Carlos Rodón hadn’t eclipsed six innings pitched since his second start of the season. The four-seam fastball that ranked as the most dominant pitch in baseball kept getting fouled off. Walks drove up his pitch count. Severe damage remained rare, but so did the Cy Young-caliber results.
Then in Pittsburgh, Rodón fanned eight Pirates in eight shutout innings. He didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning and only allowed four baserunners total. He handed a 2-0 lead in the ninth inning to Camilo Doval, who recorded his 10th save of the season.
Rodón’s deepest start of the season preserves San Francisco’s bullpen and tips off a seven-game road trip in impressive fashion. The starter, powered by two solo home runs, led the Giants (36-27) to a 2-0 win over the Pirates in PNC Park.
Rodón, and the Giants, was playing with a lead for the entire game after Luis González launched a leadoff home run.
González’s third home run of the season flew through a humid Pittsburgh sky and over the PNC Park right field bleachers. It came on the third pitch of the game, a changeup that Zach Thompson left up in the zone.
San Francisco put the leadoff runner on base in each of the first four innings, but came up empty in the second and third.
Then Joc Pederson added another run in the fourth inning with his 14th home run of the season. Pederson, who was in Boston the Thursday night for Game 6 of the NBA Finals on the team’s off day, now has two homers in June after clobbering six in May.
Pederson’s uppercut gave SF a 2-0 lead. It was the eighth straight solo shot from the team overall, a peculiar and seemingly random trend. Both solo shots would have left all 30 ballparks, according to the Would It Dong tracker.
Pittsburgh, which boasted just three hitters in starting lineup with an above average OPS+, couldn’t catch up to Rodón. Jack Suwinski broke up the southpaw’s no-hitter bid with two outs in the fifth inning with a lined single up the middle.
The Pirates were one strike away from getting perfect gamed last Tuesday and were no-hit by the Reds earlier this season — albeit in a win.
Rodón had come off a string of starts in which he pitched well, but not deep into games. Walks and foul balls drove his pitch count up; he hadn’t eclipsed six innings since April 15.
But Rodón’s eight shutout frames proves he’s still more than capable of providing length. Down three starters and with a new rule limiting teams to 13 pitchers on the active roster, deep starts like Rodón’s are imperative for the Giants. Rodón effectively gave the non- Doval bullpen a second consecutive day off.
In the sixth inning against the Pirates, Rodón needed just 11 pitches to head back to the visitor’s dugout. He threw six sliders and five fastballs, representing an even pitch mix between his two most lethal offerings. Fourteen of Rodón’s 18 swing-and-misses came on his slider.
Rodón began the seventh inning at 82 pitches and left at 89. González picked him up with a charging, sliding catch in right field.
He needed only nine pitches to retire the side in the eighth, with his 98th offering inducing a routine groundout. Rodón had thrown exactly 98 pitches in each of his previous three outings. This, the fourth straight, was different. In efficiency, effectiveness and what presented itself as effortlessness.