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New York Times

Giants takeaways: Ryan Walker gets there inch by inch, more bad luck for Jerar Encarnacion

PITTSBURGH — There are two types of feedback that are important to Ryan Walker. The primary source material is what happens in the batter's box. Did the hitter look uncomfortable? Was he enticed to make a bad swing decision? Was his timing sufficiently disrupted? The secondary stuff is what Walker gets after he makes a relief appearance for the San Francisco Giants. He's not the type to rush to the iPad and scope out every pitch movement profile as soon as he walks off the mound. He'll get his download from bullpen coach Garvin Alston and pitching coach J.P. Martinez. They'll let him know how his stuff graded out: how many inches of induced drop he got on his sinking fastball, how many inches of horizontal sweep he got on his slider. Advertisement Walker has been chasing last year's version of himself all season. He's finally starting to feel like his body is moving the way it needs to move on the mound. And while the movement on his pitches isn't as consistent as he'd like, the recent top-end results have been encouraging. 'Anywhere from 9 to 20, which is crazy,' said Walker, citing the inches of horizontal break on his slider while he threw a scoreless eighth inning Wednesday afternoon at PNC Park. 'I'd like to even that out. But the way I'm feeling now is night and day.' Randy Rodriguez is the new closer following last week's trades that sent Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees and Tyler Rogers to the New York Mets. So it was significant when Rodriguez rebounded from a blown save on Monday to seal a series win and shut the door on the Pittsburgh Pirates in Wednesday's 4-2 victory. But Walker's scoreless eighth inning was significant, too — especially because other National League contenders firmed up their bullpens while the Giants subtracted from theirs. If Walker can recapture last season's dominance, there's no question he would lessen the impact of those trades. It's been a struggle to return to last year's form. Walker began the season as the closer before losing the job to Doval in May. Now he'll step back into a high-leverage role. And because Rodriguez isn't often available on back-to-back days, it's a decent bet that Walker will be thrust back into some ninth-inning save situations, too. Walker hasn't dealt with any physical issues this season. He isn't trying to compete with a dip in velocity. His strikeout rate has dropped 8 percentage points from last year and it's added to his frustration that the extra balls in play, based on the quality of contact, have been unlucky on the whole. When he needs reassurance, which has been often this season, he reminds himself that he still has all the ingredients to be successful again. Advertisement It's true for everyone and especially so for late-inning relievers: It's not how you start but how you finish. (Although Walker was pretty good at the very start of the season, too.) Jerar Encarnacion returned from the injured list on Monday, started in right field on Tuesday and hit a home run that raised hopes he could be a high-impact power hitter down the stretch. Those hopes became even more gleeful in the fifth inning Wednesday when he circled the bases after mashing a 442-foot home run — the longest by a Giant not hit at Coors Field this season. Two innings later, he gripped the railing and hobbled on one leg down the dugout steps. Encarnacion strained his right hamstring while trying to beat out a groundball in the seventh inning. He'll undergo an MRI exam after the team returns to San Francisco. But based on his reaction and the initial report that manager Bob Melvin received from the training staff, Encarnacion will return to the injured list. 'You get hurt in spring training and you're playing catch-up all the time,' Melvin said of Encarnacion, who fractured his hand when hit by a pitch in the spring, didn't have his timing when he returned in June, and lasted just eight games on the active roster before he strained an oblique. 'Now he finally gets enough at-bats (in Triple-A Sacramento) and we're seeing what we wanted from him, especially against left-handed pitching. And he's going to be down for a while now, unfortunately. It ends up being a really tough year for him.' So the Giants are back to a right-field platoon, presumably with Luis Matos returning from Sacramento to pair with Grant McCray. If McCray struggles with contact issues, the Giants could call up Drew Gilbert, the former first-round pick whom they obtained from the Mets in the Rogers deal. Gilbert, a left-handed hitter, was 6-for-12 with two triples, a double and four walks in his first three games for Sacramento. Even though Gilbert struggled with injuries and performance last season, his career minor-league strikeout-to-walk ratio (218 strikeouts and 140 walks) suggests he wouldn't be overmatched against major-league pitching. Advertisement From the right side, though, there isn't a clear pivot if Matos continues to make unimpressively soft contact. Marco Luciano has a .936 OPS against left-handed pitching at Sacramento, but a defensive outfield with Heliot Ramos, Jung Hoo Lee and Luciano probably would not be suitable viewing for sensitive audiences. The Giants won consecutive road series to generate some positive energy, but momentum is only as good as tomorrow's starting pitcher. And the Giants are about to cycle back to the inexperienced back end of their rotation. They are TBA for Friday's homestand opener against the Washington Nationals but likely will use left-hander Matt Gage as an opener for Kai-Wei Teng. Then they'll see if Carson Whisenhunt can provide a solid follow-up to last Saturday's start in New York, when he earned his first major-league victory. Right-hander Landen Roupp will throw live to hitters in simulated game conditions on Tuesday. So his return is close but not imminent. Catcher Patrick Bailey is likely to win his second consecutive Gold Glove this season. His framing numbers are even better than last year's league-leading totals. There isn't an area of the strike zone and its periphery that he isn't getting an above-average amount of called strikes. Bailey is especially important to a young pitcher like Whisenhunt, who doesn't generate many whiffs on his fastball and must rely on precision to create the count leverage he needs to use his plus changeup. But over long stretches when the Giants struggled to score runs, it was hard to ignore the glacial season Bailey was having with the bat. It probably won't be long before Jesus Rodriguez, the offensive catcher who was part of the prospect package the Giants received from the Yankees for Doval, finds his way onto the major-league roster. An automatic strike zone challenge system is likely arriving next year, which would not crush Bailey's framing value but could mitigate its impact. Amid this backdrop, here's the important part: Bailey is starting to come around at the plate. He hit a pinch single to start the eighth inning and scored the tying run on Matt Chapman's sacrifice fly. Then he contributed an RBI single in the ninth after consecutive doubles from Jung Hoo Lee and Dom Smith. Bailey was 6-for-18 on the trip and drove in six runs. Melvin's take: Bailey stopped worrying about his offensive numbers once he realized they were beyond rescuing. Advertisement 'I think he's just gotten some hits and feels more comfortable,' Melvin said. 'You get to this time of year, and if you're chasing numbers, it becomes 'just play.' … The offensive numbers aren't where they are. But right now, he's just going up there taking good at-bats. He's had some success recently, and I think he's playing off that.' (Top photo of Ryan Walker: Charles LeClaire / Imagn Images) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle