The Giants’ season couldn’t have ended in more disappointing fashion. It’s not just that San Francisco’s fate was sealed by blowing a three-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLDS, it’s that they blew a shot at extending their season the same way they blew 30 other games in 2016. Their biggest weakness reared it’s ugly head at the biggest moment.
The tendency to ruminate on the collapse is a natural one, and there is no question that finding a ninth-inning solution is priority number one this offseason, but the pain of the Game 4 meltdown has overshadowed what put the Giants in position to force Game 5 in the first place, that being a truly transcendent performance by starting pitcher Matt Moore.
That performance is just one example of a larger silver lining for the Giants as they head into 2017. With impressive late season showings from both Moore and rookie Ty Blach, the Giants’ already talented rotation in 2016 is primed to be even better next year, and maybe the best we’ve seen in a very long time.
Both lefties were dominant for the Giants down the stretch, and each played a crucial role in getting San Francisco into the playoffs when that prospect was far from certain entering the last weekend of the regular season. Moore, 27, finished the campaign on a tear, allowing just a single run in each of his last three starts, including his dominating performance in Game 4, where he held the potent Cubs lineup to two hits while striking out 10 in eight innings. Moore was coasting, and had his pitch count not been an inflated 120, the Giants might still be in the dance.
Blach, 25, also lead the Giants to a crucial win at the end of the season, when he shut down the Los Angeles Dodgers in just his second career start, allowing three hits in eight shutout innings. It was a memorable performance from a young pitcher in his first ever pressure packed situation. The next time Blach took the hill the stakes were even higher, and he was just as good, tossing two shutout innings in the 12th and 13th of the Giants’ comeback victory in Game 3, earning his first postseason win.
It’s not as if these young talents came out of nowhere. Moore put together an All-Star season with Tampa Bay at the age of 24 in 2013, before Tommy John surgery shelved him for most of the next two seasons. 2016 marked his return, and though Moore showed flashes throughout the year, he didn’t start looking like the player the Giants traded for until the season came to a close.
Blach was the best pitcher for the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate Sacramento Rivercats all season, and save for a shaky start in San Diego, was unhittable every time he threw against major league hitters after being called up in September.
What makes the emergence of these two extra exciting is the fact that the Giants rotation put together the fourth best ERA in the major leagues last year, mostly without a fifth starter, and with Moore still trying to find his groove after joining the team at the trade deadline. The Giants already have two of the best pitchers in baseball in Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija is All-Star caliber when he can command the sinker.
This is all to say that the Giants look to be in a position to make their greatest strength even stronger next season. It’s always easy to dwell on the negative, but with what Blach and Moore showed at the end of the season, it’s hard not to feel like the Giants rotation could be the class of the league in 2017, and maybe the best group of the Bochy era.