Powerful Padres — with improvements — await Giants
SEATTLE — And so it begins for the Giants, the big, bad NL West, a real beast, or maybe two of them.
Starting Monday, San Francisco gets one of the real giants of the division, opening a threegame series at San Diego, which added two topflight starters to a roster that includes one of the better lineups in the game. The Giants will see both, facing Yu Darvish on Tuesday and Blake Snell on Wednesday. The Padres picked up both in huge winter trades, and the West is now seen as a pick ’em between San Diego and the Dodgers, who are the reigning world champs.
“There’s no question that it’s two really good teams,” Giants righthander Anthony DeSclafani said.
FanGraphs’ ZiPS and Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections both peg Los Angeles and San Diego to finish onetwo in the league, and the Giants to finish fourth in the division, with the Diamondbacks third.
Of course, last year both projections picked the Giants to finish last in the division, and San Francisco finished third and missed the postseason by one game, and the club believes that even though the Dodgers added Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer and the Padres improved their rotation (another added starter, Joe Musgrove, threw six scoreless innings and struck out eight Saturday night), they’ll be in the mix somehow.
“Obviously, I have a lot of confidence in my team,” DeSclafani said. “Everyone just loves the way we’re getting the game plan and getting ready. I think we have a really solid team, a lot of power all around ... just from watching the offense, no one gives the atbat away, and I think that’s, that’s really huge in the game. No matter who you are, whether you’re in first place or last place, it’s tiring when you have a full lineup that’s just going to battle the entire atbat and put the ball in play or foul balls off or put hard swings on it.
“There’s no reason why we can’t be right up at the top of this division or win it.”
DeSclafani, who along with Aaron Sanchez is one of the Giants’ two new starters who will go in this series, gets the call Monday. He’s seen as the team’s potential “Kevin Gausman-type” this year — a talented righthander coming off a down season and looking to rebound. He spent the spring working with the Giants’ coaching staff, honing pitch shapes and his pitch mix and because the Giants like pitchers to utilize their best weapons as much as possible. He might use his slider even more — or, perhaps, his improved changeup.
“I like the way that’s trending, I think it’s all trending up,” DeSclafani said of refinements the Giants have made to his game. “It’s just going out there and getting and truly seeing how stuff plays out with some of the changes that I’m making, I think it’s always evolving.”
DeSclafani said he’ll have the “kitchensink mentality” with his stuff — use everything — and manager Gabe Kapler said, “I think we have a lot of confidence in his secondary weapons, he has a lot of confidence in his secondary weapons. So I don’t think it gives too much away to share that we may see some of those at a higher rate.”
DeSclafani, 30, had a 7.22 ERA in nine games with the Reds last year, but in 2019 he had a 3.89 ERA in 31 starts, with 167 strikeouts in 1662⁄3 innings. Sanchez had shoulder surgery two years ago but has struggled with injuries and underperforming since a superb 2016 season with Toronto when he led the league in ERA.
The two are working together to make changes to optimize their abilities, a support system at the back end of the rotation.
“We started trying to be at each other’s bullpen sessions to know what we’re working on and stuff like that,” DeSclafani said. “I’ve talked to Aaron a bunch the past couple weeks and kind of know the adjustment he’s trying to make. As a whole, we’re all kind of involved in each other’s stuff . ... So I think it’s cool.”