Your last place Giants, at 13-21 which is right on pace for a 100 loss season, are limping home after a winless disastrous road trip. They will be hosting the 2nd place Padres, with a record of 20-13, who are half a game behind the blue stink.
Here are the games,
✽ Monday, 6:45, RHP Randy Vasquez (3-0, 2.94) vs. Trevor McDonald (1-1, 5.40 w/R’Cats)
✽ Tuesday, 6:45, RHP Tight Pants (1-2, 5.40) vs. TBD
✽ Wednesday, 12:45, RHP Matt Waldron (0-1, 9.88) vs. TBD
The Giants are clearly not working together as a team, hence the picture above. But management does finally seem to recognize that something must be done before they play Monday night.
Note that the Giants have chosen to solve the problem of their rotation being pushed back by a rainout by announcing Trevor McDonald for Monday. He flew cross-country to sit around during the double header in Philadelphia, as 27th man, but now finds himself joining the 26. Presumably, they will then go to Logan Webb and Adrian Houser to pitch on regular rest, but that isn’t announced for sure. Calling up McDonald will require removing one of the 13 active pitchers from the roster. Only Landen Roupp, Ryan Walker, Erik Miller, Keaton Winn, and Gregory Santos have the option to go to Sacramento. Caleb Kilian, Matt Gage, Ryan Borucki, and JT Brubaker cannot be removed from the active roster without being put out on waivers. A reasonable guess is that they release Borucki, and then on Tuesday bring up Sam Hentges, as McDonald drives up to Sacramento. By the way, neither Sam Hentges nor Joel Peguero was one of the 6 pitchers the River Cats used today.
The hitting side is what is killing the team. Here are the run “totals” in the six road games: 0, 2, 5, 0, 1, and 1. In other words, they were outscored 26-9, and lost three times in the bottom half of the final inning. After the umps took away Ramos homer into the “catwalk”, the Giants had no homers on the road trip. We all can see that having three players in the lineup most days with batting averages of 0.214, 0.195, and 0.152 does not get the runs home. Susan Slusser noted today that C Jesus Rodriguez (0.330, 14 RBI, 2 HR) and 1B Bryce Eldridge (0.333, 22 RBI, 5 HR) did not play for the River Cats on Sunday, and Baggs spotted a transaction in which C Ty Hanchey was called up from Eugene to Sacramento today (perhaps proximity to their game in Salt Lake City). C Eric Haase has no options, expect to see him on waivers tomorrow, although he did okay filling in for Susac. Catcher inventory management, which is on Buster, would have called up Rodriguez as soon as Susac went down.
These are all just tea leaves. We will see prior to tomorrow’s game what actually happens, as there are no transactions posted, not even one for announced pitcher McDonald. And then we will have to watch a game or two to see if Tony Vitello will start using all of his 13 position players on a regular basis. Christian Koss sure hopes so!
You may remember the Giants went 2-1 when facing the Padres at the end of March. They will see this team, managed by Craig Stammen:
• 1B Gavin Sheets (12), 2B Jake Cronenworth (4), SS Xander Bogaerts (18, 5 HR), 3B Manny Machado (18, 5 HR)
• RF Hot Dog Tatis (13), CF Jackson Merrill (15), LF Ramon Laureano (18)
• C Luis Campusano (10), DH Miguel Andujar (2)
• bench: C Freddy Fermin, IF Ty France, OF Nick Castellanos, OF Bryce Johnson
• rotation: Michael King, Griffin Canning, Vasquez, Buehler, Waldron
• closer Mason Miller, set ups Jason Adam and Adrian Morejon
Bryce Johson is the only former Giants. Reliever Bradgley Rodriguez gets the nod for most creatively spelled name, edging out Xander Bogaerts.
