The Giants can expect their bullpen to be heavily scrutinized over the final five weeks of the season, especially after Friday night’s painful implosion in Seattle.
Tyler Rogers, who has pitched in more games than any other MLB reliever this season, suffered through an inexplicable, brutal and rare (for him) eighth inning that opened the door for the Mariners’ comeback 6-5, 10-inning win at T-Mobile Park.
Rogers allowed hits to the first six Seattle batters he faced and failed to record a single out. Prior to that, the 33-year-old reliever had been one of San Francisco’s safest and most reliable go-to guys out of the bullpen. Of his 64 appearances this season before Friday, Rogers had not allowed a hit in 30 of them – nearly 47 percent of the time.
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It was so surprising and unexpected that Giants manager Bob Melvin didn’t start warming up another reliever until Rogers was tagged for a third consecutive hit.
“We felt like we had it underhand,” Melvin said. “And it just got away from Tyler a little bit. He’s never had an outing like that before.”
San Francisco’s bullpen has been a big issue all around this season. It was again against Seattle, and it extended beyond the Rogers’ implosion.
Jordan Hicks was warming up to come into the game a few innings before the eighth when he felt some tightness in his back and arm. After feeling the pain in his arm, Hicks threw a slower pitch and felt OK, so he tried to ramp it up on his next pitch and again felt the pain.
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According to Hicks, he passed all the tests in the clubhouse afterward and will undergo an MRI on Saturday.
“We’ll see how it feels tomorrow,” Hicks told reporters postgame. “I’ll play catch for sure. Hopefully I’ll be ready to go. Nothing like lingering. Hopefully just a little scare.”
At times, the Giants’ relievers have been effective, efficient and sometimes dominant. At other times, like Friday, they have been unwatchable.
A large chunk of the bullpen problems came via Camilo Doval, the former All-Star closer who was erratic for much of the season before being optioned to Triple-A Sacramento on Aug. 9 because of his ineffectiveness.
Doval, who had seven strikeouts and allowed just two hits in five games covering 5 1/3 innings for Sacramento, is eligible to rejoin the Giants on this road trip. Melvin indicated a move could happen as early as Saturday.
When he does come back, Doval will have some sort of setup role. Ryan Walker, who was given the closer’s job when Doval was sent down, has settled in nicely, and he did a good job of coming in after Rogers and preventing the game from really getting out of hand.
Doval could slide in as a setup man for Walker, in essence taking over the job that Rogers has held for most of the season. Rogers has logged at least 74 innings in each of his previous three seasons, and he’s coming close to that neighborhood again.
That isn’t an excuse for what happened in Seattle, but having Doval — an effective Doval who can come into games not worrying about save situations — obviously would alleviate some of the workload off Rogers and San Francisco’s other relievers.
It’s a role Doval can handle fine, as long as his mind is in it. Before he was optioned, Doval wasn’t very sharp in non-save situations and tended to have some of his biggest problems in those type of scenarios.
But right now, with what’s at stake, it’s all hands on deck for the Giants.