© Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports
SAN DIEGO – When Jeff Samardzija signed a 5-year, $90 million contract with the Giants in 2016 at age 30, he was coming off his third-straight 200-plus inning season. He was the guy you could count on to get you 200 innings, to take some pressure off your bullpen.
That reputation held true through Samardzija’s first two seasons in San Francisco, as he notched 203.1 innings in 2016 and a league-high 207 innings in 2017. But last year, as the equation of time plus heavy innings has a tendency to do with workhorse pitchers like Samardzija, it all fell apart.
The Shark seemed to perpetually be two weeks away from being healthy. But a couple of two-weeks setbacks in the middle of summer morphed into an indefinite setback, and suddenly, Samardzija’s season was over by July. The last game he pitched was July 14 against the Oakland A’s.
As last season made abundantly clear, Samardzija, now age 34, with another $19.8 million year left on his contract after this season, is not that workhorse pitcher he once was. In all likelihood, he’ll never be that pitcher again. This is the reality which Bruce Bochy, and it appears, Samardzija, have accepted.
As Kerry Crowley detailed this offseason, the Giants have encouraged Samardzija to use all of his pitches rather than being fastball-heavy early on. According to Crowley, Samardzija said, “…there’s a little monkey off my back with 200 innings not necessarily being the goal.”
When asked about that innings load and whether the Giants were hoping Samardzija could recover to be that workhorse pitcher again, Bruce Bochy affirmed that the Giants would be more focused on protecting Samardzija after last season’s 44.2 inning disappointment.
“No, and he’s even mentioned that,” Bochy said. “We’re not looking at him to be the guy to eat a lot of innings now, so we have help for him in the bullpen if needed. Sure, you want your starters to have that mindset, but he’ll tell you, ‘Hey,’ if he can give us five or six good innings, that’s good, that’s a nice job on his part. We all get a little bit older, so we’ll try to save his workload a little bit this year, because you look at last year, with the arm issue, we don’t want to over work him.”
That game plan was on full display today, during an 81-degree San Diego afternoon, as the Giants fell 2-1 to the Padres.
Veteran Samardzija, rookie Paddack take opposing routes to similar results
Among the many, many, many (did I mention many) top-rated prospects in the San Diego Padres’ system (they have 10 of the top-100 rated prospects and five of the top 33 according to MLB.com) is Chris Paddack, who was stellar in his MLB debut on Sunday.
Paddack lit up Spring Training with a 2.13 ERA in 12.2 innings, with 20 strikeouts and two walks. That outstanding strikeout-to-walk rate was on full display today, as Paddack pounded the strike zone with a 1-2 punch of a roughly 94-mph fastball and 84-mph changeup (and the occasional curveball). He threw 79 pitches, 57 of which were for strikes, and at one point struck out seven of nine Giants batters (and four in a row). He finished with a tremendous outing of seven strikeouts, three hits, one walk and an earned run. Here’s what his pitch mix looked like:
Paddack threw almost exclusively fastballs (around 94 mph) and changeups around (84 mph) with six curves mixed in, pounding the strike zone. Struck out 7, walked one, allowed two hits, and threw 57 of his 79 pitches for strikes (72.2 percent) pic.twitter.com/GP2J5gEhkq
— Jake Hutchinson (@hutchdiesel) March 31, 2019
Samardzija, meanwhile, threw just about everything in his arsenal today – as has discernibly been part of the plan to lower his fastball usage – and threw an concerning number of balls (39 balls, 47 strikes: 54.7 percent strike/ball ratio) that led to an equally concerning number of walks (four, one intentional). Still, the only run he allowed was due to a throwing error by Pablo Sandoval, which allowed Greg Garcia to move to second and score on the ensuing single by Eric Hosmer. His day looked wildly different than Paddack’s, but by the end, they’d both thrown five innings of one-run baseball:
Meanwhile, Samardzija threw a little bit of everything with low-90s fastballs, striking out two, allowing three hits and walking four (one intentional). He threw just 47 of his 86 pitches for strikes (54.7 percent), yet his only run came unearned due to Sandoval's throwing error: pic.twitter.com/m4DKcPivKr
— Jake Hutchinson (@hutchdiesel) March 31, 2019
Your weird day, weird play recap:
• Paddack struck out four-straight batters and seven of nine (and six of seven) in a row.
• You had a 10-pitch at-bat from Pablo Sandoval with six-straight 0-2 foul balls and seven total foul balls, which ended with an RBI double,
• Paddack nearly drove home a run with the bases loaded and two outs with a well-hit ball to right field; but the ball one-hopped to Gerardo Parra who gunned Paddack at first from right field.
• Eric Kratz dropped a pop-up behind the plate
• Wil Myers forgot to touch second the base when Manuel Margot flew out to Parra in the bottom of the fourth inning, and the Giants doubled him up because of it.
• A wayward throw from Pablo Sandoval gave the Padres a runner in scoring position for their first run of the game
• Sandoval committed a second error when a ball flew under his mitt in the bottom of the eighth inning, and the Padres proceeded to score a third run
• Bruce Bochy was denied the chance to challenge that run-scoring play in which Manny Machado beat the double-play throw at first base because he waited too long to challenge the play
Rookie corner outfielders sit, still little life off the bats
For the first time this season, Bruce Bochy opted not to start one of his young, struggling corner outfielders in Michael Reed and Connor Joe. Instead, the veteran duo of Yangervis Solarte and Gerardo Parra took their place. The difference was nominal.
Reed and Joe are a combined 0-for-15 with 9 strikeouts (0-for-14 before Joe’s pinch-hit fly out today). Joe has four strikeouts and has reached base once, in his first plate appearance, when he drew a walk. Outside of that, neither have looked close to making a difference at the plate.
Solarte and Parra didn’t fare much better today. Solarte flew out to third base twice and struck out once, while Parra struck out once, flew out to left field once, and grounded out to third base once. Parra is 1-for-8 on the season with solid contact made consistently, while Solarte is 3-for-13. They’ve at least secured hits, but the corner outfield spots seem sure to bother the Giants this season.