Rodón’s slip seen as outlier
S.F. expresses confidence that lefty quickly will return to dominance
DENVER — A day after Carlos Rodón’s worst performance in a San Francisco Giants uniform, there were precisely zero worries about him in the clubhouse.
Even the best starters get knocked around sometimes, and the Cardinals — who pinned eight runs on Rodón on Sunday — are the best team in baseball when it comes to hitting left-handers, with an .835 OPS and a whopping 141 weighted runs-created plus (wRC+).
The Giants looked at every angle of Rodón’s 32⁄3 innings and saw nothing amiss. Before Sunday, he hadn’t allowed more than two runs in an outing this year.
“If you’d told me after two innings he’d thrown 31 pitches and 25 strikes, I’d be like, well, he’s probably got five punchouts and he’s putting up zeroes,” pitching coach Andrew Bailey said.
The Cardinals were aggressive, swinging early. Case in point: Paul Goldschmidt’s firstpitch homer two batters into the game, the first first-pitch hit off Rodón all year. So do the Giants need to adjust their game plan? Does Rodón need to expand the zone on occasion?
“We definitely don’t want to throw pitches out of the zone,” Bailey said. “Count leverage is a pitcher’s best friend, and there are things we can sharpen: first-pitch strikes is a big thing. But this is an outlier thing — Carlos is one of the best pitchers in baseball. One start doesn’t make a whole year.”
Catcher Joey Bart said the Cardinals were the first team that wasn’t patient against Rodón, “getting the bat off the shoulder early. You could tell there was something there that they flipped their script and it worked for them.
“But they’re big-leaguers, too. That’s a good team, we always have to respect that. But at the end of the day, I mean no one — no one — is worried about Carlos, I promise you.”
Reliever Zach Littell also got hit around Sunday, giving up homers to Nolan Arenado and Yadier Molina, and he chalked up the 15-6 blasting to a good lineup enjoying some contagious hitting once things got rolling.
“You’re going to run into those games,” Littell said. “The process was good. Every one of us came out throwing strikes and did what we wanted to do.
“That’s a very good team one through nine, and all you can do is prepare. You can’t control everything. We weren’t out there walking guys or throwing wild pitches, we weren’t allowing guys to advance. If you do all those good things over the course of time, it all evens out. I didn’t read too much into it.”
Briefly: Bart said he has abandoned the toe-tap he’d adopted toward the end of last season and has gone back to a simpler, more quiet set of swing mechanics. “I just wasn’t getting in a good position,” said Bart, who made the change at the end of the last homestand . ... Triple-A Sacramento infielder David Villar was named the PCL Player of the Week after batting .400 with four homers, 10 RBIs and five walks, along with a 1.620 OPS.