Giants’ starters may make playoffs
The Giants are through the rotation once.
And while starting pitching in 2021 is a terribly nebulous enterprise and the sample size is small, I think it’s worth taking a moment to analyze the first go-around.
Here’s what I thought about each San Francisco starter’s debut and what I expect from all five moving forward:
cVIN hAUSuAN: 6.2 INNINhS PITaicb, 1 cARNcb RUN, 6 STRI cOUTS, 2 iITS, 2 WAL S, 11 WiIeeS VS. ScATTLc >> Gausman’s Opening Night performance didn’t alleviate all of the concerns I carried into the season about him, but it quelled a few of them.
Gausman’s velocity is down nearly two ticks from last year but he threw slower at the beginning of that season, too. It’s a long season, he’ll work his way back up to 95 miles per hour.
Even with a lesser fastball, Gausman was firing strikes, posting a 42 percent CSW (Called Strike Plus Whiff Rate) against the Mariners. Yes, Seattle isn’t a juggernaut, but that’s really good. He was feeling it.
So long as he has that fastball, he can be this team’s ace.
Gausman was also only had one barreled ball hit off him in the season opener. Sustainable? No. Encouraging? Absolutely.
My concern — and this started in the spring and persists — is that the secondary stuff (for all intents and purposes, his three off-speed pitches can be lumped together under the title “splitter”) was not great.
If Gausman slips even a bit with the fastball, he needs his off-speed stuff to take on a bit of the load. It didn’t look ready for that.
Still, a strong start. String together a couple more and I’ll take off my tin-foil hat and admit that two-pitch starters can be great.
JOiNNY aUcTO: 5.2 IP, 3 cR, 6 iITS, 7 STRI cOUTS, 3 WAL S, 17 WiIeeS VS. ScATTLc >> Wow, oh wow.
That whiff number has me
feeling things.
Cueto did what veteran pitchers do to young teams like the Mariners — he kept them off balance with a four-pitch arsenal (three against lefties).
Cueto challenged the Mariners with fastballs up in the zone, sliders front and back door, and then put them away with a nasty changeup, bringing about swings and misses 58 percent of the time.
That’s the kind of Cueto the Giants need to contend this year. He’s also a bullpen saver, as he’s the only starter the team clearly feels comfortable letting pitch deep into games.
The concern: When the Mariners did make contact, it was loud. Like Gausman, he only had one ball barreled off him, but Seattle had an expected batting average of .345 in Cueto’s debut, with 50 percent of hits qualifying as hard-hit.
Can this style of pitching work against veteran lineups that can lay off the changeup down?
We won’t find out for a while — Cueto has Colorado next. Cincinnati and
Philadelphia follow and those will be telling contests.
LOGAN WEBB: 5.1 IP, 3 ER, 7 HITS, 5 STRIKEOUTS, 3 WALKS, 12 WHIFFS VS. SEATTLE >>
I’m higher on Webb’s start than most, mainly because his notso-great pitches (sinker, slider) were solid against Seattle. It was his changeup — which can be a truly dominant pitch — that proved to be the weak link.
If he can get the changeup working as a close-out pitch once again, and the sinker and slider can stay at this level, the Giants have something special in Webb.
It’s a big ask for a young pitcher, but it’s possible.
It’s not as if the changeup was bad against Seattle — it was simply that the Mariners were sitting on it and Webb couldn’t locate his pitches after the first strike, forcing him to come back to his best pitch late in the count.
Suggestion: Perhaps having two change-up pitchers, Cueto and Webb, going back-to-back in the rotation might not be the best idea.
I’m betting on Webb to bounce back against Colorado Saturday and the
Marlins after that.
ANTHONY DESCLAFANI: 5 IP, 1 ER, 4 HITS, 4 STRIKEOUTS, 3 WALKS, 11 WHIFFS VS. SAN DIEGO >>
Tony Disco got away with one here. The Padres smacked him around, with 62 percent of contact qualifying as hard-hit. The average exit velocity off the San Diego bats: 96.2.
DeSclafani needs another pitch to pair with his slider, which is a plus pitch that was hit-andmiss in his debut.
The Giants clearly want him to throw his sinker more than his four-seam fastball, despite the latter being the better pitch. Here’s why I think they’re on that plan: DeSclafani, despite being hit hard, only allowed a sweet-spot percentage (hits with a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees) of 12.5 against San Diego. It’s one game, but that’s a more than 20 point drop from his well-established average.
The Giants might be admitting that DeSclafani doesn’t have true top-shelf strikeout stuff, so the idea is that by throwing more sinkers, he can pitch into his defense.
With this defense, that might be an issue.
But it’s a plan. Let’s see how it plays out.
AARON SANCHEZ: 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 HITS, 4 STRIKEOUTS, 0 WALKS, 8 WHIFFS VS. SAN DIEGO >> A good line that counts as found money for the Giants given how little work Sanchez was able to get in spring training.
We knew that Sanchez has the changeup and curveball — he’s already throwing both of those pitches more — but this game showed that they’re not worth much if he can’t win with his fastball. His velocity, perhaps unsurprisingly, wasn’t great in start No. 1.
A limited run-up and the fact that he’s a notoriously slow starter can be used as excuses for now. But in a few weeks, we’re going to need to see an uptick on the velo to buy into a breakout.
As a fifth starter, you could do a lot worse, though. A whole lot worse. But so could Sanchez. He threw a few absolute meatballs in this game and San Diego didn’t take advantage.
If you see the fastball hit 94 again, then it’s full steam ahead.
For now, I’m looking at the fact that there were six exit velocities over 100 miles per hour against him Tuesday night. This bad boy could go either way.