PHOENIX, Arizona–If all according to plan during his Sunday rehab start, right-hander Johnny Cueto will return to the Giants’ rotation in the near future.
San Francisco has been without the 31-year-old right-hander since July 15, when he was placed on the disabled list with blister issues that impacted his pitching hand. Cueto was poised to return to the Giants’ rotation in early August, but in a July 31 rehab start, Cueto experienced tightness in his forearm that forced him to scrap his rehab plans.
Now, Cueto is once again preparing to return to the Giants’ rotation, as he’ll throw another rehab start on Sunday with the A-San Jose Giants. After throwing 48 pitches in three innings last week with AAA Sacramento, Cueto will throw between 60-70 pitches against the Stockton Ports on Sunday afternoon in what should be his final tuneup before being activated from the disabled list.
“There’s a good chance, if it goes great,” Bochy said. “If all goes well today, there’s a good chance he’ll (Cueto) be in our rotation. But if he needs another start, we’ll do that.”
Assuming Cueto can pitch on regular rest, his first scheduled outing back with the Giants would come against the St. Louis Cardinals later this week, and would come up at rookie Chris Stratton’s spot in the Giants’ rotation.
Stratton took over for Matt Cain at the beginning of August, and had a chance to earn the opportunity to start more games based on his performance. And lately, his performance has merited more starts.
In each of Stratton’s past two outings, he’s held his opponents scoreless, throwing 6.2 shutout innings against the Washington Nationals followed by a 6.0 inning start against the Milwaukee Brewers.
The former first round draft pick of the Giants will take the mound on Sunday in Arizona as San Francisco attempts to salvage one game of a three-game set against the Diamondbacks. According to manager Bruce Bochy, Stratton’s Sunday start will not have an impact on whether Cueto will take his spot in the rotation later in this week.
“No, we’re not going to do that to him (Stratton),” Bochy said. “He’s throwing the ball too well. He’s had two great starts against two good hitting ballclubs. It’s not start to start. We’ll talk about it once Johnny gets through this, we’ll see where he’s at, how he feels. Dave Righetti and myself will sit down and talk about what we’ll do.”
In the past week, Bochy has discussed the idea of turning to a six-man rotation for the final month of the season to ease the workload of his starters and to allow pitchers like Stratton, Ty Blach and Matt Moore to build toward earning roles in San Francisco’s 2018 rotation.
Barring a blowup against the Diamondbacks on Sunday, it appears as though the Giants will keep Stratton in the rotation moving forward. After shutting down the Nationals and Brewers, Stratton will face another challenging test against the National League Wildcard leaders, which stacked a lineup full of left-handed hitters.
Though righties are hitting just .188 against Stratton this season, lefties are swinging at a clip of .340. Six of the nine players in Arizona’s Sunday lineup hit left-handed, and two of the right-handed hitters are Paul Goldschmidt and J.D. Martinez.
“I know they put a lot of lefties in there so it will be a good test for him,” Bochy said. “He’s a four-pitch guy and he’s got the weapons to get lefties out too. It’s not like he hasn’t seen some lefties in his other games.”