glove because it blended into his road uniform.
If San Diego manager Andy Green was the instigator, well, he needs to study Mel Brooks more.
Moronta, hardly flustered, struck out Wil Myers and Hunter Renfroe to end the sixth. He retook the mound in the seventh, and by the time his two-inning, 38-pitch effort was over, Moronta had a career-high five strikeouts — four with the potential tying run on second base.
Offense-starved fans might fixate on the Giants’ three-run rally in the sixth, but everyone in the clubhouse understood that Moronta was the star. He saved the win long before Will Smith got the “SV” in the boxscore.
“Moronta is nasty,” winning pitcher Dereck Rodriguez said. “They didn’t really care about his glove color. They tried to mess with him, but he just stuck to his game plan. He was awesome.”
Brandon Belt also busted out a “nasty.”
“When he comes in, you know it’s going to be tough on the other team,” Belt said of Moronta. “Tonight was no exception.”
Moronta was as good as he was durable last year. He promises to be even better in 2019 if he really trusts himself to throw a new changeup along with his 98 mph fastball and a slider that seems impossible to hit. Doubly so if he fixes his major flaw from 2018: walking the first guy he faces.
Machado was Moronta’s first hitter of the season, and a 1-2 slider made it no contest. With a new glove, Myers and Renfroe went down, too. When Moronta returned for the seventh inning, he struck out his fourth straight hitter, Fernando Tatis Jr., then used a slider to finish Manuel Margot and his outing.
The staff did lecture Moronta on the importance of not walking his first hitter.
“Everything is mental,” Moronta said through interpreter Erwin Higueros. “I concentrate now on just throwing my first pitch as a strike. If that pitch goes as a strike, everything is mentally just easier.”
Left-handers Tony Watson and Smith deserve mention for navigating San Diego’s right-heavy lineup in the eighth and ninth innings to preserve a one-run win.
The Giants, who had scored once in their first 25 innings on an Evan Longoria homer, broke a scoreless tie with a three-run sixth off Nick Margevicius (in his major-league debut) and reliever Robert Stock.
Steven Duggar sparked the rally with a leadoff single. Yangervis Solarte, Longoria and Joe Panik got the RBIs, Panik with a two-out single off lefty Robbie Erlin with the bases loaded and two runs in.
Giants fans got a fright when Longoria immediately departed after scoring without the Giants announcing what happened. The club’s hottest hitter fouled a ball off his left calf and was pulled as a precaution — not a big deal, said Bochy, who added Longoria could have stayed in, “but why take a chance?”
Belt dodged serious injury when he was hit on the right hand by a Margevicius pitch. Sporting a wrap after the game, Belt self-reported his minor injury as “bruised fat in my hand.”
In the first inning, Duggar looked more scared than hurt when he, too, was hit by a pitch. Margevicius nicked him on the tip of his nose, an odd way for a pitcher to begin his big-league career.
Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@hankschulman