80-82

The 2024 season is in the books.

The San Francisco Giants 2024 season ended on a weak liner to third off the bat of Tyler Fitzgerald. The 27th out in a 6-1 loss to the Cardinals ensured the Giants have come up a game shy of the .500 mark they’ve been chained to all season.

For both clubs on the field, Game 162 had little to do with the 2024 season, but proved to be an exciting teaser of what was to come in 2025.

23-year-old Hayden Birdsong collected 11 strikeouts in just 4.1 innings pitched while Cardinals 24-year-old, 2021 first-round pick, Michael McGreevy, needed just 91 pitches to toss 8 innings, allowing just one-run.

Birdsong sang on the mound. Doing his best Blake Snell impression, he nearly tied his career-high K-total in almost two innings less of work. The performance was reminiscent of his start on July 21st when he fanned 12 batters and generated 27 swings-and-misses (60% Whiff-rate) over 6 innings. What was encouraging about this start was the fact that he had so much strikeout success with a mix built off his fastball. Against Colorado, he toggled between his slider and curve for 66% of his pitches that afternoon, an adjustment that worked spectacularly on that particular day against a rather unthreatening opposing lineup. He hasn’t used either breaking ball, let alone both combined, that much in a start since.

What worked today is a blueprint for future successes. Both change-up (16%) and slider (28%) were thrown off the fastball (49%). The diverging movements and cut-speed of both secondary pitches played well to either corner because of Birdsong’s ability to focus the oft-errant four-seamer over the plate nearly 60% of the time. The slider especially benefited from the fastball being pushed down in the zone—its biting action elicited 41% chase and 12 whiffs on 13 swings. The breaking ball’s early dominance returned the favor, helping Birdsong steal 12 called-strikes with his fastball. Overall, Birdsong generated 18 swing-and-misses, good for a 45% Whiff-rate, the righty’s second best mark of the season.

For all the cruise and control and power Birdsong displayed on the mound, he still walked off the field in the 5th down 3-0 and muttering to himself.

Someone like Brandan Donovan will do that to you. The Cardinals Gold Glove infielder has been a menace all season. He walked to lead off the game. He plated the first run of the game by depositing an 0-1 curveball on to the arcade in the 3rd. With an out in the 5th and runners on first and second, Donovan went into an 0-2 hole then fought off and spit on six more pitches before top-spinning a previously unhittable slider 98 MPH to unsuspecting and unprepared LaMonte Wade Jr. at first. The one-hopper brought Wade to his knees, ate him up, and plated the Cardinals’ second run. Two pitches later Alec Burleson rolled another RBI single through the infield’s right side to make it 3-0 and chase Birdsong from the game.

Both Donovan and Burleson ended the season hitting around .270 with an OPS around .750. Respectable, not earth-shattering—but you wouldn’t know it from the way they played against the Giants. They shattered earths. During the six-game series, in Alabama or Missouri or California, these two transformed into scruffy-faced, lumberjack Ohtanis. Coming into Sunday’s game, Donovan was hitting .455 (10 for 22), slugging .864 and an OPS of 1.318 including 2 homers and 7 runs batted in in the first five games of the series. Somehow Burleson out did that by slashing .526/ .609/ .842 (1.451 OPS) with 2 homers and 8 RBI. On Sunday, Donovan would go 2-for-3 with 2 BBs, a homer and 2 RBI, while Burleson would line a 2-run single off Randy Rodriguez in the 6th and end the day going 2-for-4 with a BB and 3 RBI.

The RBI knocks (both coming on decent offerings) certainly riled Birdsong, but what got under his skin were the walks that preceded their at-bats. Free bases handed to the number 7 and 8 hitters set-up the Cardinals’ break away inning.

No shade to Thomas Saggese, but he is an out with a face. The infielder came into the game hitting .213 with a sub. 600 OPS. The fact that he led off the frame was a chance for Birdsong to get a second wind in the middle innings, maybe toss a quick 5th and pitch into the 6th… Instead, Sagesse forced him to throw 7 pitches—a victory in itself—and worked a lead-off walk. Pedro Pagés—a catcher with a .664 OPS—drew a walk on six-pitches without lifting his bat off his shoulder. Both plate appearances ended on uncompetitive pitches—change-ups that were overthrown and identified as easy takes out of Birdsong’s hand—and both runners scored on subsequent singles from the aformentioned bash brothers.

A similar pitching faux pas was committed by Randy Rodríguez in the 6th. The Cardinals 3-run rally was kick-started by walking not just the lead-off man, but Michael Siani—an incredibly talented defensive center fielder who has about as much offensive might as a pencil swinging a toothpick. Rodríguez lost him on the sixth pitch of the PA, and Siani came in to score on José Fermín’s (a bendy straw swinging a toothpick) single that found a hole on a hit-and-run. Bad things beget bad things, and the inning got way worse when the lineup turned over. Donovan walked, then Casey Schmitt couldn’t wrangle a wind-battered pop-up in foul territory behind third, giving Burleson a second chance to open the game up like a can of Labatt Blue.

If it makes you feel any better, most of those runs ended up being superfluous with McGreevy on the mound.

While Birdsong may have been the one to turn heads, revving his engine and spewing flames out of his exhaust pipes as he careened and screeched and rolled around the track, McGreevy rolled out in his sensible and efficient Honda Civic and stayed the course. He needed just 5 pitches to get through the 1st. His highest pitch count in any inning came in the 2nd with 18. He had barely cracked 90 by the time his day was done. The Giants couldn’t do much against him but roll the ball back to him or turn over grounders to second. Contact was often but dull. Hitting his sinker was like hitting a brick. They managed just one hit through five innings. Down by 6 runs in the 6th, San Francisco finally pushed a runner into scoring position after Curt Casali and Grant McCray led off the frame with consecutive singles. Neither scored after three line-outs were shot directly into the Cardinals defense. Casey Schmitt’s double to lead off the 7th was the Giants first extra base hit of the game and led to their only run. But any ember of scoring a crooked number was snuffed out by Casali rolling into an inning-ending double play.

An offensive whimper to end the season. A brash and whip-lashy performance from a young starter that continued to show flair for the future, but struggled in terms of results for the present. And a debut too, for RHP reliever Trevor McDonald who snuck in three scoreless Big League innings before Oracle Park shuttered its windows and closed its gates.

Promise and problems on full display. I’m sure everything will be figured out in the offseason…