Giants' Jung Hoo Lee returns, Landen Roupp impresses in final Cactus League game

New York Times

24-03-2025

Sunday's exhibition between the San Francisco Giants and Sacramento River Cats was set up perfectly. The Giants were going to open with Landen Roupp, and halfway through the game, they were going to bring in Hayden Birdsong. The order didn't matter, but the results would. If they both threw four scoreless innings, the Giants were going to hem and haw for the next 72 hours, like Steve Martin's boss in 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles,' as fans waited for them to make a decision. The fifth starter's job was on the line, and for good measure, Kyle Harrison was starting for the River Cats. With each strikeout of his former and future teammates, an unspoken message would be sent: It wasn't too late for the Giants to change their minds.
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It didn't quite work out like that. Birdsong threw a third of an inning and allowed three runs in a rough relief outing, and Harrison was scratched before the game started. The Giants didn't officially announce that Roupp would be the fifth starter to start the season, but if that isn't the eventual outcome, Sunday's 4-3 loss to the River Cats will sure look strange in retrospect.
Here are some notes from the last exhibition game away from Oracle Park.
Roupp's numbers from his final start of March: five innings, one run allowed, three walks and eight strikeouts. It was the kind of tuneup you might expect from a starting pitcher who will be in the Opening Day rotation. Which he isn't officially. At least, not yet. But there's an actual line between the opening paragraphs and this paragraph, and there will be a line indicating when the next section starts. So you're literally reading between the lines right now. We all are.
The assortment of pitches made Roupp look like someone who belonged in a rotation and not a bullpen. Last year, he threw a sinker or a curveball 84 percent of the time, with a nearly even split between the two. When he threw a changeup, it was generally out of the strike zone, and he rarely threw more than two sliders in an outing, even if he was the starter. He was a sinker-curve guy, which is a reliever's profile.
He added a cutter in the offseason specifically to attack left-handed hitters. As Eno Sarris notes in his starting pitcher rankings, Roupp has been throwing it often this spring with great success, and he kept it going on Sunday, saying after his appearance that he 'threw some really good ones. I broke (Jairo) Pomares' bat with it, struck out (Wade) Meckler looking with it, and I got Lamb on a swinging strike. It's right where it needs to be. It still needs some improvement on location, but I'm happy with it.'
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Roupp's curveball is good enough to get by with his (mostly) two-pitch arsenal from last season, but a third pitch — especially one with swing-and-miss potential against lefties — would help him get through lineups a second and third time. His changeup looked good on Sunday, too, so you can get greedy.
There was a roster shakeup before the game: Reliever Sean Hjelle was optioned to Triple A. If the Giants are moving away from the idea that bullpens should be filled with multiple long relievers, there's plenty of symbolism in them sending Hjelle down.
The move was surprising, though, because Hjelle was an effective reliever for the Giants last year, and he was considered something of a lock to make the roster in most projections. He was often brought into games that were already going sideways, so it's not as if he was a high-leverage reliever, but his sinker was effective and hard to square up. The Giants seem content with Spencer Bivens in the janitorial role, and they'll save the rest of their spots for higher-octane arms. It's one thing to carry just one left-hander in the bullpen, but it's another to stock up on right-handed pitchers that left-handed hitters see well.
One of those higher-octane arms could be Birdsong or Roupp, depending on which one makes the rotation, but it's notable that right-hander Joel Peguero is still in camp. Triple-digit fastballs in the strike zone all spring will get a pitcher the longest looks possible.
Max Stassi hit a line-drive double in his only at-bat of Sunday's game, which was notable not for the result, but because he was on the roster at all. As a player with six years of major-league service time who finished last season on a major-league roster, he could have opted out of his minor-league contract on Saturday. He did not exercise that option.
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Manager Bob Melvin confirmed before the game that Sam Huff will be the backup catcher on the Opening Day roster, though, which means the Giants are likely to have enviable catching depth in Sacramento. Stassi could have found another team in another city that offered a better chance at a job in the majors this season, but it's hard to imagine a better situation for the pride of Yuba City High if a major-league job wasn't guaranteed.
It's supremely unlikely that the Giants will need only two catchers all season — the 2016 Giants were the only team in the San Francisco era to use just two in a full season — so it's probably just a matter of 'when' and not 'if' for Stassi. Almost every team calls on their catching depth throughout the season. Everyone should have made a bigger deal about Buster Posey and Trevor Brown catching every pitch of the 2016 season.
Pleasant injury update: Jung Hoo Lee was back in the lineup, and he lined the second pitch he saw from River Cats starter Keaton Winn for a loud double. He added a walk in his next plate appearance. He had a misadventure in center field in the fourth inning that was responsible for the only hit Roupp allowed — the route was clean, but the timing of his sliding catch attempt was not.
Unpleasant injury update: Jerar Encarnación will need surgery to repair the fracture in his left hand, and there's no timetable for his return.
The Giants were the home team for Sunday's game, and they got to use the River Cats' very nice and renovated clubhouse. The River Cats were relegated to being the visiting team in the visiting clubhouse, despite playing at their home ballpark. None of these locations are to be confused with the Athletics' very very nice and renovated clubhouse, which is a different building entirely.
It's complicated. Best of luck to anyone and everyone involved with the logistics it will require to have a major-league team and Triple-A team use the same ballpark. The grass looked great, for what it's worth.