HELPING HANDS
After Cueto is forced to depart with an injury in sixth, bullpen takes over and completes shutout
SAN RANaISaO >> After dominating the Cincinnati Reds into the sixth inning of Wednesday’s game and blowing a 93-mile per hour fastball past Nick Castellanos for his fourth strikeout, Giants starter Johnny Cueto made an unexpected call for help.
Manager Gabe Kapler, trainer Dave Groeschner and catcher Curt Casali immediately walked to the mound at Oracle Park to check on Cueto, who left the field in frustration alongside Groeschner in the midst of another brilliant outing.
The Giants’ bullpen picked up where Cueto left off, tossing 3 1/3 innings of scoreless ball to cap off a 3-0 win and secure a series victory over the Reds, but the triumph was clouded by concerns about Cueto, who was initially diagnosed with a tight lat muscle before being sent for additional tests.
“You never want to see that especially when he’s cruising like that, but hopefully he doesn’t have to miss a start and if he does, hopefully it’s not too long,” Casali said.
After being shut out in Monday’s series opener, the Giants (8-4) muscled their way back from a four-run first-inning deficit to win 7-6 on Tuesday before returning the favor and blanking the Reds in Wednesday’s series finale. The Giants wrapped up their first homestand of the season with a 5-1 record and will now head to the East Coast for the first time since 2019 for series against the Marlins and Phillies.
“I think this is one of the better homestands I’ve been a part of with the Giants,” Kapler said. “Really proud of the work the club did, really proud of the preparation that led to the performance on the field, and our pitching has just been outstanding.”
Cueto threw 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball against the Rockies in Friday’s home opener in his best start since the 2016 season and was building off the effort with another outstanding showing against the Reds before he needed to exit Wednesday’s game. Lefthander Caleb Baragar took over and needed two pitches to retire Reds first baseman Joey Votto before Logan Webb, Tyler Rogers and Jake McGee finished off the game.
Rogers and McGee made their major-league leading eight appearances out of the bullpen Wednesday while Webb came in from the bullpen for the first time following a pregame announcement that he was losing his spot in the rotation to Alex Wood, who is set to be activated from the injured list on Sunday in Miami.
If Cueto can’t make his next start, Webb’s stint in the bullpen could be cut short as Kapler named him as the likeliest candidate to take the veteran’s place.
“It was tough to lose (Cueto) from this game, and ultimately if he has to miss some time, those are shoes that are going to be difficult to fill,” Kapler said. “We’ll do what we always do and that’s step up for each other.”
Before exiting after 5 2/3 innings, Cueto had outdueled
Reds right-hander Tyler Mahle, who was efficient in the early innings of Wednesday’s game before the Giants offense ran up his pitch count in the fourth and fifth.
Cueto needed just 68 pitches to record 17 outs on Wednesday and had allowed only three hits before leaving the game.
“I thought everybody did a really nice job today, I would say Johnny would probably agree that he didn’t have his best stuff, but he went into compete mode and that was really nice to see,” Casali said.
Mahle was perfect through his first three innings against the Giants as San Francisco’s hitters saw just 33 pitches the first time through the order against the Cincinnati righthander. The lineup didn’t fare much better against Mahle in the fourth as a Mike Yastrzemski walk gave the Giants their first baserunner, but all four hitters who came to the plate saw at least six pitches as they began to grind out long at-bats.
That trend continued in the fifth as Donovan Solano led off the inning with an eight-pitch at-bat that resulted in a bloop single in front of right fielder Nick Castellanos that ended Mahle’s no-hit bid. Two batters later, Austin Slater broke a scoreless tie with a double
into the right field gap on an 0-2 mistake that Mahle left up over the heart of the plate.
Slater scored the Giants’ second run of the inning on a contact play as he raced home from third base on an infield chopper hit to shortstop by Casali. After Wednesday’s win, Kapler credited third base coach Ron Wotus for setting up the run.
“We were thinking about a couple of different things on the bench, but (Wotus), heads up, comes over and says, ‘I think contact is the right play here,’” Kapler said. “We put the contact play on and subsequently Slater gets a great jump, a great read and makes a great slide at the plate and we end up scoring a huge run.”
With a shallow pop-up that should have been tracked down by Reds second baseman Jonathan India, Giants center fielder Mauricio Dubón gave McGee an extra insurance run in the eighth inning as he brought home Evan Longoria.
• Prior to Wednesday’s game, the Giants recalled Steven Duggar from the Sacramento alternate site to take the place of LaMonte Wade Jr., who was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left oblique strain.
Kapler said Wade will miss about two weeks with the injury.