A winning streak!
The San Francisco Giants entered their four-game series against the Chicago Cubs in a bad place. A very bad place. A place we all end up in from time to time, but all fight like hell to avoid.
The Giants had lost five consecutive games. Two of those games came at the expense of the team standing directly across from them. One of their starting pitchers was injured, and also another one, and that other one as well, along with the other three who were already injured.
Faced with trying to climb out of a season-worst six-game separation from .500, the Giants had the most dreaded of pitching assignments for the series:
Monday: TBD
Tuesday: TBD
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: Jordan Hicks
To paraphrase Cole Kuiper and Alex Pavlovic on the latest Giants Talk podcast, there’s a difference between “TBD” and “TBA,” the latter of which was the Cubs’ verbiage of choice for the series. “TBA” means means you haven’t announced who’s pitching, even if you know who’s pitching, your opponent knows who’s pitching, and the whole world knows who’s pitching.
“TBD,” on the other hand, is a shrug. It’s the patented Robert De Niro face. It’s calling your boss and telling them you’re sick and that they should check with every other employee, but if none of them can cover then you’ll find a way to show up. A “TBD” is the very definition of a problem for future you.
The “D” in “TBD” stands for “Determined,” but it might as well stand for “Discovered” or “Desperately figured out at three in the morning after two straight nights without sleep because you were up all night trying to figure out what the hell to do.” The Giants entered the series with 12 starting pitchers on their 40-man roster. Eight of those 12 are injured. Two of those 12 have proven entirely unready for the Majors this year. And one of those 12 pitched on Sunday.
Figuring out who to pitch on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was less a decision for Farhan Zaidi and Bob Melvin, and more a seven-dimensional puzzle.
And yet they seemed to stumble upon the answer. And god, you hate it. You hate it so, so much. Your kid came home and they’re dating the kid with the “No Ragrets” tattoo but they’re happy, so all you can do is nod and show your support but my goodness is that punching bag in your garage is going to need an Advil and a few days of recovery time after this.
Yes, the answer was the round peg they tried to fit in a square hole oh so many times last year: a bullpen game.
You cursed the bullpen game as recently as yesterday, even though it worked then. Sure, Luke Jackson tried to throw away everything that Erik Miller, Spencer Bivens, and Raymond Burgos had worked for, but Spencer Howard emerged on his white horse and trotted about long enough for the Giants offense to figure out how to score runs, and somehow the Giants won the game.
Tuesday was always going to be a bullpen game, but it was a little easier to stomach in light of what happened on Monday. And it’s even easier to stomach in hindsight, because it worked. Damn did it ever work.
The relievers were nothing short of brilliant on Tuesday, but before detailing their action it needs to be stated that Bob Melvin had as shiny of a game as a manager can have. Pushing the right buttons in a bullpen game isn’t easy, and Melvin did the one thing every manager should aspire to do in such a game: he repeatedly left you wondering if he took a pitcher out too early, but never let you question why he left a pitcher in so long.
Randy Rodríguez served as the opener, and not only shined but showed why there were rumors of the Giants toying with moving him to a starting role last year. He gave up just a walk in the first inning, while striking out two. He had a one-two-three second inning, while striking out two. He retired the first two batters in the third inning (while picking up his fifth strikeout), before walking Nico Hoerner, who stole second base and scored on a seeing-eye single by Michael Busch.
He had been brilliant, even in allowing the run, but Melvin pulled him then and there, before the brilliance had a chance to devolve to anything worse.
In came Sean Hjelle — the new and improved and apparently dominant Sean Hjelle — who gave up a seeing-eye single of his own, and then promptly retired six consecutive batters. When that streak ended at the hands of a two-out, fifth-inning single by Hoerner, Melvin again trotted to the mound mid-inning to remove someone who was pitching sensationally.
Next up was Taylor Rogers, who walked Busch but struck out Cody Bellinger to end the inning. After allowing a leadoff single in the sixth, and immediately erasing it with a double play, Rogers found himself with the bases empty and two outs … and gazing towards the dugout as Melvin marched, hands in pockets, towards the mound.
In keeping with the fashion of the day, Ryan Walker needed a batter to settle in, as he walked Christopher Morel, but that was wiped out by a true sight for sore eyes: a wicked throw from Patrick Bailey to catch Morel attempting a stolen base. With that stress eliminated for him, Walker set down the side in order in the seventh inning. Tyler Rogers did the same in the eighth. Camilo Doval did the same in the ninth.
It was a masterclass in button-pushing by Melvin and a masterclass in pitching by the pitchers. People repeatedly asked me on Twitter why Melvin had taken someone out, and before I could formulate an answer, the next man in line had validated the decision.
And that was more than enough for an offense that took a while to heat up in earnest. They did jump to an early lead, putting forth the sort of second-inning rally that has escaped them for much of the year. Jorge Soler (officially on heating-up watch) smacked a leadoff single, which led to the at-bat of the day: Matt Chapman fouling off seven Kyle Hendricks pitches (including six consecutive pitches) en route to a 13-pitch walk.
Michael Conforto delivered the hit the Giants have been sorely lacking, smacking an RBI single, and David Villar came through with a fantastic at-bat, barreling a ball deep into left field to score Chapman on a sacrifice fly.
The #SFGiants strike first ☝️ pic.twitter.com/AG3kUqv7dA
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 26, 2024
The Giants had a 2-0 lead, which didn’t feel like enough to sustain a second consecutive bullpen game, but in hindsight would have.
But insurance runs are always a treat, and the Giants chased after them in the eighth inning, once again having a whole-assed rally where we’ve come to expect a half-assed one. If it was the veterans doing damage in the second, it was the youngsters in the eighth. Luis Matos led off the inning with his second single of the day, and ended up at third when Brett Wisely smacked one off that special part of the bricks where Statcast quickly informs you that it would have been a home run in 29 other ballparks.
With a prime RBI situation in front of him — runners at second and third and no outs — Heliot Ramos displayed the restraint that has (along with hitting the absolute crap out of baseballs) come to define his breakout season. Happy to leave the work for the next man in line, Ramos sat on a pair of tempting two-strike pitches, a drew a bases-loading walk.
The next man in line couldn’t get the job done, as Bailey grounded into a fielder’s choice, but the next next man in line and the next next next man in line were plenty enough: Soler smacked one deep to center field for an insurance-adding sacrifice fly, and Chapman did the final damage, whopping a two-out, two-run single to make the score 5-1, and to make you suddenly more concerned about Doval’s impending appearance.
Insurance, courtesy of Matt Chapman pic.twitter.com/xHfWumL2g2
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) June 26, 2024
Bullpen games, it turns out, can work just fine. But in an ironic twist, the largest excitement of the day came not from the success of the bullpen game, but in the news that Wednesday’s game would break from the script. Shortly before embarking in what would prove to be their second-straight victory, the Giants announced that Hayden Birdsong — arguably the top pitching prospect in the system — would be called up to make Wednesday’s start, after just two games in AAA.
The first two TBDs have been pretty damn good. Here’s to the third one.