© Jason Getz | 2021 Aug 27
The PNC Park crowd’s chants drowned out the action on the diamond: Cueto! Cueto! Cueto!
They weren’t cheering for Johnny Cueto, the Cincinnati Reds starter, that 2013 fall day. They were trying to get in his head. As they chanted, Cueto dropped the ball while setting up in the windup. The first pitch after stepping off the mound to grab it off the grass and reset, Pirates catcher Russell Martin launched a home run.
Tony Watson, looking along from the bullpen, remembers it being the loudest he’s ever heard a ballpark — up until he reached the World Series in 2017 with the Dodgers. He entered that Wild Card Game in the eighth inning and allowed a solo home run to Shin-Soo Choo. Even in a Pirates blowout, it was Watson’s first taste of the postseason.
“Just the electricity, everybody’s on edge,” Watson told KNBR. “Everybody’s in their seats for the National Anthem. There’s nobody late to the game, everybody’s locked in from pitch one. Both dugouts, the whole stadium. It’s playoff baseball. It’s what it’s all about.”
But hardly everyone in the Giants’ bullpen this year knows what playoff baseball is really all about. In fact, Watson’s 12 postseason innings pitched are nearly twice the amount of the next most seasoned October performer in SF’s pen, Jake McGee (6.1IP). Only three other SF relievers have made the postseason before and one of them, Zack Littell, recorded just one out while another, José Quintana (13.1 IP), did so primarily as a starter.
San Francisco’s bullpen has been a major reason the Giants are here, with 15 games remaining and the best record in baseball, engulfed in a tight division race with the Dodgers. The bullpen has recorded the most saves in MLB (51) the best ERA (3.07) and third-best FIP (3.74) on the season. Most recently, it’s propped up SF’s shorthanded pitching staff with all-hands-on deck valiant nine-inning performances.
But on a team — the third-oldest in MLB — full of experience, the bullpen has a stunning lack of postseason reps.
The question then becomes whether playoff experience actually matters. It’s a tricky, perhaps unanswerable one, because every player’s different.
Recent history, though, suggests that bullpen experience can go a long way in the playoffs. The 2020 Dodgers for example relied on three relievers with at least 20 prior postseason innings pitched (including now-Giants starter Alex Wood). The 2019 Nationals had three with at least 10.
At the end of the month, whether as a Wild Card team or division champion, the Giants will have decisions to make with their whole roster certainly, but especially with its bullpen. A number of factors, including whether or not starter Johnny Cueto can return in time from his hamstring injury — manager Gabe Kapler doesn’t anticipate him starting any time soon, but anything is possible — will determine who’s in and who’s out.
The 26-man playoff roster will likely include eight or nine relievers. The locks, barring injury, include closer Jake McGee, Watson, Tyler Rogers, Jarlin García, José Álvarez, Zack Littell and Dominic Leone. Quintana, Jay Jackson, Sammy Long, Caleb Baragar and possibly Camilo Doval project to compete for the last spot or two.
Among those locks, Rogers, García and Leone have never pitched in the playoffs. Neither have Long, Baragar nor Jackson.
Watson said his advice for pitchers making their postseason debuts would be to avoid overthinking it.
“Everything’s magnified for sure,” Watson said. “It is the playoffs and everything matters. But trust what you’ve done to get here and how you’ve gotten here and you’re routine. Go out there and just play the game, have fun.”
That wisdom is consistent with Kapler’s view. When asked what areas experience shows up the most, Kapler said it allows players to treat every game the same. The playoffs have elevated intensity, sure, but at the end of the day the pitcher’s mound is still 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate and each base is 90 feet apart.
“I think what experience does and what our experience does is every step of the way — in the big games during the season, a big game after the season, potentially a series-clinching game — you want to make it as normal as possible,” Kapler said. “What experience does is you remember that it’s pretty normal. Baseball game is the same with 15 games to go as it was the third or fourth game of the season as it was in spring training.”
And if experience helps simplify the most intense games or moments, relievers need to be able to apply that in the most intense situations, with the highest stakes on the line.
The Giants have won at least 60% of their games every month of the season. SF has been baseball’s most consistently excellent ballclub. And the bullpen has been possibly its most consistently excellent unit. But the playoffs are a different game, and it’s possible strengths can become weaknesses when the lights are brightest.