The Giants have employed the opener with relative consistency under Gabe Kapler, but the back-to-back starts for John Brebbia recently seemed like a tipping point.
For most of this season, the Giants have had a max of three reliable starting pitchers, meaning they have had to patch together starts with a reliever opening and then a long reliever handling the bulk innings.
Most assume this is a short-term strategy that will be mitigated by either adding internally to the rotation or making a trade for another starter. The Giants can take their time doing so according to Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, who argued that the strategy is fairly sustainable, especially for the bullpen arms.
“In a way, it’s more sustainable than the way bullpens have been used in the past,” Baggs said on Murph & Mac Wednesday. “Tyler Rogers is a good example. He had three days off before he pitched last night, and I think he’s appeared in 31 out of 73 games and that’s actually quite a lower percentage than say 2021, where he was appearing in almost every other game.
“For a guy like him, he’s not absorbing an inning in a game where they’re down a couple runs, and they’re not piecing it together by throwing an inning each. Because Jakob Junis is just finishing the game, or Tristan Beck is finishing the game, or Keaton Winn is finishing the game. If they can get Sean Hjelle to be productive again…then they’ll really get going.
“The fact that they’ve got all those bulk innings options, and Sean Manaea being another of them, has really shielded the shorter relievers from having to work as often.”
Even so, Baggs believes that it won’t last too much longer as the Giants get healthier and younger arms are ready for call ups.
“Eventually they’d like to get healthier in the rotation and I’m sure they will before too long. Alex Cobb thinks he’s only gonna miss a couple of starts and be back on the next road trip. Again, they’ve got Harrison waiting in the wings. I think they still have a lot of depth, it’s been tested, but so far they haven’t been overwhelmed.”
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph & Mac weekdays from 6 – 10 a.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.