The breakout of Camilo Doval presents a good problem for the Giants.
The 24-year-old didn’t bat an eye after taking over the closer role from the injured Jake McGee during the final month of the season, hurling 16 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings in his final 15 appearances.
That might seem like enough to have won the role for the postseason, but McGee was stellar in his own right this year in a much larger sample size. The 35-year-old right-hander posted a 2.72 ERA and a team best 0.90 WHIP while notching 31 saves.
So what is Gabe Kapler going to do?
“I think the roles are going to have to be very similar to what they were in the regular season,” Kapler said when asked on KNBR if he’s going to use the trio of Dominic Leone, Tyler Rogers and McGee to finish out games. “I think most clubs, you get tempted to change things in the postseason, and I understand why, because you have time to reflect on the season, and put people in new roles.”
In typical Kapler fashion, however, he then made it clear that everything remains on the table, and that he’s comfortable using just about any of his top relievers in any situation.
“At the same time, we have to be cognizant of what got us here, and what got us here was taking Camilo Doval and Kervin Castro as you mentioned, and Jake McGee, Tyler Rogers to name a few, Dom Leone who finished a game yesterday for us, and putting them in their best position to succeed.
“Sometimes it’s going to be looking at the opposing lineup and finding out what the toughest pocket is and giving it to the right guy, and sometimes it’s going to be talking to them before the game and carving out their roles; 6, 7, 8, 9 if that’s what’s appropriate. But it is going to be adjusting as we go, we’ve never set anything strict, even at the beginning of the season, so we want to be flexible and be able to bob and weave, and we’ll do that.”
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Listen to the full interview below.