Longtime Giants reliever Sergio Romo officially joined the Los Angeles Dodgers this weekend, after the Giants elected not to bring back the three-time World Champion when he became a free agent this offseason.
To see Romo in Dodger blue will break the heart of many Giants fans, including broadcaster Duane Kuiper, who told Murph and Mac on Wednesday morning that while he has no problem with Romo signing wherever he wants, it will be hard to see him go.
“When you have a group that won three world championships, you think very highly of all of those guys,” Kuiper said. “When they start to go, in little ways it breaks your heart. In fantasy land you think they’re gonna be with the Giants forever — for 20-25 years. But that doesn’t happen. That core four was so special. They had everything to do with them winning the three World Championships, that when things started to unravel a little bit, it was hard to watch. That’s really what happened last year.”
The Giants also elected to part ways with Javier Lopez and Santiago Casilla, the two other remaining members of the core four as well this offseason, after the bullpen had a disastrous campaign in 2016. Though he was with the organization for 11 years, Kuiper believes there will be a good deal of animosity when Romo faces his old club in 2017.
“There wasn’t anybody that really took that Giants-Dodgers rivalry to heart more than (Romo) did,” Kuiper said. “I can still see him yelling at Manny Ramirez, and Manny Ramirez hitting a walk off against him, and him yelling at (Yasiel) Puig. Look, I don’t think when he faces the Giants, I don’t think it’s gonna be a friendly deal, I think there’s gonna be some problems; I do. I think he’s gonna do the stank eye look, I think he’s gonna do what he does, and it might actually pick up a little bit if he were to strike out Buster Posey with the bases loaded.”
Still, Kuiper understands Romo’s decision to want to stay on the West Coast, even if it meant giving up more money elsewhere.
“For Sergio Romo I have no problems with him going wherever he wants,” Kuiper said. “He’s earned that right. He has been in that spot a couple of different times and he always came back to the Giants with very good contracts. He waited a long time to see where he might go and might he come back, and I think he reached a point where…’do I want to leave the West Coast? I’ve got kids, born and raised in this area, at least in California, do I want to go anywhere?’”
“So I don’t have any problems with him going to the Dodgers, but I also don’t have any problems not cheering for him too. Would I like to see him have a good year? I would. But I’d also like to see him struggle a little bit against the Giants.”
Listen to the full interview below.