Surprises all around.
Filing this under the “It’s not what you want” category, Erik Miller, the sole lefty in the bullpen for the San Francisco Giants, has been placed on the 15-day IL with a “left elbow sprain.” As Susan Slusser reports in the San Francisco Chronicle, this can “often [be] the precursor to a UCL tear or can indicate existing ligament damage.” Yikes!
Bob Melvin is hopeful that the team “caught [it] at the right time,” which on the one hand sounds like wishcasting and on the other would seem to be grounded in a combination of his experience managing pitcher injuries and the MRI which showed no structural damage.
Erik Miller has been effective but also the riskiest reliever in the bullpen this season. He’d risen to #4 in the latest Bullpen Trust Power Rankings on the site, but back in May I wrote about how his penchant for walks would be unsustainable. Still, as you can see, despite the walks, he’s managed to get outs and be effective. Relievers are inherently volatile and that’s what makes them fungible — but so do injuries. He had a rotator cuff strain back in 2021 that shortened his season, so he seems to be on the regular schedule of pitching setbacks for the high velocity set.
The Giants will try to replace him in… the aggregate…? with returning player Scott Alexander, who filled as close to a LOOGY role as the new rules would allow in 2022-2023 for the Zaidi front office. He was great in 2022 (1.04 ERA in 17.1 IP) but bad in 2023 (4.66 ERA in 48.1 IP), and since then, he was solid for the A’s in 2024 (2.56 ERA in 38.2 IP) and awful for the Rockies this season (6.06 ERA in 16.1 IP with a 7.01 FIP!).
The left on left split is still the harshest one in the sport, with left-handed hitters slashing .229/.297/.360 (84 wRC+) against left-handed pitching in 8,004 plate appearances this season. So, there’s an argument to be made that any left-handed thrower could chuck pitches up to the plate and get some outs. That seems to be the gamble, as well as the Giants continuing to rely on veteran players to serve as depth.
But the Giants have been pretty great against left-handed hitters with a preponderance of right-handed arms on their pitching staff. Their 3.85 FIP against left-handed hitters is 6th in MLB. Their 3.71 ERA is 8th. Now, playing in Oracle Park helps with this a lot, because they’re middle of the back in things like strikeouts and WHIP against lefties, and the triple slash against of .239/.317/.384 is 17th in MLB — but they don’t give up many homers to lefties, and that makes all the difference. Just 36, tied for fourth fewest in the sport.
Here’s hoping that Bob Melvin is right and the team caught this early enough that some rest and light rehab will have him back and helping the Giants win games this season.