‘Love it here’: Smyly says he’d be happy to return

Drew Smyly gave the Giants a chance to win Sunday’s regular season finale, and now he’s open to getting another chance to pitch in San Francisco.

The lefthanded pitcher signed a oneyear contract last offseason, and he’ll be a free agent again this offseason. The shortened 2020 season was enough time for Smyly to conclude he’d like to return in 2021.

“Yeah, absolutely,” he said. “I honestly, truly love it here. I think it’s a great place to pitch. It’s a great city to be in. The weather. The teammates. The guys. The culture. A lot of things I love about playing here and being a Giant.”

Smyly, 31, was shelved for nearly six weeks with a finger injury after making three appearances. He returned to appear four times in September, showing a fastballcurve combination that kept batters off balance.

Sunday, Smyly struck out 10 batters in five innings while yielding two runs. He finished with a 3.42 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 261⁄3 innings.

Smyly, who made the prorated sum of his $4 million salary, is further removed from his Tommy John surgery, which cost him the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and the Giants will have a need because Kevin Gausman (10 starts) also will be a free agent, as will Jeff Samardzija (four) and Trevor Cahill (six).

Of the seven pitchers who made more than one start for the Giants this year, only Johnny Cueto, Logan Webb and Tyler Anderson are under team control for 2021. Tyler Beede (22 starts in 2019) is coming off Tommy John surgery. So it’s a good bet the Giants will try to bring back Smyly.

“Good group of guys,” he said. “There were no egos in the clubhouse. We all just had a job to do, and we’d go out and do it. That’s one of the main reasons I loved being a Giant. It was fun showing up at the park every day.”