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New York Times
a day ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Giants late-inning issues against Padres illustrate need for shutdown bullpen
SAN DIEGO — Carson Seymour had a decision to make in the sixth inning Tuesday night. The San Francisco Giants right-hander fielded a comebacker with one out and runners at the corners. If he had paused to check the San Diego Padres runner at third base, he would have seen that Elias Díaz, a catcher with 5th-percentile sprint speed, had committed to running home. But Seymour did not opt for the waddling bird in the hand. Instead, he whirled toward second base and made a wide throw. He was fortunate that infielder Christian Koss not only kept the ball from skipping into center field but also kept a toe on the bag. Advertisement The Giants only recorded one out. Díaz scored to give the Padres a 5-1 lead. Should Seymour have thrown to the plate? '(It's) probably the safest play at that point in time,' Giants manager Bob Melvin said. 'If he does make a good throw to second base, we might get the double play. So, you know, with the score of the game, maybe the easiest thing is to take the out at home.' When you play the Padres this season, any run they tack on is a lethal dose. Nick Pivetta threw high fastballs past the Giants for six innings and the Giants received no relief or reward to get him out of the game. Adrian Morejon, Jason Adam and Robert Suarez each tossed a scoreless inning, allowing one baserunner between them, while protecting the Padres' 5-1 victory and continuing what's been a suffocating run for San Diego relievers against their NL West opponent. The Giants haven't scored a run against San Diego's bullpen since June 4. The Padres' scoreless streak against the Giants is at 26 1/3 relief innings. And only two of those innings have been thrown by new acquisition Mason Miller, the All-Star former A's closer whose 103 mph fastball drew audible gasps from the crowd when it registered on the scoreboard last week in San Francisco. 'They've got good stuff and they throw a lot of strikes,' Giants catcher Patrick Bailey said. 'It's one of the hardest throwing bullpens in the league. They all got good heaters that are definitely verty, throwing in the upper 90s to 100, and they've all got pretty good offspeed pitches that they trust as well. They've got one of the best 'pens in the league and we've just got to do a better job one through nine sticking to our game plan.' When Bailey compliments Padres relievers on their 'verty' fastballs, he is speaking about induced vertical break — essentially, the amount of ride or late life that a pitcher creates independent of gravity. The Padres bullpen averages 17.7 inches of induced vertical break on fastballs, which is the most in the major leagues. The Los Angeles Dodgers are next with 17.1 inches. Advertisement The Giants are sixth at 16.3 inches, but only one current reliever in their group, closer Randy Rodriguez, has a fastball that exceeds that average. Another, Hayden Birdsong, pitched in relief earlier this season before transitioning to the rotation — and then back to Triple-A Sacramento when his command and confidence abandoned him. A bullpen does not need to be super verty to be effective. The Giants' core four relievers, vital to winning three World Series championships from 2010-14, were mostly spin doctors who succeeded by winning platoon matchups and preventing barreled contact. Then again, the three-batter minimum wasn't on the books back then. These days, the most certain way to shut the door is to slam it closed. And the Padres, after adding at the trade deadline, have their assortment of door slammers all locked up for the foreseeable future. Suarez is the only one of their core relievers who can become a free agent after this season, assuming he opts out of the two years and $16 million remaining on his contract. The Giants have far, far less certainty. They subtracted from their bullpen at the trade deadline, trading closer Camilo Doval and right-hander Tyler Rogers. Rogers is coming up on free agency and there's always a chance he re-signs with the Giants this winter. But for now, the Giants don't have relievers (other than Rodriguez and Ryan Walker) who they could consider locks to open the season in next year's bullpen. They also received more discouraging news about left-hander Erik Miller, who paused his rehab assignment because of recurring left elbow inflammation. Miller won't pick up a baseball for two weeks and it's looking less likely that he will ramp back up in time to pitch this season. 'It got back to the point where we have to be careful,' Melvin said of Miller. Advertisement The Giants have had to exercise caution all year with Rodriguez, too, after the right-hander missed five weeks with elbow inflammation last season. Rodriguez was unscored upon in 40 of his first 43 appearances and was a deserving addition to the NL All-Star team, but it's been a little spotty since he was elevated to replace Doval in the closer role. He's allowed runs in three of seven appearances and his fastball velocity has been down a touch. With the Giants constantly trailing on the past two homestands, Rodriguez went nine days in between appearances. Rodriguez's success is due in part to his judicious usage. He's made back-to-back appearances just six times this season and he hasn't appeared on three consecutive days. At some point, though, the Giants will have to find out how well Rodriguez can bounce back when pushed a little harder, as closers need to be from time to time — especially in the postseason. 'Walker's closed really well too,' Melvin said. 'Every year is not going to look the same. Randy is still kind of transitioning to the closer role as well. But they're both really talented guys who should be pitching at the back end of the bullpen.' How the Giants go about constructing the rest of that bullpen is an open question. There will be high-profile choices in free agency other than (possibly) Suarez and Rogers; Mets closer Edwin Díaz can opt out of his contract and Aroldis Chapman will be on the open market. But from Armando Benitez to Mark Melancon to smaller bets like Luke Jackson that turned messy, the Giants' recent investments in free-agent relievers would've turned out better if they'd put the money in a meme stock. This hasn't been the kind of problem that they have solved by throwing money at it. Perhaps Birdsong finds a permanent home for his 'verty' fastball in the bullpen. Perhaps Jose Buttó can elevate his profile from the back-end role he filled with the Mets. Perhaps Keaton Winn can stay healthy and have success as a two-pitch guy in a relief role. Perhaps right-hander Trent Harris, a 26-year-old who was hurtling toward the big leagues before hitting a rough patch at Triple-A Sacramento, will reemerge as the next Ryan Walker type. Perhaps some of the lower-level arms in the system can advance quickly, but don't count on it. For all the rise in the prospect rankings the Giants have made this season, there isn't a lot of pitching in the pipeline. Eight of their nine top prospects are position players, according to and the lone pitcher, Carson Whisenhunt, was way too hittable in his first foray against big-league hitters. Giants president Buster Posey will try to find a way to solve the team's lineup problem against fastballs and surround their core with scrappy hitters who put the ball in play. He'll have to determine how much of next year's rotation can be filled in-house. They still want to blueprint winning with pitching and defense, especially at their waterfront ballpark, where they've had the antithesis of a home-field advantage since the All-Star break. But even if they accomplish all of those goals in a satisfactory way, they still need to slam the door. And compared to some of their NL West adversaries, they have a lot of work to do. (Top photo of Ramon Laureano and Patrick Bailey: Denis Poroy / Imagn Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
Yahoo
30-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Giants' Carson Seymour shares thoughts on Carson Whisenhunt's upcoming MLB debut
Giants' pitcher Carson Seymour speaks to reporters after San Francisco's 5-3 loss to the New York Mets on Sunday at Oracle Park. Giants' Carson Seymour shares thoughts on Carson Whisenhunt's upcoming MLB debut originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
New York Times
22-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Giants demote Hayden Birdsong, Tristan Beck and call up Carson Seymour, Sean Hjelle
The San Francisco Giants shook up their roster and rotation on Tuesday, sending Hayden Birdsong and Tristan Beck to Sacramento and replacing them with Carson Seymour and Sean Hjelle. The Beck-Hjelle swap isn't particularly notable, as it would appear to be a way to get a fresh long reliever on the roster after Monday's accidental bullpen game. Birdsong pitching his way out of the rotation and back into the minor leagues, most certainly is. Advertisement For years, my touchstone for an 'unexpectedly and irrevocably disastrous start' was Madison Bumgarner's 2011 start against the Twins. Ten batters came to the plate, and only one of them made an out, with the others banging out hit after hit — four singles, five doubles — to score eight earned runs. It was an all-time meltdown, but in his next start, he allowed just one run in seven strong innings. Birdsong's start on Tuesday is the new champ, though. It was an absolute catastrophe that shouldn't be topped for years, if not decades. He faced six batters and walked four of them. Another batter hit a line-drive double, and he hit the final batter he faced, but it wasn't just the outcome that was disastrous. It was also how the batters walked. Some of the pitches didn't even appear on MLB's Gameday app, as they were too far away from the plate for the lasers to catch. He threw a curveball that curved less than any curveball you'll ever see again. It was as concerning a start as possible, at least without a player's health being involved. And it's a good excuse to recall just how strange Birdsong's professional career has been. When he was a 19-year-old sophomore at Eastern Illinois, he had a 9.76 ERA and a 0-5 record. About 1,000 days later, he was pitching against Shohei Ohtani. Now, a lot happened in those thousand days to make the journey seem more plausible at every step, but it's still been an extremely compressed timeline for him. Considering that command and control have never been a strength for him, the ingredients for a hiccup like this were always there. The hiccup happened to be more of a belch that set off car alarms, but Birdsong's season had been trending in the wrong direction because of an inability to throw strikes, and it wasn't getting better. Advertisement Carson Seymour would be the logical replacement for Birdsong in the rotation, and while he's already made his major-league debut, he's yet to make his first career start in the majors. He's appeared in one game since the Giants sent him to Sacramento, throwing three innings in relief, allowing a run and striking out seven. That was his first relief appearance in Triple A this season after 15 starts, which suggests the Giants were preparing him for a bullpen role. It might not be a given, then, that he'll be even a short-term solution in the rotation, especially with the trade deadline just over a week away. The problem with the Giants looking outside the organization, though, is that it's impossible to tell if they're buyers or sellers right now. The simplest solution is probably the likeliest one: Let Seymour take the starts, even if he'll need a couple to get stretched back out. When the Giants were relevant in the NL West this season, they were doing so because of their superior pitching. Along with just about everything else on the team, though, the pitching has been a disaster in recent days, even affecting the most consistent performers on the staff. Birdsong's demotion now leaves the rotation as Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Justin Verlander, Landen Roupp and others. Webb and Ray were both All-Stars, but they're both coming off nightmare starts, and they've struggled more recently than they previously had all season. Verlander is 42 and winless in 16 starts with a 4.99 ERA. There's context that can make the previous sentence seem a little less scary and depressing, but there sure isn't nearly enough of it. Considering all of this, let's take a moment to appreciate that Roupp has temporarily become the rock of the rotation, right when the team was starting to get desperate for quality starts. Advertisement As for the others, we'll see if he's just one pitcher (likely Seymour) or if they'll settle for a steady diet of bullpen games until they can find a permanent replacement. And it's not unreasonable to hope that Birdsong adjusts and dominates in a couple of Sacramento outings and rejoins the rotation like nothing ever happened. Until then, though, the rotation is in flux. What seemed like a mighty surplus of starting pitching just a couple of months ago has turned into an area of acute need, and Birdsong's demotion is just the latest development in the saga. (Photo of Hayden Birdsong: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)
Yahoo
28-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Giants Make Pitching Change with Prospect Call-Up
Giants Make Pitching Change with Prospect Call-Up originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The San Francisco Giants made a roster move on Friday, tweaking their pitching staff as they open a weekend set against the Chicago White Sox. Advertisement Right-hander Sean Hjelle was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento, clearing space for a new addition from the farm system. That spot will now be filled by Carson Seymour, who is set to make his Major League debut. Seymour, 26, is ranked as the Giants' No. 20 prospect by MLB Pipeline. The Southern California native was quietly scratched from a scheduled Triple-A start on Thursday, a late change that foreshadowed his call-up. Mar 1, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; San Francisco Giants pitcher Carson Seymour (77) pitches against the Los Angeles Dodgers during the first inning at Camelback Ranch-Glendale.© Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images Seymour has posted a 3.89 ERA over 74 innings in 15 starts for the River Cats this season. He was acquired by the Giants as part of the Darin Ruf trade with the New York Mets in 2022. While he has worked primarily as a starter in the minors, he's expected to contribute out of the bullpen for San Francisco. Advertisement The Giants' relief corps leads MLB in several key metrics this year but has struggled lately, allowing at least one run in six straight games and posting a 5.84 ERA over that span. Hjelle gave up four runs in one inning during his last appearance against the Miami Marlins on Thursday. He has a 6.75 ERA over nine outings this season. Related: Giants Make Eye-Opening Barry Bonds Announcement Related: Mets Make Blade Tidwell Announcement Ahead of Pirates Series This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 27, 2025, where it first appeared.
Reuters
27-06-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Giants call up RHP Carson Seymour for major league debut
June 27 - The San Francisco Giants recalled Carson Seymour to the major leagues for the first time on Friday and optioned right-hander Sean Hjelle to Triple-A Sacramento. The move comes in advance of a three-game road series against the Chicago White Sox and at the start of a 10-game road trip. Seymour, 26, is a former sixth-round draft pick by the New York Mets in 2021, who was traded to the Giants a year later. He was 3-8 with a 3.89 ERA in 15 starts for Sacramento this season. Hjelle, 28, is 1-1 with a 6.75 ERA in nine appearances (one start) for the Giants this season. Over four seasons in San Francisco, he is 7-8 with a 4.97 ERA in 90 appearances (one start). --Field Level Media
