Postponed game means Giants play two today
Giants, Rockies will play seven innings in doubleheader contests
A Giants team that’s lost several key players due to injury during the first month of the season and has a handful of others battling nagging soreness received an unexpected day off on Monday.
More than three hours before the scheduled first pitch of a series opener against Colorado at Coors Field, the Rockies announced their Monday matchup with the Giants would be postponed due to inclement weather and made up as part of a doubleheader today.
Major League Baseball’s new doubleheader format will cut down the number of innings originally scheduled to be played in this week’s three-game series as both matchups scheduled for today will be seven innings.
“I was talking to Ron Wotus about this, who is as traditional as they come, and we both kind of smiled and said it’s really nice that we’re going to try to cover 14 innings as opposed to two nineinning games tomorrow,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “You don’t want to blow through your entire bullpen over the course of two games, and at least with seven innings, you have the possibility
that one or even both of your starters gives you five or six innings.”
The first game will start at 2:40 p.m. PT and the second will begin within 45 minutes after the final out from the matinee matchup.
The temperature in Denver on Monday wasn’t expected to climb above 45 degrees and the forecast indicated it could dip into the high-30s by the evening, but today’s forecast looks much better with a much lower chance of precipitation.
Kapler said the Giants will have Monday’s probable starter, Aaron Sanchez, pitch one of the two games, but the coaching staff hasn’t decided which game Sanchez will start and which game lefty Alex Wood will pitch.
Using Wood in the first game could be preferable for the Giants because he’s pitched into the seventh inning in each of his last two outings while Sanchez has yet complete more than five innings in a game this season. With Wood the likelier candidate to pitch deeper into a game, the Giants could potentially keep their bullpen fresh for Game 2.
The Giants and Rockies will each be permitted to add a 27th man for the second game of today’s doubleheader and Kapler indicated the club will wait until after Game 1 to make a determination on who to promote to the active roster. The club has left-handed pitcher Conner Menez, righthanded pitcher Kervin Castro, infielder Jason Vosler, infielder Thairo Estrada and catcher Joey Bart on the taxi squad in Colorado and one of those players will likely be in the dugout for Game 2.
The Giants may elect to add Vosler onto the 26-man roster ahead of Game 1 as Kapler said he anticipates infielder Tommy La Stella will be placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain. La Stella left Sunday’s game in San Diego in the fifth inning after injuring his hamstring while scoring from third base on a RBI groundout.
La Stella would join a growing list of Giants players on the injured list including outfielder Mike Yastrzemski (oblique tightness) and second baseman Donovan Solano (right calf strain).
Brandon Crawford, who was hit by a 96 mph fastball in Friday’s game, missed the last two games with a left calf contusion, but Kapler hopes he’ll be available to play in one of the doubleheader matchups against the Rockies.
The manager said he and the training staff have to be cognizant of putting too much stress on their position players because several players are dealing with lingering soreness that’s often made worse at elevation.
“You feel the aches and pains more (in Denver), day to day recovery is more challenging and coming in on day one, I think all of our guys are feeling that so I think it’s something to be mindful of,” Kapler said.
More than a week after MLB said Madison Bumgarner’s seven-inning complete game performance against the Braves in which the D’backs lefty didn’t allow a hit would not be recognized as an official “no-hitter,” Kapler said his “gut instinct,” is for that type of a performance to count in the league’s record books.
Kapler also said that despite the Giants and Rockies having a mutual off day Thursday, the clubs are motivated to play a doubleheader today because of the unpredictable nature of weather in the Denver area.