An exciting game, but another loss.
The San Francisco Giants were backed into a corner on Monday night. Hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates — a team bursting with former members of the orange and black — the Giants were playing their second straight game absent an established starter. With Hayden Birdsong back in the Minors and Landen Roupp landing on the IL, the Giants had to patch things up.
On Sunday, the answer was boring, basic, and a betrayal: the dreaded bullpen game. But on Monday? Exciting, electric, and enticing: the debut of Carson Whisenhunt, the consensus top pitching prospect in the system.
I had my concerns with Whisenhunt’s number being called, in large part because it constituted an oh crap the entire water tank is leaking does anyone have a cork or some duct tape or something promotion, rather than the door being knocked down promotion that Buster Posey has discussed on numerous occasions.
Whisenhunt has been struggling for the last two months and, to my amateur eye, the primary culprit has been an unenthused fastball that either struggles to find the strike zone or finds the strike zone but in a very appetizing fashion for a Major League hitter. Yet at the same time, no one can deny his dynamic talent, his exceptional feel on the mound, and the fact that he is the sole owner of a changeup that just might rank as one of the 20 best pitches on the planet right now.
So what was the result, you ask? A little bit of this, a little bit of that. The concerns were actualized and the potential flashed, and the Giants lost 6-5 in a game where Whisenhunt was neither the problem nor the solution.
It’s started, as these things tend to do, with the concerning bits. Whisenhunt’s first foray onto an MLB mound was met by a crew of hitters intent to prove they weren’t impressed. Tommy Pham hit the second pitch of the game 100.4 mph to center field. Andrew McCutchen saw four changeups and smacked the fourth one very hard.
But they were both hit into gloves, and Whisenhunt had two quick outs.
Nick Gonzales, however, had other plans. After standing in the on-deck circle watching McCutchen deal with those four changeups, Gonzales was ready for Whisenhunt’s signature pitch — the one that got him drafted in the second round, that saw him fly through the Minors, that resulted in his inclusion in top 100 lists.
Whisenhunt’s changeup is so good, Mike Krukow was quick to remind us, that he can throw it to hitters fully suspecting it and still get outs. That’s a weapon. But on the occasion when he’s unable to fool a hitter with it, the danger is, of course, a batting practice-paced pitch just begging to be hit.
That was Gonzales’ plan, at least, and he executed it. He saw one pitch. He swung at it. He destroyed it. And the Pirates took the lead.
There’s no shame in that, especially since Whisenhunt recovered and recorded his first career strikeout to end the inning. But the second inning brought on the more concerning bumps in the road.
After retiring the first batter he faced, Whisenhunt was matched up against Alexander Canario, himself once a top prospect in the Giants system. He couldn’t find the command with his fastball, throwing six consecutive pitches that were outside of the strike zone to Canario, with only some questionable umpiring allowing the count to become full before a walk was issued. The next batter, Liover Peguero, walked on four pitches.
It was 10 consecutive uncompetitive pitches to a pair of batters who rarely walk, and occupy the back half of an offensively dreadful lineup. And as teams not named the Giants tend to do against young pitchers, the Pirates punished Whisenhunt for his mistake.
After another strikeout recovery, Whisenhunt faced the final batter in Pittsburgh’s lineup, infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who jumped on the first changeup he saw, and smashed it off the left field wall to cash in on both of the walks.
A few moments later, Pham faced Whisenhunt for the second time, and also jumped on the first changeup of the at-bat, lining it into the outfield and pushing Pittsburgh’s lead to 4-1, while still in the second.
But, as mentioned, the good was also on display. Very much so, in fact. One could excuse Whisenhunt for folding in the moment. Before the second inning was over, he knew that his best case scenario was eating innings with a bloated ERA and making the game difficult for his team to win. It would be understandable if that disappointment overrode pitching in the moment.
It did not. Whisenhunt excused himself from the inning by striking out McCutchen — K’ing an MVP in his debut isn’t something he’ll soon forget — and then managed to roll through the third, the fourth, and the fifth, giving up just two baserunners (an infield single and on outfield single) the rest of the way. He left the mound with momentum. He left the mound looking like an MLB pitcher. He left the mound looking like someone you’re excited to watch pitch this weekend.
And he left the mound having given his team a chance to win.
They didn’t exactly run with it, though. By the time Whisenhunt departed, the Giants had already scored four runs of their own to tie things up, but they’d also left a lot on the table to wilt and mold. They scored once in the first, when Heliot Ramos opened the inning with a single, and later scored on a two-out double by Matt Chapman. But they’d leave runners at the corners when the third out was recorded.
The scored twice in the second, answering Pittsburgh’s big inning with a back-of-the-order rally of their own, Mike Yastrzemski leading off with a walk, moving to third on a single by Patrick Bailey, and scoring on a double courtesy of Brett Wisely. Bailey would later score on a single off the bat of Willy Adames, but the Giants left the bases loaded, and both Ramos and Chapman had unproductive at-bats with less than two outs and a runner on third.
They scored the tying run in the fourth, again on an Adames single (this time following a Ramos double), but again they put a bow on the inning while the bases were still loaded.
In the second act, they again left runners on base, though not as egregiously — but also with no runs scoring before the stranding. Bailey was hit by a pitch with one out in the fifth. Rafael Devers led off the sixth with a walk. Bailey led off the eighth with a single. Neither of them made it to second base.
And Pittsburgh, on the other hand, retook the lead when given a chance face a different rookie pitcher named Carson.
The Giants did something akin to piggybacking, with Carson Seymour replacing Whisenhunt and throwing three innings. With a little help from his defense (it should be noted that Devers made a highly acrobatic play at first base and Ramos had something of a redemptive performance in the left field grass), Seymour kept runs off the board in the sixth and the eighth, but in the seventh he was bit by the curse that did in his namesake: the free pass. Seymour opened the seventh by walking Pham, and then, in a 1-2 count, caught way too much plate with a slider that McCutchen tattooed, giving the Pirates a 6-4 lead.
Let the record show that the Giants were not without fight. Let the record show that they’ve not been without fight for nearly all of this losing skid. Fight they most certainly will do. Succeed, well … that’s another story.
In the ninth, trailing by a pair of runs and facing closer David Bednar (brother of Giants 2021 first-round pick Will), the Giants got to try on the other shoe of the “torture” outfit for once. Adames led off the inning with a double, and suddenly the tying run was at the plate — and it was the same batter who homered twice the day before. Chapman was unfortunately retired, but Jung Hoo Lee smacked a one-out single, cutting the deficit in half and putting the tying run on base, and then in scoring position after Wilmer Flores singled.
But, after a lengthy battle, Yastrzemski popped up. And after a less lengthy battle, Bailey rolled over one.
The Giants saw a glimpse of their future. Maybe it will be the good portions; maybe the bad. Maybe Whisenhunt’s first two innings were a warning shot fired across the bow, or maybe his latter three innings were a harbinger of things to come.
Interpret it how you will, but either way the Giants lost. Again.