The Giants’ most anticipated debut since the Golden Era is on the horizon.
Kyle Harrison, regarded as the best left-handed pitching prospect in baseball, is expected to pitch in the Giants’ upcoming series in Philadelphia on Tuesday, a source close to the situation confirmed to KNBR.com. Fansided’s Robert Murray was the first to report the news.
The Giants had been monitoring Harrison from start-to-start ever since he returned from a mild hamstring strain. In his past two starts at Triple-A, the southpaw struck out 11 batters and walked none, displaying the kind of command San Francisco needed to see.
Harrison has a 4.66 ERA in 20 Triple-A starts this year. He fanned 14.4 batters per nine innings but also walked 6.6 per nine. He maxed out at five innings in a game and 83 pitches, but could continue to build up his work load with the Giants.
It became exceedingly likely that Harrison’s four-inning gem last Tuesday would be his last in Triple-A. The Giants have been operating with two true starters in Logan Webb and Alex Cobb, and their bullpen strategy in games without them have begun to lose steam. After starting 15-5 in games without a traditional starting pitcher, SF has lost five of its last six such contests.
Philadelphia — with its hitter-friendly park and top-10 offense — won’t be a soft landing spot for Harrison, but the Giants are prioritizing winning now above all. Their current skid has thinned their wild card lead to half a game over the Reds and one game over Miami and Arizona.
Harrison is regarded as the Giants’ top prospect and ranked as the 15th best prospect in baseball overall, per MLB.com. At 22 years old, Harrison could eventually join Webb at the top of the Giants’ rotation as two homegrown aces from Northern California.
San Francisco had Harrison in its plans for this season. President of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said at the end of last year that he expected Harrison to factor into the rotation — and possibly early in the season at that.
The Giants added rotation depth in the winter by signing Sean Manaea and Ross Stripling. One of the benefits of beefing up the back-end of the rotation would be to buy Harrison time to develop at Triple-A. Although neither Manaea nor Stripling has been consistently effective, SF didn’t have to rush Harrison. Instead, he pitched 65.2 innings for Sacramento.
Because of Harrison’s command issues — which were related, but not solely due to the automated balls and strikes system in the minors — he’ll be the 11th rookie to debut for the Giants this year.